The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror and is the president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi.
In 1995, my daughter Alisa was murdered by Iranian-backed Palestinian Arab terrorists while studying abroad in Israel. She was 20 years old, full of life and hope, until a suicide bomber ended her dreams—and ours.
That’s why I, as an American, cannot stay silent as I watch the United States continue to funnel money into a Palestinian Authority security force that praises and elevates terrorists as heroes. This is not just an outrage—it is a travesty, one that dishonors the memory of those lost and endangers countless more innocents.
The Wall Street Journal has published an editorial exposing how the U.S. State Department, through programs supposedly aimed at fostering stability, is bankrolling the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) police and security forces. The justification is that these forces help maintain order and fight extremism. But look closer, and you’ll see that this is a hollow argument, contradicted by grim reality.
Consider who these security forces truly are. Their leaders routinely name training camps and police stations after so-called “martyrs”—men who blew up buses, stabbed grandmothers, or gunned down Israeli families in cold blood. The PA’s official media glorifies these killers, depicting them as role models for the next generation. The security forces themselves often attend funerals honoring terrorists, march in parades that celebrate attacks on civilians, and stand by as mobs chant for more Jewish blood.
The two terrorists who murdered guard Shalev Zevuloni at the Rami Levi shopping complex at the Gush Etzion Junction last Thursday and were eliminated by passersby were officers in the Palestinian Authority security forces.
In what sane world does America subsidize a police force that worships murderers?
The rationale for this funding crumbles under even modest scrutiny. We are told these payments help preserve calm in Judea and Samaria and keep Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al, at bay. But these very forces foster the same culture of hatred that gives Hamas its recruits and its moral license.
And let us not forget: when the PA itself pays monthly stipends to convicted terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons—rewards directly tied to the severity of their crimes—its police and officials help administer that grotesque system.
This is precisely why Congress passed the Taylor Force Act in 2018. Named after a young American Army veteran stabbed to death by a Palestinian Arab terrorist while visiting Israel, the law bars U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues its notorious “pay-for-slay” program. That legislation was a moral milestone, signaling that American taxpayers would no longer bankroll a regime that incentivizes the murder of innocents.
Yet there’s the catch: the State Department carved out exemptions that allow continued funding for so-called “security cooperation.” In practice, this means millions of American dollars still flow to the very institutions that glorify terror, under the banner of stability. It is a loophole wide enough to drive a truck bomb through.
As a father who buried his daughter because of Palestinian Arab terror, I find this intolerable. It is an insult to every family shattered by these attacks, and a betrayal of the values our country claims to uphold.
Why should U.S. taxpayers be forced to bankroll those who hail our children’s murderers as martyrs? Why should we reward a regime that names squares and streets after the monsters who butchered the innocent?
It is long past time to end this charade. Congress must act to close these exemptions once and for all. The Taylor Force Act needs to be tightened so that no American aid—none—reaches Palestinian Arab institutions that honor, pay, or praise terrorists. Our diplomats must stop hiding behind illusions of “security partnerships” that, in reality, prop up a system steeped in blood-soaked hero worship.
And President Trump’s administration must demonstrate that the United States stands unequivocally against terrorism in all its forms. That means ending financial support for any Palestinian Arab entity that fails to renounce the cult of martyrdom. Real peace cannot be built on the graves of victims whose killers are still celebrated as champions.
I know the painful truth that no policy, no legislation, can bring Alisa or the thousands of other murdered terror victims back. But we have a duty to ensure that other families do not have to stand at freshly dug graves, mourning children lost to a fanatical ideology funded, in part, by their own government.
Enough is enough. For the sake of the victims, for the cause of true peace, and for the moral soul of America, we must stop subsidizing those who dance on the blood of innocents.
Congress must close the Taylor Force loopholes. And we must finally send a clear, unwavering message: the United States will not pay one dime to anyone who celebrates terror.