Palestinian President is a ‘Known Terrorist,’ Says Former US Secretary of State

Mike Pompeo also recognized the Jewish people’s ancestral claims to the Land of Israel in comments made amid speculation about his run for president.

By United with Israel Staff

As former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mulls a 2024 presidential campaign, he is making clear his position on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, taking aim at the intransigence and rejectionism that characterizes the rule of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and has since refused to hold elections, has proven an unwilling peace partner for the Jewish state, prioritizing the PA’s pay-for-slay policy, which provides lifetime salaries to terrorists who kill and maim Israeli civilians. Abbas has refused to cancel the program, despite laws in the U.S. and Israel that prohibit the PA from receiving aid until the terror-incentivizing policy ends.

Abbas butted heads with Pompeo during his stint serving the White House from 2018 to 2021, and the former Secretary of State didn’t mince words when he recently spoke with the One Decision Podcast, which is hosted by ex-chief of the UK’s MI6 intelligence agency Sir Richard Dearlove and journalist Julia Macfarlane. The passages of the conversation below were subsequently published by Times of Israel.

During the podcast, Pompeo stated, “Our theory of the case was this — what is in America’s best interest? Is it to sit and wait for [Abbas], a known terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans, and given those martyrs money, for having done so? We said that’s just not in America’s best interest.”

Abbas presides over the PA, a successor entity to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that was ruled by arch-terorrist Yassar Arafat for 35 years.

On the One Decision Podcast, Pompeo also refuted the false claim that the Israel is “an occupying nation,” noting that the Land of Israel “is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.”

Pompeo added that “Europe and America [should] make sure we are helping these nations get toward the right place, and we want good things for everyone, including those folks who live in Judea and Samaria.”

The former secretary of state has shown support for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria in the past.

In October 2021, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli leaders from the region honored Pompeo during a tour that included a visit to the Ancient Shiloh heritage site, the location of the Biblical Tabernacle.

“The tribute event was held at the Psagot Winery. In 2019, the winery dedicated a special wine in Pompeo’s name in honor of his declaration of the U.S.’ recognition of the legality of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” reported TPS at the time.