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CANBERRA, Australia – Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Monday announced the Australian government is cutting off direct aid to the Palestinians.

The Australians have been under pressure from U.S. lawmakers who implemented a similar measure in March. 

“Today I announce that the Australian Government has discontinued funding to the World Bank’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund for the Palestinian Recovery and Development Program,” Bishop said in a statement released on Monday night.

The moves reflects the Australians’ displeasure with the practice of the Palestinian Authority making payments to families of Palestinians ‘convicted of politically motivated violence.’ 

The Palestinian Authority says these people are often victims themselves. The Israeli army has a practise of demolishing the family homes of perpetrators of violence, regardless of whether other members of the families are involved in the violence, which the Israeli government, and U.S. lawmakers refer to as ‘terrorism.’

PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), in a speech read by his foreign affairs adviser Nabil Shaath in June last year, said: “Payments to support the families are a social responsibility to look after innocent people affected by the incarceration or killing of their loved ones.”

“It’s quite frankly racist rhetoric to call all our political prisoners terrorists,” Abbas said. “They are, in actuality, the victims of the occupation, not the creators of the occupation.”

Julie Bishop however disagrees.

“I wrote to the Palestinian Authority on 29 May, to seek clear assurance that Australian funding is not being used to assist Palestinians convicted of politically motivated violence,” Bishop said in her statement released on Monday night.

“I am confident that previous Australian funding to the PA through the World Bank has been used as intended. However, I am concerned that in providing funds for this aspect of the PA’s operations there is an opportunity for it to use its own budget to activities that Australia would never support.”

The squeeze on the Palestinians over the issue climaxed on Monday with the Australian government initiative, hot on the heels of the Taylor Force Act passed by the U.S. Congress, coinciding with a new law enacted in the Israeli Knesset on Monday which allows Israel to deduct amounts commensurate with those being paid to families of political violence, or ‘terrorism,’ from taxes and tariffs that the Israeli government collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Israel has often withheld taxes as a bargaining tool, or punitive measure, despite criticism that the funds they are handling are not the property of Israel but are the property of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel says it intends to dispurse monies deducted from the taxes and tariffs among Israeli victims of ‘terror.’

The Australian government, while taking a different tack, supports the principle that its funds should not be used for compensation to convicted felons. “Any assistance provided by the Palestine Liberation Organisation to those convicted of politically motivated violence is an affront to Australian values, and undermines the prospect of meaningful peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” Ms Bishop said.

“The Australian Government remains committed to supporting vulnerable Palestinians with access to basic services, including health care, food, water, improved sanitation and shelter. We will now direct our $10 million allocation to the United Nations’ Humanitarian Fund for the Palestinian Territories which supports these services.”

“The United Nations’ Humanitarian Fund helps 1.9 million people. Approximately 75 per cent of its funding will be spent in Gaza where the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate,” said the Australian foreign minister.

“The Australian Government has informed the PA and the World Bank of our decision,” she added.

While the Australian and the Israelis were joining the Americans on Monday in choking off aid to the Palestinians, a number of high profile U.S. Republican and Democrat officials, including a former Secretary of State, were calling on the U.S. government to reinstate funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency which were being directed to Palestinian aid.

“This financial gap puts into question the ability of UNRWA to continue to deliver education and health care services to millions of people, and has national security ramifications for our closest allies, including Israel and Jordan. We urge you to restore U.S. funding to help fill this gap,” Thomas Pickering and Edward Perkins, who served under President George H.W. Bush; for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Bill Richardson, who served under President Bill Clinton; John Negroponte, who served under President George W. Bush; and Susan Rice and Samantha Power, who served under President Barack Obama, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the UN NIkki Haley, forwarded on Monday.