JNS.org – US State Department documents revealed on Monday that the Trump administration plans to increase increase aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), even as the White House prepares significantly cut foreign aid in other parts of the world.
The documents, published by Foreign Policy magazine, detail the State Department’s internal budget plan and show a planned increase of 4.6 percent in aid to Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza for the fiscal year of 2018, amounting to some $215 million.
Syria, Iraq and Libya will also see increases in aid for the 2018 fiscal year, but aid will to Egypt will be cut 47.4 percent and Jordan will see a drop of 21 percent, according to the documents.
The proposed budget changes strike a different tone than President Donald Trump expressed in January, when he informed the PA that the White House had frozen a transfer of $221 million to the Palestinians made in the last hours of President Barack Obama’s administration.
Reports of the potential aid increase come ahead of a scheduled May 3 meeting at the White House between Trump and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
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Big Government at work.