US sharpens tone against PA, but funds for its security forces continue
After welcoming Abbas decree ending pay-to-slay, State Department demands ‘actions’; CIA still sending money to security forces, US assures Ramallah rest of aid will return after review
The Trump administration has sharpened its tone against the Palestinian Authority, but continues to fund its security forces in the West Bank, a US and a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel.
On February 12, the US State Department welcomed PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s decree canceling legislation that conditioned welfare payments to Palestinian security prisoners on the length of their sentences in Israeli jails. Washington’s statement said the move by Abbas to base welfare payments to all Palestinians strictly on financial need “appears to be a positive step and a big win for the administration.”
But in an updated statement sent to The Times of Israel last week, the State Department took a much harsher line.
“This abhorrent practice needs to end now. We want to see actions — not words,” the State Department added. “We will closely monitor that the law is fully implemented and will consult with the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government on developments.”
Asked to explain the shift, a State Department spokesperson declined.
While Washington appears to be losing patience with Ramallah, the US official and Palestinian official revealed that American funding to the PA’s security forces has continued under the new administration. The funds are coming from the Central Intelligence Agency, the two officials said, while declining to disclose the sum.
A separate bucket of funds from the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Affairs (INCLE) have been held up, but that is part of the administration’s global halt on foreign aid, which only has two exceptions: Egypt and Israel.
The two officials speaking to The Times of Israel said Washington assured Ramallah that the INCLE funds — slated to amount to $47 million for the 2025 fiscal year — will be released in a month, when the administration finishes its 90-day review of all foreign aid programs.
In the meantime, several European countries have recently increased their assistance to the PA security forces to compensate for the US funding halt, the Palestinian official said.
The CIA and INCLE funding for the PA security forces is the only US aid given directly to the government in Ramallah, after Congressional legislation passed during US President Donald Trump’s first term administration barred such assistance due to the PA’s prisoner payment system, which critics have dubbed “pay-to-slay.”
The Trump, Obama and Biden administrations made an exception to allow aid to the PA security forces — often at the request of Israel — due to the role they play in combating terror and maintaining stability in the West Bank.
Earlier this year, Abbas ordered PA security forces to launch an unprecedented counter-terror operation in the northern West Bank to clamp down on armed groups that have been carrying out attacks on Israeli troops and civilians. Hundreds of arrests were made, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deemed the effort insufficient and ordered the IDF to launch its own operation in several towns and refugee camps in the northern and central West Bank.
The crackdown has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians, and while Israel has defended it as essential for restoring security in the West Bank, the Palestinian official speaking to The Times of Israel accused Netanyahu of signing off on the operation in order to ensure that far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich remained in the government after the premier agreed in January to a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, which Smotrich opposed.
Meanwhile, monthly payments to the families of security prisoners and the families of wounded and slain attackers have occurred twice since Abbas signed the decree on February 10, two Palestinian sources directly familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.
The Palestinian official explained that this is because the payments were from months before the decree was signed. With Ramallah’s funds limited due to Israel’s withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues, the PA was only able to transfer welfare recipients their payments for December in February, while the stipends for January were received earlier this month.
Accordingly, it will likely take another month or two until the new payment system kicks in, the Palestinian official said.
The Palestinian official speculated that the US administration’s shift in tone toward the PA reform likely stemmed from an initial expectation that the new payment policy would be implemented sooner.
“We still plan to uphold the decree that was signed,” the Palestinian official said.
Ties between the administration and Ramallah appeared to get off to positive start, with Trump and Abbas holding what sources familiar said was a “warm” call days after the former’s November election victory.
US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff met with Abbas’s top aide Hussein al-Sheikh in Riyadh, soon after Trump took office in January.
Days later, Trump announced his plan to take over Gaza and relocate all of its residents.
Nonetheless, Abbas signed the decree to reform the PA’s welfare system less than a week later.
The decree moved all welfare stipends — for prisoners and others — out of the PA to a nongovernmental body called the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Fund headed by former PA welfare minister Ahmad Majdalani, a longtime Abbas confidant.
In an interview with The Times of Israel last month, Majdalani urged the international community to provide financial backing for the new system, acknowledging that it is not particularly popular among Palestinians and that Ramallah will face further backlash if it cannot afford to sustain the program.
Majdalani also tore into Trump’s Gaza takeover plan and warned that the PA will cut ties with Washington if the US advances the proposal.
Other Palestinian officials have been more careful not to overtly criticize Trump, as they seek to avoid a breakdown in ties like the one that took place during Trump’s first term.
In the meantime, though, Abbas has yet to receive a call from Trump since the inauguration, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio avoided making a stop in Ramallah during his trip to the region last month, and Witkoff has only agreed to meet with Sheikh in the presence of other Arab foreign ministers.
“There was a hope that this reform would receive a warmer response in Washington, but we’re still waiting,” the Palestinian official said.
The Times of Israel Community.