BREAKING: Biden Admin Deletes Details About Palestinian Terror

Today on Sekulow, in a new report sent to Congress, the Biden Administration deletes the entire section on Palestinian terror and the support for boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel. We'll talk about that with Mike Pompeo and Rick Renaud. 1-800-684-3110. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hi, welcome to Sekulow. So in a new State Department report, this is a report that is sent to Congress yearly and it's a report, it's part of the 1990 PLO Compliance Act. So it's something that Congress requires the State Department to report on to Congress. And in this report, the Biden Administration omitted specific references to the Palestinian government's ongoing calls for violence, as well as its support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, the BDS movement. Both issues, which are tracked in Congress, which are obviously, we saw conflict in the Middle East just recently, they were included in the Trump Administration's report from the State Department to the Congress, but they were deleted. Now, the question is, like with the Iran emails we had covered as well with the FOIA, why?

What is the purpose? Is it to get around the Taylor Force Act? Is it to subvert other laws that would then go in force against the Palestinian Authority if this was reported by the State Department as fact? Well, first of all, they took the report, which was almost verbatim with the report that the Trump Administration filed.

This is what the news reports are indicating. And then what they did was they specifically, as you said, Jordan, they eliminated the references to Palestinian statements on BDS, and as significant, and maybe even more so, the incitement that takes place within the schools. That is specific prohibition in the funding mechanisms. Now, we appeared before the Human Rights Council, and we said that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority vigorously teach anti-Semitism in their education system. This is in the report that we filed with the General Assembly of the United Nations.

We've been on top of this issue, folks, for a long time. This was just back a couple of weeks ago when this legal document filed with the UN. But this does impact then the funding mechanism for all of this. Well, yes, the Biden Administration continues to roll forward on all of these funding mechanisms for the Palestinian government, Jay, many of which, as you noted, are in violation of U.S. law.

I think the Taylor Force Act is probably the most significant one. But if they're going to try to circumvent that, the last thing they can have is an official report from the State Department that says, no, the Palestinians are still engaged in violence, which of course they are, and the Palestinians are still supportive of BDS, which of course they are. So, Jay, I really think this is an effort by the State Department to try to backfill Secretary Blinken's promise that he's not going to release this funding unless the Palestinian Authority reaches these metrics.

Well, how do you meet these metrics? Maybe just pull them out of your report and turn a blind eye to them. Jordan, this is what's so absurd. So they know the metrics that the Secretary of State set forth, which was, which we'll talk with Mike Pompeo on a little bit later, that the activities of the Palestinian Authority that focused on this kind of activity, the incitement of violence, the teaching in the schools, and then on top of that, of course, the BDS movement. They removed, literally removed it from the report, a report that was identical almost, what all the news reports are indicating, to what the Trump administration submitted just back in October.

Right. And it's all, like they had said, this is, again, it was a deliberate move to subvert U.S. law that would prevent the funding going to the Palestinian Authority if you acknowledge these acts of terror and the promotion of terror and the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement against Israel, because the Taylor Force Act. And again, taking a report and basically copying and pasting it, but deleting key provisions, not by accident, not just for political purposes to send a message about what they think about the Palestinians, but intentionally. And we're going to talk about that with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ACLJ senior counsel.

Jeff Balibon, a senior attorney with the ACLJ, is going to be joining us in the next segment of the broadcast to talk about the significance of this deletion. You have to watch all this very carefully because it's done intentionally. It's done for a purpose.

It's not by accident. And it's not just for political purposes. We'll be right back on Secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress. The ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

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Welcome back to Sekulow just to restate. So we've got a State Department report. This is a report that they have to do by law. It's the 1990 Palestine Liberation Organization Commitments Compliance Act. So it's the State Department reporting on whether or not they're complying, so should they be receiving U.S. aid. And if you look at the report last year, which was basically copied verbatim, it included the specific references to Palestinian government's ongoing calls for violence. Not just a throwaway line like that either, but specific references to it and specific events that occurred. Then it also included the support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as two issues that would be important when considering whether or not you were going to continue to fund the Palestine Liberation, the committees, the compliance, whether they were compliant or not. That was deleted.

Those two sections in a report that was basically a copy and paste job was those sections got deleted. And it's not just for political purposes to satisfy the squad or something like that. It's to get around other U.S. law.

