Congress: PA Funding Could Hinge On State Declaration

Members of Congress are warning that American funding of the Palestinian Authority could be threatened by efforts to advance a unilateral declaration of statehood.

“Pursuing a non-negotiated path to statehood is a fool’s errand. Palestinians want a state, not a declaration. Their only way to achieve that is through direct negotiations with Israel,” California Democrat Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

“If they try to circumvent negotiations, they’ll lose the support of a lot of people like me, and it will jeopardize their foreign aid as well,” he said.

Berman’s concerns are shared by Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is currently the committee’s ranking member and will take over its stewardship when the GOP assumes control of the House in January.

“The ranking member has long said that US assistance to the PA should be conditioned on the PA living up to its obligations to stop violence against Israel and recognize Israel’s right to exist as a democratic, Jewish state, among others that it has demonstrably failed to live up to,” Ros-Lehtinen spokesman Brad Goehner said. “These unilateral efforts serve to undermine the prospects that those obligations might finally be met.”

Members of the US House of Representatives are also circulating resolutions criticizing any Palestinian move toward a unilateral declaration of statehood.

While Ros-Lehtinen has co-sponsored a resolution “reaffirming congressional opposition to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state,” Capitol Hill sources said Berman will be introducing a new resolution by the end of the week to strengthen the point.                                 More from JPost