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Sep 9, 2026

Three Republicans and Three Democrats Tell Rubio and Bessent to Press Israel to Release the Palestinian Authority's Withheld Tax Revenues — Warning That the West Bank's "Fiscal Collapse" Would Serve "Extremist and Iran-Backed Groups, Not Israel, Nor the United States"

On September 9, 2026, six members of the House — three Republicans and three Democrats — sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging the administration to press Israel to stop withholding billions of dollars in "clearance revenues," the customs and tax receipts Israel collects on the Palestinian Authority's behalf and has increasingly held back, pushing the PA toward insolvency. The letter was led by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Craig Goldman (R-TX), co-chairs of the Congressional Abraham Accords Caucus, and co-signed by Republican Reps. Ann Wagner (R-MO) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA). "Continued withholding of billions in clearance revenues risks accelerating the West Bank's fiscal collapse," the lawmakers wrote — "an outcome that would serve the interests of extremist and Iran-backed groups, not Israel, nor the United States." They asked Rubio and Bessent to work with Israel and the PA on "practical, security-conscious mechanisms that keep clearance revenues flowing to legitimate Palestinian institutions while ensuring none are diverted to terror financing," and argued that "despite its significant shortcomings and flaws, the PA remains the only current viable governing alternative to Hamas." The Times of Israel called it a rare bipartisan critique of Israeli policy from members who are otherwise among Israel's firmest supporters in Congress. The letter came as the administration was escalating its financial campaign against Iran's regional proxies — the State and Treasury departments launched "Operation Economic Outcast" against Hezbollah and Kata'ib Hezbollah financing on September 10 — and amid a separate fight over Israeli settlement policy with Britain. Neither the Israeli government nor the State Department had publicly responded as of September 11.

“Supporting Israel's security and defeating terrorist groups is central to America's foreign policy. Economic instability in the West Bank risks creating a vacuum that Hamas and other Iranian-backed terrorist organizations could exploit.”
Craig Goldman (R-TX) · Sep 9, 2026

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palestinian-authority

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3 statements

Sep 9, 2026· Updated

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel Says the British Government's "Jew Hate … Knows No Boundaries" — Aimed at a Jewish Foreign Secretary — and When Britain Bans West Bank Settlement Goods Two Days Later, He Warns of "Repercussions" and a Florida Congressman Threatens to Cut Britain Off From "Billions of Dollars"

On Tuesday, September 8, 2026, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that the United Kingdom will ban imports of all goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, along with services — financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising — that support them. Miliband, who is Jewish, told Parliament that "there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists" and that the government's "argument is not with the people of Israel … our argument is with the conduct of its government." He said France and Canada would follow. Prime Minister Andy Burnham briefed President Trump by phone on Monday before the announcement; Downing Street's readout did not describe Trump's response, and the Trump administration had privately urged London not to proceed. Israel's finance minister called for expelling the British ambassador and its security minister urged closing the British consulate in East Jerusalem. The American response came from the U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem and a Florida congressman. Two days earlier, on September 6, Ambassador Mike Huckabee had responded to a Miliband video describing medicines being blocked from Gaza by posting on X: "The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts." On the morning of the announcement Huckabee told the BBC's Today programme the ban was "a discrimination against the Jewish people," that "I don't know if they have thought it through," and that "the UK is a sovereign country; they can do what they want, but so is the US" — warning Britain could face "repercussions or retaliations" and suggesting states like Florida could act on their own. Rep. Randy Fine, who as a Florida legislator wrote the state's anti-boycott law, posted Monday night that any British company forced to comply would be barred from doing business with Florida's state and local governments: "Florida is one of Britain's largest trading partners. They should understand that their vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars." The episode lands as the Senate weighs a Democratic resolution on West Bank settlements and after the E1 settlement tenders that Britain cited as its trigger. No member of Congress had publicly criticized Huckabee's "Jew hate" remark about a Jewish foreign secretary as of the announcement, and the State Department had not issued its own statement on the British measures.

“I'll be speaking to Israel, I'll be speaking to them, and I'll find out what's their thinking... I understand what's going on. But I want to find out why all of a sudden has that happened.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 9, 2026

Israel Opens Bidding to Build 1,234 Homes in E1 — the Corridor That Would Sever the West Bank — and 29 Senate Democrats Tell It to Rescind the Tenders While the State Department Pointedly Says Nothing About E1

On Aug. 18, 2026, Israel's Construction and Housing Ministry published a tender inviting contractors to build seven residential compounds totaling 1,234 housing units in E1, the tract of occupied West Bank land east of Jerusalem that every U.S. administration since Clinton has treated as a red line. Bids are due Oct. 19. Building E1 would wall occupied East Jerusalem off from Bethlehem and Ramallah and cut the northern West Bank from the southern one — which is why successive American governments, Republican and Democratic alike, have pressed Israel not to develop it. The Trump administration's response was conspicuously narrow. Asked about the tenders, the State Department restated existing language — that the United States "does not support Israel annexing the West Bank" — without mentioning E1 at all. On Aug. 28, Sen. Ruben Gallego led a statement signed by 29 congressional Democrats calling on Israel to withdraw the tenders outright. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who has pushed hardest in the Senate on West Bank settler violence, had already gone further, calling E1 a violation of international law that would leave Israel "an apartheid, pariah state." No Republican member of Congress is on record objecting to the tenders.