Yeah, there's economic reasons that they're doing it. So Jeff Balbon is the Senior Counsel for the ACLJ. He's been on top of this. Jeff, first of all, your read on the situation here. Look, this is part of an overall push by the Biden administration to undo the gains that took place under the previous administration under the Trump administration, which really, you know, helped normalize Israel in the region, was having a warm peace.

The defect is happening. It's extraordinarily, truly historical. And now they have committed the Biden administration and every time they speak about it, they're committing to create a state of Palestine, a state as we can see now, it seems to be perfectly fine for them that this state will be an overtly terrorist state. I mean, it's got that the Palestinian Authority is simply a legal entity that's successor to the PLO, a terrorist organization. It is not in compliance, which means it remains a terrorist organization. And the Biden administration is saying we must create a state using this organization.

So they're trying to whitewash this. They're trying to send them. They are sending them millions and hundreds of millions of dollars, which, as we know, the Palestinian Authority is using to fund pay terrorists. And now they are trying to eradicate from the record the fact that this ongoing incitement and violence and payment for terror is going on. If you go to Israel, I mean, we've said this before, and Andy and I have experienced this, we all have experienced this if you go to Israel, you will see a Palestinian youth school in school with their teachers walking down the streets of Jerusalem.

You can share that experience again. I was walking through the old city of Jerusalem with a guide and I saw some five-year-olds, 10, 12 of them walking in a line, and they were chanting something in Arabic, and I asked our guide, what are these little children saying? With blood and spirit, we will take back Palestine. They were indoctrinating these children in killing and terrorism at the age of five and six years old.

And let me say this, I witnessed this and heard it with my own eyes and ears. So the idea with the law then, Jordan, is to not allow the Palestinians to get money from the United States if, in fact, this kind of activity is still going on. And the compliance act, it's almost 30 years old, this compliance act, the idea was you have to comply with this and certify, the State Department certifies it, and the previous administration, the Trump administration said no, they are still engaged in BDS, Boycott, Divestment, Sanction, and they are also teaching this in the schools. We pointed this out, Jeff, in our filing with the United Nations General Assembly's Human Rights Council.

Let me go to Jordan, actually. We stated specifically that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority vigorously teach anti-Semitism in their education system. The Palestinian Authority teaches children to anticipate the end of Israel and subsequent reunification of Palestine as one nation. The UN condemned the PA and Hamas for adopting school curriculum and textbooks that taught hate towards Israeli, which was akin to child abuse, is what the UN said. But yet our own State Department here is saying exactly the opposite. They're just removing it. Yeah, I mean, the truth is the situation on the ground hasn't changed.

Maybe even it's gotten worse. And remember, we've had the other countries in the Middle East say, you know what, enough with dealing with the Palestinian Authority and with Hamas. We're going to deal directly with Israel now because this idea that we have to solve this problem when you have bad leaders leading both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a terror group in the Gaza Strip, a former terrorist organization in the West Bank, with really a ton of corruption. I mean, just the corruption alone would be a reason not to send any money because people like Mahmoud Abbas are billionaires and yet their only job has been leader of a territory of a pretty small group of people. And yet they're billionaires.

Why? Because they siphon off money from countries like the U.S. who are willing to keep paying it to this Palestinian lie. So, Jeff, what is the political motivation here, do you think? And I'm going to ask Stan and Harry to respond to something, too. But what do you think, Jeff, is the political motivation, if you're just joining us, Jeff Balmon, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ on international matters and specifically as it relates to the Middle East?

Go ahead, Jeff. Look, they have made it very clear and they're very disturbing images coming out of our country, the United States, over the July 4th weekend in various places of people burning on July 4th the American and Israeli flags enchanting from the river to the free Palestine shall be free, which is a call, an open call for the eradication altogether of the Jewish state to call for ethnic cleansing and genocide. And the problem is this is gaining currency among a lot of the far left and now it's emerging, you know, as you know, the far left is becoming part of the Democrats' base. And so, politically, they're removing the barriers between Americans and the idea of overt genocidal terrorism and they're trying to push forth this idea that the Palestinian Authority could be a state, they're trying to pretend that the Palestinian Authority is significantly different than Hamas.

