On March 8, 2016, Texas native Taylor Force—an Eagle Scout, West Point graduate, and veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—was murdered in a knife attack while on a Vanderbilt University trip to Tel Aviv, Israel. His attacker, Bashar Masalha, was a Palestinian man who was reportedly a member of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization. Because Masalha died after stabbing Taylor and wounding ten others, the Palestinian Authority paid his family from their “Martyrs Fund”—an incentive program to encourage Palestinians to martyr themselves in the cause of killing Jews or other civilians. Those who oppose the murder of innocents call the Palestinian Martyr’s Fund “Pay to Slay.”

Martyr’s Fund payments generally include a lifelong monthly stipend and pension, free tuition, free health insurance, and a lifelong clothing allowance. Since Palestine has historically received hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars each year as “development aid,” Pay to Slay was essentially being subsidized with U.S. tax dollars. CBN’s Faith In Action delivered 23,124 petitions to Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) on December 22, 2017, asking that Congress act to stop Pay to Slay. On March 23, 2019, the Taylor Force Act was added to the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1625); President Trump signed the bill the same day and it became law (title X of division S of Public Law 115-141; 132 Stat. 1143).

Now, a financial loophole has come to light. Foreign financial institutions are still providing banking services to the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund and money is being funneled through the United States. They evade U.S. anti-terrorism sanctions by simply not having an “official presence” in the United States. The scheme only works, however, because banks in the U.S. allow the foreign financial institutions to keep “correspondent accounts” on U.S. soil.

In December 2021, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced legislation to put each Senator on-the-record and indicate their willingness (or lack thereof) to close the financial loophole that allows the Palestinian Martyrs Fund to pay bounties for murdering Jewish people and other innocent civilians. That legislation was called the Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act legislation, and it was reintroduced in subsequent sessions of Congress.