Billionaire Haim Saban backs bill to slash funds to PA

WASHINGTON — Haim Saban, a major donor to the Democratic Party, is backing a bill that would slash funding to the Palestinian Authority unless it stops payments to Palestinians jailed for attacks on Israelis.

The participation of the Israeli-American entertainment mogul in the initiative of the lobbying affiliate of the Israeli-American Council is significant because Democrats have until now been reluctant to back the bill as it stands.

A statement Monday evening from the Israeli-American Coalition for Action says the campaign to pass the Taylor Force Act will draw on a “nationwide grassroots network of activists” and on the IASC’s “relationships with prominent Israeli-Americans and Jewish-Americans, including Sheldon Adelson, Shawn Evenhaim, Haim Saban and Adam Milstein — who have advocated for the legislation with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.”

Taylor Force was an American killed last year in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv.

Two bills, in the Senate and the US House of Representatives, have until recently had almost solely Republican backing. However, Democrats in Congress have in recent days suggested they may back the bill.

The bill would cut all but US funding to the PA except that earmarked for the Palestinian police, some $60 million in 2013, a fraction of the approximately $500 million Palestinians have received annually from the United States.

— JTA