Since coming to office, the Biden administration has directed more than a billion dollars to the Palestinian Authority, both directly and via UN organizations. Palestinian terrorism, meanwhile, has only intensified—as evidenced by the murder of an Israeli police officer in Tel Aviv last weekend. Victoria Coates and Congressman Chip Roy comment:

Contrary to the Washington establishment’s preconceived notions of what works in Israel, Trump-era policy proved that defunding the Palestinians for their venomous anti-America rhetoric and abuse of American funds to reward terrorists and their families does not in fact result in a significant spike in violence. This despite theoretically incendiary corollary policies such as moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognizing the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. Rather than stoking Palestinian violence, Trump’s policies led to the first peace deals between Israel and Arab states in 25 years.

Nonetheless, a top foreign-policy priority for the Biden administration was to reverse this progress and restore Palestinian funding, starting with $15 million in emergency coronavirus relief in March 2021.

In reality, Biden’s misguided policy has achieved almost the opposite of its aims. The last year has been the deadliest for both Israelis and Palestinians in decades. In Jenin, for example, which was the direct beneficiary of much of the UNRWA funding, the Palestinian Authority has lost security control and ceded space to Iranian-backed militants who packed the camp with fighters and weapons until the Israel Defense Forces moved in to clean them out.

How did Qatar, an American ally, become the nerve center of the leading Palestinian jihadist organization? Natalie Ecanow explains.

When Jordan expelled Hamas in 1999, Qatar offered sanctuary to the group, which had already become notorious for using suicide-bombing attacks over the previous decade. . . . Hamas chose to relocate to Syria. However, that arrangement lasted for only a decade. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the terror group found its way back to Qatar.

In 2003, Hamas leaders reportedly convened in Qatar after the IDF attempted to eliminate Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, following a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed seven people, including two American citizens. This episode led to one of the first efforts by Qatar to advocate for its terror proxy.

Thirteen years and five wars between Hamas and Israel later, Qatar’s support for Hamas has not waned. . . . To this day, Qatari officials maintain that the office came at the “request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” However, an Obama White House official asserted that there was never any request from Washington. . . . Inexplicably, the United States government continues to rely on Qatar to negotiate for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, even as the regime hosts the terror group’s political elite.

A reckoning is needed between our two countries. Congressional hearings, legislation, executive orders, and other measures to regulate relations between our countries are long overdue.