The State Department has refused entry visas to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation for a second straight year, forcing the Palestinian leadership to address the UN General Assembly by video link.
For the second year in a row, the United States has refused entry visas to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian delegation, shutting the group out of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and forcing Abbas to deliver his address by video link.
The refusal came as world leaders arrived for the annual high-level debate. Israel's prime minister is expected to speak in person from the same podium that stays closed to the Palestinian leadership. The administration's position is straightforward: an American visa is a privilege, not a right, and Washington will not extend one to an Authority that still rewards terrorists and their families.
Palestinian officials condemned the decision, arguing that the United States is obligated under the host-country agreement to allow access to United Nations headquarters. Abbas is expected to address the assembly remotely, repeating the arrangement from a year ago.
The decision extends a visa restriction first applied to the Palestinian delegation before last year's General Assembly. The State Department has also widened the same restrictions across Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization officials, a signal that the policy is now a standing posture rather than a one-time answer to a single speech.
Washington has long used its visa authority to keep out foreign officials it considers tied to violence, terrorism financing, or corruption. Applying that standard to the Palestinian leadership has drawn protests from United Nations officials, who argue that denying entry to a delegation undermines the assembly's role as a forum where every member state can be heard.
Supporters of the policy see it the other way. They argue the Palestinian Authority has spent years treating international platforms as stages for attacks on Israel while continuing to fund the families of convicted attackers, and that a visa is the one form of leverage Washington can apply without cutting humanitarian programs.
At the center of the dispute is the Palestinian Authority's long-running system of stipends paid to families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned in attacks on Israelis. Congress targeted that system in 2018 with the Taylor Force Act, named for an American Army veteran murdered in a 2016 stabbing attack in Tel Aviv. The law cut United States economic assistance to the Authority until the payments stop.
The Authority has resisted dismantling the program for years, framing the payments as social support for families rather than compensation for violence. That argument has never satisfied Washington, and it is the reason successive administrations have kept the pressure on.
The practical effect is that Palestinian officials now argue their case from a screen instead of a seat. Their delegation can submit statements, circulate documents, and lobby member states, but it cannot work the corridors of the General Assembly in person during the one week each year when nearly every government on earth sits in the same building.
The visa fight lands in the middle of a broader argument over Israel policy in Washington. On Capitol Hill, a senior House Democrat is holding up a $2.8 billion sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, while both parties maneuver over sanctions, war powers, and aid before the midterm recess.
For the administration, the denial fits a pattern it has been content to advertise: tightening the rules on who gets in, and refusing to separate those rules from a government's conduct. Officials have pointed to the same logic behind visa restrictions imposed on other governments this year, including measures tied to land seizures and race-based discrimination.
Palestinian leaders say the decision pushes them further from direct negotiations and hands them another grievance to carry into the assembly, even if only by video. Israeli officials have said little in public, but the symbolism is stark: the Palestinian president watches from a screen while Israel's prime minister stands at the rostrum.
Two things matter in the days ahead. First, whether Abbas uses his remote address to announce a shift in Palestinian strategy, including a push for new recognition votes or a formal request for upgraded United Nations status. Second, whether Congress moves the visa restrictions from administrative policy into law, which would bind the hands of any future administration that might want to reverse them.
The Palestinian delegation will still be heard in New York. It simply will not be in the room. For now, the message from Washington is unchanged: the doors of the General Assembly stay open to the world, but not to a leadership that has not settled its accounts with terrorism.
The State Department has refused entry visas to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation for a second straight year, forcing the Palestinian leadership to address the UN General Assembly by video link.
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