And the truth is they're both engaged in tear incitement and in preaching to the next generation, continue to preach the total eradication of the state of Israel. And unfortunately, rather than push back against it, it is becoming more and more accepted on the left in this country and it's terrifying. We are fighting this, by the way, on multiple fronts, so let me be clear. At the United Nations, I'm putting up, we put it up on our screen for our television audience, those watching on social media, this is what we filed at the United Nations that dealt exactly with this. This was called a written statement submitted by the European Center for Law and Justice.

It was filed on May 31st of this year, so that's number one. Number two, Jordan sent a letter just a few days ago to both the President, President Biden, and to Secretary Blinken acknowledging and expressing concerns on the anti-Semitism issue. At the same time, we have a petition up with over 630,000 signatures on it that then is working with our Office of Governmental Affairs. We are defending students and professors at universities because, Harry, this has reached into the university level in the United States as well. Absolutely, and it has, I should say, it has exploded like a wildfire in universities.

Why? Because it first exploded like a wildfire in premier high pedigree universities and their faculty members, or their students, are now faculty members at other institutions. And so they have essentially licensed the students to attack Jews and to attack the state of Israel, and it makes little sense. Okay, so let's talk about specifically here what we're doing. You and Thanh are working on this from a government affairs standpoint.

You've already sent the letter to Secretary Blinken and to the President. Yeah, and this letter is to adopt the Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of anti-Semitism in the United States so that it is part of our laws, part of our legal system. So if we adopt that system, and there's reasons for that, specifically because of the rise in anti-Semitism we've seen in places around the world, up over 400 percent, 400 percent, and as we point out, and it's never stated in the media when we talk about all these race issues that we're talking about in our country right now, that according to the FBI, the majority of religiously motivated hate crimes in the US are committed against Jewish people, which only make up 2 percent of the population, yet the majority of hate crimes or crimes against people specifically because of their religious background or their heritage. So we point all of that out, and Thanh, I think it's important because all of this is about the interplay of the laws that do exist, like the Taylor Force Act, but also it's strengthening those laws so that it makes it more difficult for an administration like this to get around them. It's strengthening those laws, Jordan. It's also telling the truth both domestically and internationally. I mean, look, if you zoom out, this is sort of an effort to whitewash the Palestinian record on all of these issues, and I think they're doing it mainly for two policy goals.

One is the one we've already talked about, the dollars to the Palestinian government, but Jordan, the other one is so that when they get back into a cozy relationship with Iran, that there will be less pushback on it. Look, our mission here is to tell the truth here and around the world. That's why we wrote a letter to President Biden, the one you just talked about. Jordan, this is also a very huge reason that we have accreditation at the United Nations, because we're in a period now where the United Nations is not going to hear the truth from the American administration on these issues. But guess what?

If the American administration won't tell the United Nations the truth, guess who will? We're going to do it. We just did it in this report. All right, we appreciate it. Jeff Albon, thanks for being with us.

Thanks for working on this. Let me also say, folks, we're working this, as I said, on multiple levels at the United Nations, domestically, in the White House. We brought this issue to the White House, also in the Congress. Your support of the ACLJ in our matching challenge month shows you the depth and scope of what we can do.

You're going to be hearing shortly from the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Your support of the ACLJ allows all of this, including this broadcast to happen. Go to ACLJ.org and participate in the matching challenge. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

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A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secula. We're joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Secretary Pompeo, I want to go right to it. There's a report out now that the Biden administration, their State Department, has removed sections on Palestinian incitement of terrorism in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement from their mandatory report to Congress. It's a 1970 law that requires that report. Are you concerned? I mean, because this report was basically a copy and paste of the previous State Department report under the administration when you were serving as Secretary of State. But for these deletions, specifically on the support for incitement of terrorism and support for the BDS Movement, is this just a tip to give the Palestinian Authority a free pass?

Boy, Jordan, it sure looks like it. I've seen the record, the reporting of what they have certainly done. If they've left this out, it is almost certainly intentional, to your point, to cut and paste what was done previously. My sense is they knew precisely what they were doing. It would appear that it is aimed at not having a factual record when they go to do the kinds of things they want to do to underwrite the Palestinians to perhaps violate the Taylor Force Act.

