In case you didn’t know (and how could you when there was an inauguration and women’s abortion rally going on?), former President Barack Obama left the country with a nice parting shot under the radar.
Mere hours before President Donald Trump took his oath of office, the outgoing Obama administration gave $221 million to the Palestinian Authority, despite repeated blocking from Republicans in Congress.
According to the AP:
In addition to the $221 million for the Palestinians, the Obama administration also told Congress on Friday it was going ahead with the release of another $6 million in foreign affairs spending, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations, the congressional aides said. The aides and the State Department official weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
Of course officials weren’t authorized to speak on this matter, because Obama obviously wanted this done with as little attention as possible.
This move came a few weeks after the United Nations passed a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Gaza, the West Bank or East Jerusalem.
As Elliott Abrams of the Weekly Standard wrote in December:
The text demands "that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem." Now add this wording to the previous line and it means that even construction in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City is "a flagrant violation under international law." The resolution also "calls upon all States, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967." This is a call to boycott products of the Golan, the West Bank, and parts of Jerusalem, and support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.
The U.N.’s anti-Israel stance couldn’t be any clearer than with the declarations mentioned above.
The AP also reported:
The Obama administration had for some time been pressing for the release of the money for the Palestinian Authority, which comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development and is to be used for humanitarian aid in the West Bank and Gaza, to support political and security reforms as well as help prepare for good governance and the rule of law in a future Palestinian state, according to the notification sent to Congress.
What can we surmise from Obama’s repeated denial of anything Israel? It all makes sense, when looking at the money given to Palestine, that his administration would try to help Palestinians set up their own state.
Obama basically gift-wrapped hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinians, despite their ties to the terrorist group, Hamas.
I guess Obama wanted to give one last example of how throughout his eight years as divider-in-chief, he repeatedly alienated our allies while embracing who many thought to be traditional enemies of the U.S.