The State Department on Thursday announced sanctions against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority, denying organization members visas for the United States, citing claims that the groups are “continuing to support terrorism.”
The move comes as Canada and a growing number of European countries have vowed to recognize Palestinian statehood ahead of September’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, amid warnings from global leaders that Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip face mass starvation due to Israeli aid blockages.
But as many of Washington's allies are taking steps to try to elevate Palestinian officials in the global community, the American move is aimed at isolating them.
The PLO and PA “are not in compliance with their commitments under the PLO Commitments Compliance Act of 1989 (PLOCCA) and the Middle East Peace Commitments Act of 2002 (MEPCA),” the State Department message read. “It is in our national security interests to impose consequences and hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments and undermining the prospects for peace."
It’s not clear if the sanctions would bar Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or other senior officials from traveling to the U.N. General Assembly, where France has said it will recognize a Palestinian state. In the past, some sanctioned global leaders have still been allowed to travel to America for the global meeting
"It's performative, but the timing is not coincidental," said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Middle East peace adviser to Democratic and Republican secretaries of State.
The announcement from the State Department comes as President Donald Trump appeared to double down in his position on Israel’s ongoing war Thursday morning, despite mounting pressure from some in MAGA circles for the administration to reconsider its support for Israel.
“The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday morning.
Trump earlier this week broke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to acknowledge the “real starvation” taking place in Gaza. His special envoy Steve Witkoff is in Israel on Thursday to assess the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s efforts to deliver aid to the Strip and to meet with Netanyahu.
Speaking during a bilateral meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland on Monday, Trump said he would work with European countries to “set up food centers” in Gaza. He later brushed off the push from European allies to recognize Palestinian statehood, telling reporters the U.S. had “no view on that.”
Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence official during the Obama and first Trump administrations now at the Atlantic Council, said that while the State Department’s measures were "almost certainly" under consideration and in the works for some time, the timing could be welcome in Netanyahu's government.
"The decision to announce them today will be very welcome news to the most right-wing members of the Netanyahu government but threatens to make reaching consensus on post-Gaza war governance even more difficult to achieve," he said.
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