There are lots of reasons you would want to leave those facts out in reporting to Congress. I hope that's not the case. But we've seen this all long, Jordan. We've seen this administration take a very different approach to issues in the Middle East. You were talking about Iran earlier. This is a very different relationship with Israel, our closest ally friend and partner, and their willingness to play footsie with the terrorists in the West Bank and not hold accountable the folks in the Gaza Strip is something we've already seen a lot of evidence from in these first five or six months of this administration. You know, Mike, one of the things that's fascinating to me in all of this is we filed on May 31st of this year with the United Nations through our European Center for Law and Justice, a written submission, and we pointed out specifically that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority teach anti-Semitism in their education systems. The PA teaches children to anticipate the end of Israel and the reunification of the Palestinian state. The UN itself condemned the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for adopting these school curricular textbooks that taught this hatred to Israel. Yet we have a situation – so we raised that with the UN, we cited the UN's own precedent, and then our current administration takes the report that your department did just last year in October, almost verbatim is what all the news reports are indicating, and they just omit the two sections that are both the most crucial. The BDS, the fact that they are promoting boycott, divest, and sanction, and the incitement to violence.

Now, you mentioned the Taylor Force Act. I think that's what's going on here. They're just trying to level their own playing field or remove the obstacles.

What's your sense on that? Yes, I think that's right. I also think you hit another important point.

This is not only immoral but unlawful. There are congressional requirements. This reporting is required to be factually accurate. I think they know the Palestinians are inciting violence, so to leave that out of the report would just be to gild the lily, be to avoid the facts as they're known.

There has to be a purpose for that. The purpose would be to make sure that when they go to underwrite the Palestinians, whether that's through the UN relief agency UNRWA that is completely corrupt, or whether it's another method that they're going to use to underwrite the Palestinian leadership, that they can say, well, we didn't violate the Taylor Force Act, something no administration wants to be on the record for, but this one appears in town I'm doing. Secretary Pompeo, we know that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and we know that money ends up in the hands of terrorists that's used to attack Israel. Why is the administration so emphatic in reversing the policies that you put in place when we know what the outcome is going to be?

Some of these issues are deeply embedded in the left's ideas. We see this with the squad. We see it with Omar. We see it with them. They don't understand the value of Israel to the United States as a partner. They don't understand the deep history of Israel. They are pro-Palestinian and they're pro-terror in that sense. They're out promoting the kinds of things that we know have formatted terror throughout the region.

This is something that we could see. The Palestinian leadership is so corrupt. They rejected vaccines from the Israelis for 700,000 vaccines. They could have vaccinated several hundred thousand of their own people and they said, no, thank you.

We don't want that. This is a corrupt regime taking money from all kinds of places and they are sending the signals that they're going to continue down their terrorist path, whether that's Hamas and the Gaza Strip that launched the rockets or Abu Mazen. I spent a lot of time in Ramallah and with those folks. They aren't prepared to engage in a serious conversation about how to promote peace and stability in the region. I think this administration is all too close to assisting them. When you cuddle up to the Iranians with a deal, when you now begin to underwrite the Palestinian authority, you are sending a real signal, not only to Israel, but to our Gulf Strait friends as well, that you are going to take a direction that is 180 degrees different from what the Trump administration did and a great deal more dangerous for the American people. You know, Secretary Pompeo, the other part of this is not just the deletion of their incitement of terrorism and violence, but is also the promotion of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that was pointed out in the last report sent to Congress. That's all gone, reportedly. The idea here is we're seeing this rise in anti-Semitism in our own country and around the world.

I mean, some places it's up. Anti-Semitic attacks are up 400%. And just how dangerous to ignore, to put it all together and say, we're not going to talk about the violence. We're going to whitewash their support also for these efforts like boycott, divestment, and sanctions, which unfortunately are gaining some support in academic circles in the United States and also with some members of Congress. During this way, we saw so much good work done during our administration on pushing back against the BDS folks, whether that was abroad.

I spent time in Thessaloniki. I went to Germany to see a place where there had been an anti-Semitic terror attack at a synagogue. These were important indications of American support for those people who were going to permit religious freedom and were going to put real costs on top of folks who are anti-Semitic or who engage in activity like BDS activity that is on the very fringes of the anti-Semitism activities. You saw this on our campuses. We pushed back.

We tried to deny funding to those schools. There's an awful lot of work to be done. We've seen this rise in anti-Semitism in our big cities, in Los Angeles, in New York. We need to make sure we're doing everything we can at home and then helping countries get it right abroad as well. The rise of anti-Semitism around the world is a dangerous thing, not only for Jews, but for all of us.

