On November 18, the Palestinian propaganda outlet, Ma’an News Agency, reported that Israel had cut power to the West Bank town of Jericho due to unpaid electric bills. Palestinian officials in the affected area appealed to Palestinian Authority strongman Mahmoud Abbas to pay the arrears of nearly $200,000. Failure to do so they added, would affect irrigation systems and cause irreparable damage to agricultural lands.

But as the Palestinians have demonstrated time and again, their budgetary priorities lie perniciously elsewhere. While Palestinians were starved of electricity due to the malfeasance of their own government, the Palestinian Authority was busy doling out cash, care of the U.S. taxpayer, to terrorists recently freed by Israel as a result of pressure from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

On November 18, the Times of Israel reported that 26 terrorists recently released by Israel and convicted of particularly ghoulish crimes were given lump sums of at least $50,000 a piece and cushy civil service jobs within the Palestinian Authority. Some were given lump sums of $60,000. That translates to over $1,300,000 — more than six times the amount needed to restore electricity to those without power in Jericho. To the Holocaust-denying, fascist-admiring Abbas, critical infrastructure plays second fiddle to funding terrorism.

In reality, however, it is the U.S. State Department that plays a central role in facilitating Palestinian Authority terrorism.  A lawsuit by an Israeli civil rights group on behalf of Americans killed or injured by Palestinians alleges that the State Department is violating its own laws in failing to properly exercise minimal oversight over vast sums doled out to the Palestinian Authority and related Palestinian entities. As a result, money is being diverted to fund, directly and indirectly, Palestinian terrorism directed against Israelis and U.S. citizens. The clearest example of this is the way the Palestinian Authority uses foreign aid money to incentivize terrorism at the expense of basic infrastructure, the Jericho electricity crisis being the latest example.

An excellent article by Michael Dickson highlights the way the Palestinian Authority is utilizing every asset at its disposal to demonize Jews and Israel. In every sphere, from health and education to sport and the arts, the Palestinian Authority has engaged in systematic vitriol whose rhetoric is matched only by the likes of Joseph Goebbels.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that Palestinian terrorism continues unabated. From the horrific stabbing of a sleeping bus passenger to the firebombing of a couple on a routine drive, the violence has stretched the bounds of depravity, even by Palestinian standards.

The uptick in violence can also be attributed to John Kerry, who recently parroted the Palestinian Authority’s talking points lock, stock and barrel, while ignoring continued Palestinian incitement, among other malevolent transgressions. Kerry essentially torpedoed his own peace initiative by providing the Palestinian Authority political cover to harden its already unreasonable and unrealistic demands, which include, among other things, flooding Israel with millions of hostile Arab “refugees” and placing Israel’s ancestral capital under Muslim rule. Considering past Arab pronouncements (in Arabic to Arab audiences) it appears that these extreme positions are merely the first stage in a multi-staged approach to dealing with the hated “Zionist entity.”

Jericho’s electricity problems are symptomatic of a diseased and depraved Palestinian culture, one consumed by hate and a desire to obliterate another people. The sooner we come to terms with this fact and address the issue in an honest manner, unhampered by the doctrine of political correctness, the sooner a resolution to the Palestinian problem can be found.