A video released by the IDF shows 14-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Mohammed Rabea throwing rocks at passing Israelis on the outskirts of Turmus Aiya in Judea and Samaria. These weren’t mere pebbles but dangerous, large rocks that could kill. Facing a lethal threat, IDF soldiers opened fire and killed Rabea.
Palestinian rock throwing is a daily incident in Judea and Samaria. This incident, however, was different due to Rabea’s American citizenship. Reportedly, before turning into a terrorist, he grew up in New Jersey.
When an IDF soldier kills an American citizen, the world’s attention is directed toward the incident. Some people look at Rabea’s rock throwing and killing as a tragic repercussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while others see it as a failure of American peacekeeping efforts.
Why was a 14-year-old Palestinian-American trying to kill Jews in Judea and Samaria?
The Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act of 2020 established two special funds to support programs that encourage peaceful coexistence and expand economic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.
The legislation authorized $50 million annually for five years, divided among the two funds to support joint programs. The funds support projects to help build the foundation for peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians and can also be used for organizations bringing together Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.
The bill is named after the late Rep. Nita Lowey, a Democratic congresswoman from New York from 1989 until 2021. Lowey was a staunch supporter of Israel, even breaking with Democratic president Barack Obama by opposing his 2015 Iran deal.
Lowey spoke often about peace between Israelis and Palestinians: “A genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians can only be achieved through a negotiated settlement between the parties themselves.”
Before she retired, Lowey advocated for the passage of the bill that would later be named after her: “It’s my fervent wish that before I retire, I will have helped cement congressional support for your work through the passage of the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act.”
Congressman Steny Hoyer’s statement mourning Lowey’s death summarized her rationale for championing MEPPA. Lowey believed that fostering grassroots engagement between Israelis and Palestinians is vital to the security of both peoples and the region.
AT THE start of his tenure as US secretary of state, Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration had canceled more than 80% of all US Agency for International Development programs. Secretary Rubio posted on X/Twitter, “The 5200 contracts that are now canceled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve (and in some cases even harmed) the core national interests of the United States.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that “all of the peace-building groups supported through the MEPPA fund have had their grants canceled.”
The same report listed some of the organizations supported by the fund that had their aid cut: The Parents Circle-Families Forum, which amplified the calls of young Israelis and Palestinians calling for nonviolence; Women Wage Peace, whose founder, Vivian Silver, was targeted and killed by Palestinians in the October 7, 2023 attacks; the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, EcoPeace, which uses sustainability as a centerpiece for relationship-building; and Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow, which teaches coding.
Some organizations and individuals are lobbying to restore funding to the Lowey fund. Before deciding whether to restore the money, though, it is incumbent on the State Department to assess the funds’ effectiveness in bringing grassroots engagement between Israelis and Palestinians and whether that should be encouraged.
The fund has faced criticism for not being a serious agent of change. Samer Sinijlawi, a Palestinian activist and former Fatah member, said, “MEPPA didn’t want to do something serious; it was just cosmetic.” Some argue that its people-to-people approach doesn’t address structural problems in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like Palestinian support for terrorism.
Gabby Deutch reported that in response to a question about whether organizations that do not support a two-state solution could be supported through MEPPA, a USAID official said, “Any application must be committed to a two-state solution.”
With the Trump administration no longer supporting a two-state solution, a requirement to support the two-state solution is inconsistent with American policy and excludes many effective organizations.
A recent New York Sun report revealed that millions of dollars from the Lowey fund went to extremist Palestinian organizations like “Tomorrow’s Youth Organization,” whose executive director raps about his hatred of Israel. This organization, and others like it, cannot be considered as bringing grassroots engagement between Israelis and Palestinians.
The ineffective characteristic of the Nita Lowey fund
THE MOST ineffective characteristic of the Nita Lowey fund is that it doesn’t bring the Israeli settler and Palestinian communities together. Many of the “Palestinians” brought together with Israelis were actually Arab citizens of Israel who live alongside Israelis.
Bringing together different segments of Israeli society is important, but it cannot be considered bringing grassroots engagement between Israelis and Palestinians, nor can it hope to achieve peace between communities that are currently at violent odds with each other.
While critics of the fund can provide tangible examples of how the fund was set up in ways to never achieve its goals, it is challenging for advocates of the Nita Lowey fund to list its achievements or how it has advanced the cause of peace. Its programs seem to focus more on gender empowerment, climate crises, and hi-tech classes, rather than actual peace initiatives that bring enemies to the same table, even to the same ping-pong table.
The 14-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Mohammed Rabea should never have been trying to kill innocent Israelis. Had the Nita Lowey fund focused more of its efforts on finding and connecting Palestinian youth at risk of being indoctrinated to hate Jews and bringing them together to meet Jewish settlers, maybe Rabea would still be alive today.
Many suggest the Trump administration’s scrapping of the Lowey Fund was a positive step in eliminating waste and removing a program that was counterproductive to its goals.
Another approach would be to reform the program to bring settler and Palestinian communities in Judea and Samaria/the West Bank together, focus on activities that center around peace and cooperation more than tangential social issues, and ensure that organizations and those that run them that support hate and violence are not funded.
The funds and their grants would require new management that can think outside the box and innovatively. In this way, the fund’s purpose and Nita Lowey’s goal of fostering grassroots engagement between Israelis and Palestinians can be achieved.
The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, where she lives with her husband and six children.