Mike, last question. We've got less than a minute and a half here, but I want to get your opinion on this. The Palestinian Authority has to be dealt with.

I mean, there's no question. But dealing with it this way, I think, adds to legitimacy to a regime that's not legitimate. And doesn't that, in fact, cut against the move for peace in the Middle East?

Our approach was very clear. We were completely, to your point, Jay, we were completely prepared to have conversations with the Palestinian Authority, but they had to be prepared to engage right back. They had to not just say no, which is what they've done for the last decade, to really, really good outcomes for their own people. Yes, when you provide resources and money, you not only fuel the terror, but you provide global legitimacy. America provides money to the Palestinians.

We provide global legitimacy to a group of people who just simply don't deserve it. You know, it's always great to have former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joining us on the broadcast part of the ACLJ team. Thank you, Secretary Pompeo, as always. These, again, we see the report. We see the information. We're able to bring you former Secretary of State, previous State Department, which he governed, putting in the report that was correct about the Palestinian Authority. The Biden administration copied most of that.

They liked most of that report, except for the part about the truth about the terrorism that is incited by the Palestinian Authority and their support for the delegitimization of the Jewish state of Israel through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. We're also going to be joined in our second half hour coming up by the former Acting Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany, Secretary Grinnell, to comment on this move by the State Department, as well as our work at the ACLJ. We'll be right back on Sekulow.

A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Live from Washington, D.C., Sekulow Live. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Thanks for joining us for the second half hour of the broadcast.

If you were just joining us, let me just quickly get you up to speed. So it's being reported now. There's an annual report. It's included in the Palestinian Liberation Organization Commitments Compliance Act. So the State Department has to report to Congress each year about the compliance. So this is specific to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, not Hamas. So it's whether or not what are they doing. Are they being compliant with the law? Of course, to be compliant with U.S. law, you can't incite or support terrorism, and you can't try to delegitimize an ally. Now, the Palestinian Authority is doing both of those. And last year, the State Department, in their report, cited not just the general statement of the incitement of violence and terrorism, but specific instances where Palestinian Authority leadership was inciting violence and terrorism against Israel and also spreading anti-Semitism.

That was included. And also what was included was their support by the Palestinian Authority of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, which is a movement to undermine a top U.S. ally, the number one U.S. ally in that region of the world, which is a very volatile region in the world, if not the most volatile region in the world. Then the Biden administration comes along. They've got to issue their report. Now, what they do is they take most of the report, they copy and paste it, except for the deletion of the Palestinian Authority's support and incitement of terrorism, and the deletion of the Palestinian Authority's support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, which is also supported by the squad members and people like that. But what this does, when you do this, it is not just for political purposes. This is not just to appease some anti-Israel left in the United States.

So that certainly can be part of it. It is a workaround existing U.S. law, which if they were to admit in the report that the terrorism was occurring and the incitement was occurring, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement was being supported by the Palestinian Authority, that would be possible that the funds we send over could be used for those efforts, which the Trump administration said was happening, so we're not going to send those funds. Now the Biden administration just deletes it from history. It exists right now.

It's ongoing now. It's like it never happened. It was like it was never reported to Congress. But Harry, the point of what they're doing is to try to change the report by making those two omissions, or to editing those out, so that they can lay the predicate for funding.

I think that's precisely correct, and I think there are several questions that need to be answered. In light of this fact, that the Palestinian Authority is essentially indistinguishable from Hamas and other terrorist groups. Hamas is essentially indistinguishable from Iran, and so the question then becomes, and the deletion with respect to the Palestinian Authority is part of this, the question becomes, why is the Biden administration doing this? And I think at the end of the day, they are preparing the United States to capitulate, essentially to terror, because the Biden administration is trying to follow into the gigantic footsteps of the Obama administration. And the Obama administration did what?

It basically paid Iran to join the Iran nuclear deal. Andy, you and I said that the other day. We got a little bit of time before the break, but this is basically the same people now just being promoted. It's Obama, too. It's the same people who were there before President Trump became President, every one of them. Except they've been promoted. And now they're in higher positions with more authority and more influence, and more policymaking decisions, and more influence on American relations to the Middle East, and throughout the entire world for that matter. They went and joined from the State Department. Now they're at the White House. That's what's happened. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, this is all the same actors. I was talking about on Newsmax this morning. You take all the people from the last time around in the Biden administration. They've just gotten promoted, is the truth. They went from the State Department to the White House.

