Last week, U.S. Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) introduced H.R. 4391, to restrict U.S. aid to Israel if “Israeli military forces or police” engage in “physical violence” or use “military detention” against Palestinians under the age of 18.

 A day later, according to the Times of Israel, a 17-year-old Palestinian deliberately ran over two Israeli civilians (one of them an elderly man), then attempted to stab other Israelis, near the town of Efrat [pictured below]  The terrorist was then shot by Israeli soldiers, an act which apparently would trigger a cut-off of some U.S. aid if the McCollum bill becomes law. 

“In the wake of continued terrorist attacks by young Palestinians targeting Israeli citizens, the Simon Wiesenthal Center calls on Rep. McCollum and her co-sponsors* to withdraw the bill that parallels a global effort to cast Israel’s efforts to protect its citizens from terrorists’ attacks as child abuse. In fact, the proposed legislation would actually serve as enabler of the ongoing systematic child abuse of Palestinian children by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO.

“Palestinian youth do need a “Protection Act”—but not from Israelis,” Cooper continued. “They need protection from Hamas that uses them as human shields for terrorism and who send them to dig terror tunnels. They need protection from the brainwashing of the Palestinian Authority that    teaches them to deny the rights and humanity of their Jewish neighbors,” Rabbi Cooper concluded

*[Representatives Mark Pocan(D-WI), Earl Blumenauer(D-OR), André Carson(D-IN), John Conyers, Jr.(D-MI), Danny K. Davis(D-IL), Peter A. DeFazio(D-OR), Raul Grijalva(D-AZ), Luis V. Gutiérrez(D-IL, and Chellie Pingree(D-ME)].

See Rep. Mc Collum’s bill at: https://mccollum.house.gov/sites/mccollum.house.gov/files/documents/17.1107MCCOLL_005_xml.pdf

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).