WASHINGTON — Three Republican lawmakers on Wednesday joined three Democratic colleagues in the US House of Representatives to issue a rare critique of Israeli policy.

The six lawmakers penned a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging them to talk Israel out of withholding billions of dollars of tax revenues, in what has brought the Palestinian Authority to the brink of collapse.

“Continued withholding of billions in clearance revenues risks accelerating the West Bank’s fiscal collapse – an outcome that would serve the interests of extremist and Iran-backed groups, not Israel, nor the United States,” wrote Representatives Brad Schneider, Craig Goldman, Ann Wagner, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jimmy Panetta and Gus Bilirakis.

The 1990s Oslo Accords peace agreements tasked Israel with collecting Palestinian clearance revenues on the PA’s behalf and transferring them to Ramallah on a monthly basis. But since 2019 Jerusalem has been deducting portions that it says are equivalent to the amount the PA gives to the families of security prisoners and those killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel, including while carrying out deadly terror attacks.

In December 2022, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to have Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich lead the Finance Ministry as part of their coalition deal, giving authority over the clearance revenue transfers to a far-right lawmaker who has long advocated for bringing down the PA.

Smotrich began expanding the deductions from the clearance revenues — which make up the majority of the PA’s budget — and since May 2025 has stopped issuing the transfers completely.

The policy, together with other economic measures advanced by Smotrich,........

© The Times of Israel