They got higher-level positions. We're going to talk about it with Rick Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence, when we get back on Sekulow. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to Sekulow, and we're talking about the State Department report that is annual report to Congress, and it was a very similar report to last year's report except for now what we are seeing in the news was the deletion specifically of the Palestinian Authority's incitement of terrorism and their support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. We're joined now by our Senior Counsel for Foreign Policy and National Security Rick Grenell. Rick, just right off the bat, the fact that the State Department is sending a report which is almost identical to the report sent last year by the Trump administration except for these two very key provisions, we know it's not just about, you know, appeasing the left. This is done to try and get around and work around U.S. laws so that they can get funding back in U.S. dollars back into the Palestinian Authority even after they've failed and failed so many years to even represent their people. And let's be very clear on what this current State Department under the Secretary of State Blinken is doing. After the last year where career Foreign Service officers have been collecting information about terror acts that the Palestinians have been doing, this information has gone into the draft reports, but the political people at the State Department, the Biden political people overruled the career officials and removed that information that had been being collected. Now, this is denying facts. This is politicizing the situation all because they are rushing to try to have some sort of a deal.

But I don't think any deal is ever going to hold. You don't make progress diplomatically if you somehow ignore the facts. And that's where I think we're different between the Trump and the Biden administration. We had to confront uncomfortable facts when it came to trying to move us forward diplomatically. Too many people in Washington stick their head in the sand, pretend like a conflict doesn't exist, and then schedule a big fancy lunch and pretend like they made progress. That is not progress that's ignoring the facts. You know, Rick, one of the things I just thought of is the fact that based on all the reports we're seeing, it looks like the Biden administration took the basic report that was issued by the Trump administration in October and then simply omitted, edited out the section dealing with the incitement to violence.

And then, of course, also the section on encouraging boycott, divest and sanction. One of the things I just thought about was I'd like to know how that happened because you said something very important that I want to underscore, and maybe we do this through a Freedom of Information Act request. If in fact career people within these departments have been putting together, and that's why I want you to explain this again, the incitements, the violence, they have this information. If it's at our government's fingertips and yet the administration decides to remove that for probably a political reason, and that is to get funding to the Palestinian Authority. We need to know how that happened and why. So underscore again what the people like you were working with, this DNI, Director of National Intelligence, would be gathering that now the administration is ignoring.

And to be honest, Jay, more of the action is done on a bilateral basis. So when I was U.S. Ambassador to Germany, I oversaw the writing of a lot of these types of reports, whether they're the human rights reports or a number of different requirements that we had upon us. And the way that it works is that you assign career diplomatic foreign service officers to monitor all year long. You don't just roll this information over. We're very good at the State Department.

Remember, I've served there 11 years. And we are very good at tracking the information. It's got to be new information.

Just because a country did something in the past, we start over every year. And so if we call them out for human rights abuses, if we call them out for terrorist acts, that's not old information. That information had been collected through the years. And so we were collecting information on the actions of the Palestinian Authority.

We knew exactly where they were supporting terrorist activities. That is new information. That's not rolled over from past years. And right now we have political people at the State Department looking at that current information and saying we're going to ignore it because we want to make some sort of a diplomatic plea. And so my point is rejecting the work of career foreign service officers is something that Washington media people usually get really charged up about. But somehow they're just ignoring this instance. That's why I think a Freedom of Information Act request, I'm going to ask our FOIA team, our Government Accountability Team, to take a look at that immediately because I think that may be an avenue to find out what the heck happened here. I'd like to see those emails going back and forth on what the report said, what the career people were saying, and what actually happened here.

Mr. Ambassador, we know in the submission that we made, the ECLJ on behalf of our members and so forth made to the United Nations just this May that the Palestinian Authority diverts funds to reward murderers who commit terrorist acts against Israelis. The EPA paid approximately $300 million annually to support jail terrorist families.

And in one instance, two Palestinian cousins received significant payments from the Palestinian Authority after massacring a family of five, including a newborn baby. What in the world is the Biden administration doing aligning us this way with the Palestinians and undercutting and deleting the references to their terroristic activity? Why is Biden doing this? Why is his administration doing this? Can you put any sense to that?

