Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas addresses the UN in 2017. (AP/Seth Wenig) (AP/Seth Wenig)
Mahmoud Abbas

“Every month, Abbas rewards Palestinian terrorists who have murdered American (and Israeli) citizens and are in Israeli jails today. There’s absolutely no justification to bypass American law and admit this terror supporter into the US,” PMW stated.

By: AP and PMW

A group of American victims of Palestinian terrorism is asking President Donald Trump to bar Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from entering the United States for the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting.

The group appealed Sunday for Trump to declare Abbas a “persona non grata” because of the Palestinian Authority’s payment of stipends to relatives of their families’ killers.

Micah Lakin Avni, whose father Richard Lakin was murdered by Palestinians in 2015, called Abbas “the Grand Wizard of incitement to violence and terror.”

The group includes the families of 15 other American citizens killed by Palestinians, including Ari Fuld, who was killed last week.

Also signed are the parents of Taylor Force, a 28-year-old university student and military veteran who was stabbed to death during a 2016 visit to Israel.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which monitors Palestinian incitement to terrorism, sent a letter last week to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking that Abbas be denied entry to the US for the UN session this week due to his direct responsibility for paying salaries to terrorists and rewarding families of terrorists who were killed during their attacks.

The US in the Taylor Force Act stated that these two payments are “incentivizing terror.”

Abbas, as head of the Palestinian Authority and head of the Palestine National Fund (PNF), is the one responsible for these payments and is therefore the one incentivizing terror. US law clearly prohibits entry to those promoting terror.

Adam Kredo of The Washington Free Beacon reported the State Department’s response to PMW, which was, “I can’t speak to the specifics, but typically, as host nation for the United Nations, the United States is generally obligated to admit foreign nationals traveling to UN headquarters in New York for official UN business.”

In its response to the State Department, PMW noted that during the Obama Administration an Iranian UN Diplomat Hamid Abutalebi was denied entry to the US because of his involvement in terror activity and the murder of an Iranian dissident.

“Every month, Abbas rewards Palestinian terrorists who have murdered American (and Israeli) citizens and are in Israeli jails today. There’s absolutely no justification to bypass American law and admit this terror supporter into the US,” PMW stated.

PMW urged all American organizations to join them in asking the Administration to “implement American law and prohibit Abbas’ entry.”

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