“We urge the Israeli government to immediately rescind these tenders, halt settlement expansion in the West Bank, and take urgent action to rein in settler violence.”
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

Eleven Senate Democrats Invoke a Cold War-Era Human Rights Law to Force a Floor Vote on Israel — Demanding the State Department Account for Nine Americans Killed in the West Bank

On August 27, 2026, Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced their intent to introduce a privileged resolution under Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act requiring the State Department to report to Congress on escalating violence in the West Bank — including the killings of at least nine American citizens there since 2022, investigations (or the absence of them) into killings by Israeli settlers and security forces, and Israel's detention of Palestinian children. Section 502B(c) lets any senator force a floor vote on a demand for a human rights report about a country receiving U.S. security assistance. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has ten days to act on the resolution; if it does not, the resolution can be brought straight to the floor. If it passes, the administration has 30 days to submit the report or certain security assistance to Israel is cut off. Eight more senators joined as original cosponsors: Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Peter Welch (D-VT). No Republican senator had publicly responded to the resolution as of the announcement.

“We write to reiterate our alarm about the potential for a dangerous collapse in the West Bank now that the only two Israeli banks providing vital services have indicated difficulties with banking waivers.”
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) · Aug 28, 2026

Forty Members of Congress, Six of Them Senators, Tell Rubio to Get a 20-Year-Old American Out of an Israeli Military Prison Where She Has Been Held Without Charge Since June

On August 25, 2026, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) led 40 members of Congress — including six senators — in a bicameral letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding the immediate and permanent release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen held in Israeli military detention without charge. Safi, an honors psychology student at Birzeit University whose family lives in Florida, was taken from her family's home near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank at about 3 a.m. on June 2, 2026, in a series of Israeli raids targeting Birzeit students. She was moved to Ofer prison and then to the Moscovia interrogation center in Jerusalem. She has never been charged. The letter says Safi "has described horrific conditions and violence by guards in Israeli military detention, including frequent physical assault, gas and stun grenades thrown in overcrowded cells, and lack of food and water." Safi has familial Mediterranean fever, a severe chronic condition requiring daily medication, regular monitoring and recurring specialized biologic treatment abroad — which is why the signers frame the delay itself as the danger. The letter is the escalation point of a campaign that has been building since June. Sen. Chris Van Hollen was among the first to demand her release and has since called for the resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee over his silence on detained Americans. Rep. Ayanna Pressley pressed the administration publicly in August. On August 18, 102 rights groups including CAIR wrote to Rubio making the same demand. The August 25 letter is the first time the ask has come from both chambers at this scale.

“Every day that Sama remains wrongfully detained in these inhumane conditions, she is at greater risk of irreversible and life-threatening repercussions.”
Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) · Aug 25, 2026

Israeli Settlers Besiege a Palestinian-American's West Bank Home for Nine Days, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee — a Champion of the Settlement Movement — Calls Them "Israeli Terrorists"

Beginning Sunday, August 9, 2026, dozens of Israeli settlers surrounded three Palestinian homes in Ras al-Ayn, on the edge of the West Bank village of Qusra near Nablus, pitching a tent outside, throwing stones, cutting water and electricity lines and blocking the roads. Fifteen people were trapped inside as food and water ran out. One of the houses belongs to Loui Ridi, a 46-year-old Palestinian American who grew up in Qusra and now lives in Toledo, Ohio; he watched the siege on his home security cameras for seven nights before boarding a flight from Detroit and reaching the house on the evening of August 17. On August 13, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — an outspoken supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank who as a matter of practice calls the territory Judea and Samaria — posted that the embassy had asked the IDF and Israel Police to "remove the Israeli terrorists doing this," calling the siege a "horrific act of terror" with "no excuse for such thuggish behaviour." He simultaneously defended the broader settler movement, drawing a line between "settlers" and a small minority of "unsettlers." The rebuke was unusually sharp for the ambassador, and came six days after Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called on him to resign over what Van Hollen described as a pattern of failing to defend American citizens killed or mistreated in the West Bank — nine Americans killed there since January 2022, with no one held responsible. Washington privately pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn the siege publicly; he did not, two months out from an Israeli election in which settler voters matter to his coalition. On August 17, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the siege "unacceptable" and urged the Trump administration to compel Israel to protect Palestinian civilians.

“The ongoing siege of Palestinian homes in the West Bank by violent, lawbreaking settlers is unacceptable. Enough.”
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) · Aug 17, 2026