No, I can't. It doesn't make any sense. The only explanation is they're being very political about somehow protecting the reputation of the Palestinian Authority so that they can justify why they're giving them so much money. Imagine if in this report we were able to be very specific about how the Palestinian Authority is supporting terrorist activities. That would be embarrassing for the Biden administration because they just gave them hundreds of millions of dollars. And so what they're trying to do is take away the bad actions to justify the money that they're giving to them.

And so it's just the classic diplomatic speak for making sure that your goal of being nice and having pleasant relations with another entity is somehow the goal and somehow has to be supported. And so therefore you get rid of the facts that contradict that outcome. Rick, too, is the deletion of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions portion. While we're seeing a rise in anti-Semitism both vocally in the United States, college campuses where anti-Semitism and being anti-Israel are all kind of melting together. We see it in Congress with actual members of Congress who are supporting these groups and supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

This is also deleted. We're seeing a 400% rise in anti-Semitic attacks this past year. And rhetoric, like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, the rhetoric that goes with that, that means something.

It's inciting on its own. It's a great point because to not include the facts surrounding BDS and all of the groups that have been using BDS to attack Israel, to attack Jews, to make it seem like all of the anti-Semitism is justified because of what's been happening. And I think it's really shameful. And that's why I think when Jay says we are going to go after, through a FOIA request, the information surrounding how this came about, I really think that it's a trove, a treasure trove of information that we can really use. Transparency should be our friend.

We shouldn't be embarrassed by making sure that the work of the career Foreign Service officers is not completely dismissed by political appointees in the Biden administration. Now, I want to do Andy's scribbling notes here, Rick, about what we're going to actually ask for. We'll run it by you, too, because what I want to know is exactly what you said.

If, in fact, the career folks in the agencies had the data, provided that data to the State Department, which I'm sure they did, or to other agencies, and then yet the State Department comes off and omits that, there has to be exchanges of information on why they did that and how it happened. And we're going to get to the bottom of it. Rick, thanks for your insight, as always.

Great to have you on the team. And again, folks, without your support of the ACLJ, none of this happens. And now we've got Andy's here working right now on putting together a FOIA request. I'm sure he's going to be working with our Senior Counsel, Ben Sisney. Rick Grinnell just gave you an incredible analysis of the situation. And Jordan's hosting this broadcast, which tells you that everything you're doing supports the work of the ACLJ on so many different fronts. Ben, this is a great time to support the work of the ACLJ as well. We have a matching challenge. You double the impact of your donation.

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Welcome back to Sekulow. I think just to add to this, to the significance, when we talk about this funding and the money, what are we talking about? Well, for instance, a new report is out by Fox News that Palestinian non-governmental organizations that were funded by the US were introducing children, if you want to use that word, to terrorism and terrorist activities. So the money, which was part of $500 million in relief from the USAID, ultimately got to six controversial NGOs that received a total of $7.2 million between 2015 and 2019 in the form of subgrants.

That's important to point out. This was a program started by the Obama administration, and of course the money goes out. So the money goes out to the first grantee, if you will, and they then dole it out over years. This is $500 million. So while there's crossover into the Trump administration, this money was already released.

This money had already been received until the initial grant was out. But the Trump administration sees all this happening. They start cutting all this funding off. Now this funding is back.

Samantha Power is back at USAID now. So what were they funding? Well, they were introducing kids to convicted terrorists. They had children lobby on behalf of imprisoned Islamic Jihad members.

And at one protest they were funding, children were chanting, and Andy, this is similar to like what you saw on the streets of Jerusalem. We are with the prisoners until death. We're behind you until liberation.

Resist until death. Intifada until death. I mean, this was U.S. money going to fund terrorist indoctrination of children. Yes, it was, and it's going to continue to be with Samantha Power back at USAID. This is not going to change, as we've said before. This is the replay of the Obama administration and the Obama administration's policies. The Trump administration could only put the brakes so much on something that was already in the pipeline, Jordan, that was already moving forward. It tried to do so.

Now, with this, it's being reversed. But back just for a moment on this FOIA, I would like to know, and I think we're going to prepare this, through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of State, who documents, who showed, decided to omit the Palestinian authorities' terrorism activities and the BDS from the report to the Congress. What documents reflected the decisions to delete? Who overruled the career diplomats who probably assessed and amassed documents showing that there was terrorist activity by the Palestinian authority? Why was this done?

