American victims of terrorists in Israel ask Trump to bar Abbas

Families of victims of Palestinian terrorism in Israel who are American citizens sent a letter to US President Donald Trump Sunday morning, asking him to prevent Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from entering the US for the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Abbas did enter the US and is currently in New York.

The letter to Trump and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was organized by Palestinian Media Watch and sent after the State Department rejected a similar overture to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the weekend.

“We, the undersigned American citizens whose loved ones were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, are disappointed and outraged by the American government’s willingness to grant admission to United States to Palestinian Authority President and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas,” they wrote Trump. “Abbas is the one person who is personally responsible for the monthly reward payments by the PA to terrorists and the families of terrorists who murdered our loved ones.”

The family members called the decision to allow Abbas’s entry to the US “a slap in the face to every American who has suffered from terror” and “in clear violation of the spirit and letter of American law.” They noted that American law bars entry to those who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity or persuade others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.”

The PA makes monthly payments to Palestinian terrorist prisoners and to families of terrorists, which US law defines as “payments incentivizing terror” in the Taylor Force Act that Trump signed into law in March. The latest American victim of a terrorist in Israel was Ari Fuld, whose murderer will receive NIS 1,400 monthly from the PA for the next three years following his conviction.