U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) speaks at the annual Legislative Breakfast of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York on Sunday. Photo: Maxine Dovere.

The recent formation of a unity government between Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and the terrorist group Hamas continues to spark questions on America annual funding of the PA to the tune of $500 million.

In an op-ed for Israel National News, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and Daniel Mandel, director of ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy, write the 1993 Oslo Accords “require the outlawing and dismantling of terrorist groups, the arrest and extradition of terrorists, and the banning of such groups from elections.”

“Yet, when the PA partners with Hamas, genocidally-inclined terrorists with a record of scores suicide bombings, over 10,000 rocket assaults from Gaza and the murder of over a thousand Israelis to its account, neither condemnation nor penalty follows from the U.S., the EU, the UN,” they write.

Over at The Algemeiner, investigative author Edwin Blackspotlights the role played by U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY).

“Newspapers have been filled with headlines recently about how Congress is preparing to defund the Palestinian Authority because various Federal laws make continued cash infusions under present conditions illegal, and because further money would be antithetical to America’s pro-peace and anti-terrorism policy,” writes Black.

“While many of the names of House and Senate leaders have been bandied about, most Congressional sources arguably agree that the most important lawmaker is Rep. Nita Lowey, the ranking Democrat from Westchester County, New York,” he writes. “Lowey sits on both the full Appropriations Committee and the key subcommittee governing State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. Foreign assistance begins and dies in this subcommittee. The Republican side of the aisle has been lining up staunchly against continuing fundingand invoking the mandatory legal brakes. This includes subcommittee chairwoman Kay Granger from Dallas, who has asserted that unification ‘puts in jeopardy future U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority.'”

Given the Obama administration’s willingness to continue funding the new Hamas-aligned PA, Black writes that “all eyes now fall on Lowey.”

“For her, this is a leadership moment. Will she break with her party and the administration?” he asks.