Burchett blasts State Department ‘thugs’ for funding alleged Palestinian terror-tied NGO

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), in a Wednesday congressional hearing, slammed the State Department for bankrolling “thugs,” citing a Washington Examiner report on how the agency granted cash to a Gaza Strip-based entity accused of “cooperating with” and “supporting” Palestinian terrorists.

“I don’t know if y’all catch this or not, but we’re using American tax dollars to fund these thugs against an ally, Israel,” the Tennessee Republican said in the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, which was on Palestinian aid and featured testimony from top ex-government officials. “And yet, you all, our own State Department, has listed them as a terrorist organization. Yet we’re funding them.”

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Burchett, a longtime Israel ally who also sits on the House Oversight Committee, was referring to how the State Department awarded $90,000 combined between August and September to the Phoenix Center for Research and Field Studies, a group formed in 2021 at the University of Gaza. The center partnered recently with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, two U.S.-designated terror groups, according to the Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor.

The Washington Examiner reported Wednesday on the grants to the center and its alleged terror ties, which NGO Monitor says are evident based on conferences it has held with PFLP and PIJ officials. For instance, the center in July 2022 held a discussion on Biden’s visit to the West Bank, which came as the U.S. announced $316 million in Palestinian aid, which included senior PIJ members A. Muhammad Shallah, Khader Habib, Ahmed Al Mudallal, and Khaled Al Batsh, and senior PFLP member Mohammed Al Ghoul, according to NGO Monitor.

One of the State Department’s grants to the center was $60,000 to “further promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,” grant records show. Another was $30,000 for a project related to information technology, specifically, to “raise the awareness of IT trends and provide networking opportunities with IT employers in Europe and Asia for target audiences.”

Burchett, in the hearing, entered the report into the record, asking witnesses, “Do y’all believe the State Department is conducting appropriate oversight of who receives taxpayer dollars?” The hearing was largely centered around the implementation of the Taylor Act, a Trump-era law aiming to bar U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until it stops providing stipends to those who commit terror and families of dead terrorists.

“Sir, I don’t,” replied Elliot Abrams, who served in the State Department under former President Donald Trump, as well as in the George W. Bush and Reagan administrations. “What they do to vet a group is they ask the National Counterterrorism Center or the FBI, the Phoenix organization, ‘Is it on the list? And if it isn’t on the list, then everything is fine.’ They don’t do even internet research to try to find out the things that the Washington Examiner had. They didn’t put a spy in the organization.”

“Let me submit to you, we give y’all over $60 billion a year, the State Department and I’m sure everybody up here will write a strong letter to these terrorists,” Burchett said. “But they’re dirtbags, they’re killing innocent people. That’s why we’re here today talking about this. I submit to you that’s not acceptable, and I think we as a Congress ought to start acting like a Congress, like we’re supposed to do, and have control over this country’s checkbook.”

Burchett added, “This money, whether it be $30,000 or 30 cents, it’s going to a terrorist group. To me, it’s just not acceptable. What do y’all think needs to happen so that U.S. tax dollars don’t end up in the hands of designated terror groups?”

“I think the first thing is [the] State Department and [U.S. Agency for International Development] need to go beyond a cursory check” to see if a group is on the terrorism list, Abrams said. “And start doing some elementary research about recipients.”

Jonathan Schanzer, a witness who is a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department, said the Popular Front is a terror group that “often goes overlooked,” like in the case of the grant to the Phoenix Center for Research and Field Studies.

“The PFLP now receives money directly from Iran, and they have normalized themselves hear in the United States,” Schanzer, now-senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said. “There are a lot of groups, in fact, six charities here in the United States, that have been designated [as terror groups] by the Israelis.”

Burchett replied: “Let me stop you right there because we’re out of time. Y’all had one job, and you failed. I would hope [you’d be] better in the future, cuz’ we’ll be looking at available dollars, and this to me is dollars that need to go elsewhere and not terrorizing Israelis”

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), another House Foreign Affairs Committee member, said Wednesday that funding to the center “is deeply disturbing and raises alarming questions.” The national security and human rights concerns from the lawmakers come as Republicans continue to scrutinize the Biden administration for allocating aid to Palestine, which they say could fall into the hands of Hamas and other terrorists.

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Meanwhile, the Phoenix Center for Research and Field Studies’s programs director, Salah Abdalati, has supported “armed resistance” against Israel and also praised “resistance fighters,” noting on social media, “We mourn the martyrs of our people, and first and foremost, the great martyr fighter commanders in the Al-Quds Brigades, Mansour and Al-Jabari and their free comrades.”

Abdalati was referring to Khaled Mansour, a PIJ commander killed by an Israeli missile strike after years of being responsible for mortar and rocket attacks against Israel, and also Tayseer al Jabari, the late-PIJ leader who was also killed by Israeli forces and often launched rockets into the Jewish state.