State Department erases Palestinian Authority from website

The U.S. State Department recently removed the term “Palestinian Authority” from its website.

By World Israel News Staff

The U.S. State Department has removed the Palestinian Authority from its list of countries and areas on its website, Arutz7 reports on Sunday.

The Israeli news site didn’t say when the change was made but notes that “until recently” the word “Palestinians” appeared under the heading “Palestinian Authority.”

Under the Trump administration and the leadership of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the State Department has changed other terminology concerning Israel and the territories under Palestinian control.

In April 2018, the month that Pompeo took office, the State Department announced it would cease using the term “occupied” in references to various regions of Israel, including Judea and Samaria.

The credit there may go to U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who advised the department in December 2017 to stop using the “misleading” term “occupied.”

Relations between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump administration have deteriorated since December 2017, when the PA announced it would boycott the White House after the president said he would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

The U.S. administration took further steps against the PA, including cutting roughly $200 million in financial aid to it and the Gaza Strip in August 2018. One of the reasons cited was the PA’s “martyrs fund,” which provides money to terrorists and their families.

The PA was set up as part of the Oslo Accords. The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed the hope that it would fight terrorism. The opposite has occurred as the PA openly admits it’s funding terrorism.