What papers show this? This is the kind of things that we are going to put together, Jordan, in our team to ask the Department of State to account to the people of the United States for. Yeah, I mean, this is, again, it's a pretty shocking thing, but this is how Washington has been working for decades, many decades, administration to administration, Republican and Democrat. Trump administration came along. We just had two officials that now are with us, with Rick Grenell and Mike Pompeo.

They shook this up. They said, no, we don't have to do business as usual. But we're back to that so quickly, as quickly, basically, as the State Department can get to it. They're deleting it from the report. It's like Palestinian terror doesn't exist.

The BDS movement doesn't exist. And that's how this, that's how you turn back on the spigot and another $500 million end up getting to groups that are indoctrinating kids to terrorism. Here's the truth about all this funding, Jordan.

There are a lot of different buckets that it ends up in the region. There's the USAID, there's UNRWA, there's the Economic Support Funds, which the Taylor Force Act is supposed to ban. But here's the truth, Jordan. All of those funding mechanisms eventually wind their way to the Palestinian government, and they use them in the form of terrorism to advance their goals, to wipe Israel off the map, to oppose U.S. interests. All of those funding accounts end up with the Palestinian government. Jordan, I really thought your interview with Secretary Pompeo was enlightening on this.

And I think our idea of a FOIA is very important on this because you need to see the back channel of how this decision making was made. Because while I fully agree that the reason that these sections were removed from the report is to lend cover, to lend air cover, if you will, for the funding that is now being released. Jordan, that's not what U.S. law requires. U.S. law requires that the Secretary of State personally certify that Pay for Slay and other terrorist acts have ended before that funding is released.

Secretary Blinken has said he's not going to do it. You heard from Secretary Pompeo that, of course, he didn't certify it because even the Palestinian government admits that they're still doing it. So Jordan, we need to find out whether or not that specific conversation happened behind the scenes and whether or not they acknowledge that they know U.S. law requires the Secretary to certify.

Omitting it from this report, Jordan, it might provide air cover, but guess what? It doesn't comply with U.S. law. Ellie on Facebook wrote in, what is the administration worried about Congress saying that they had to delete? Harry, it's not that members of Congress don't know this is going on. They have their own reports, their own information. It's to bypass the laws, the rules. It's to say that, hey, on the record, we didn't certify, basically, that the Palestinian Authority was inciting violence or terrorism and were the authority on it. Congress, you told us to give you the report. It's not in there. It's not happening. Neither is their support for boycott divestment stations. It's not relevant.

Absolutely. So essentially, the State Department and the political branch of government do not want to admit the evidence, which is right before our own eyes. I suggested earlier that the Palestinian Authority is indistinguishable from Hamas and other terrorists, and that Hamas is essentially indistinguishable from Iran. Now we have evidence that the United States government is complicit, if you will, in terror attacks on Israel.

Why? Because the United States is indirectly funding those terrorist attacks. And so the State Department, wisely, I think, from a political perspective, the State Department does not want to admit what they are actually doing. So they're trying to hide the ball. They're trying to suggest that they are indeed in compliance with the law.

We know, or at least we can certainly strongly infer, that they are not. And I think it's time that the State Department and the Biden administration be exposed. You know, I was thinking about this, Jordan. You look at the activities that we're engaged in here. We're dealing with it in Congress. You addressed a letter to the White House. We've dealt with it at the United Nations. So one of the things here, Andy, very quickly, is we are taking direct action on this, and we've heard from over 630,000 people.

Yes, that's a significant amount of people who want to know exactly what we want to know. Who decided to omit the Palestinian Authority terrorism from the report to Congress? What documents reflect the decision to delete?

Who overruled career diplomats? Where are the papers? Where is the paper trail?

Where are the back channels? We're going to find out. The next actions court. Yeah, this is what we do at the ACLJ. So we're reporting you. The news is being reported today. We will be taking action on it. That's what we do. We are not just a talk show.

We're not just here for entertainment or to get you up to date. We're also to do the work. And that's why we have so many donors and supporters out there who support our work financially. And if you're able to do that right now, it's a great time because the entire month of July is a matching challenge month.

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