The Palestinian Authority (PA) increased
its payments to terrorists and their families in 2018 by nearly $56M, according
to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Avi Dichter.
Dichter pointed out
that Mahmoud Abbas (President of the State of Palestine and Palestinian
National Authority) authorized the 2018 PA budget, and that there is a PA law
that says 7% of each budget must go to paying terrorists, or to their families,
if they’re killed in the act.
The increase “means that the PA will
employ more terrorists as PA workers,” Dichter said. “Except that the terrorists who work for the
PA have a special quality – they are employed both as dead and living terrorists.” Dichter added, “Murderers like the ones who
killed the Fogel family [two Palestinians killed five out of eight members of
the family in Itamar, including a three-month old, in 2011] are heroes to the
PA. This is not a whim. It’s in the PA’s constitution.”
The PA paid terrorists and their
families more than $347M in 2017. Terrorists
who have been sentenced to 3 to 5-years in Israeli prisons receive the average
income of a Palestinian, about $580 per month. The families of those who committed more severe
crimes and were involved in killing Israelis receive 5-times that each month
for the rest of their lives. Terrorists
receive more from the PA if they are married, for each child they have, if they
live in Jerusalem or if they’re an Israeli citizen.
A bill that passed a first reading – proposed
by Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern and Dichter – would require the Israeli government
to deduct the amount the PA paid to terrorists and their families from the taxes
and tariffs Israel collects for the PA. The
proposal was inspired by the Taylor Force Act, a US bill named after an
American victim of Palestinian terrorism, which would cut all US aid to the PA
until the terrorist payments are stopped.
Stern said when he presented the bill to the Knesset that “there is no
opposition or coalition” on the matter. “In
the current situation, there is an incentive for terrorism, which only pushes
away peace,” Stern said. “This bill is
not only meant to promote the security of citizens and residents of the State
of Israel, but to promote peace.”
According to Stern, Palestinians have
said when they were interrogated that they continued terrorism in order to go
to jail and get more money. “We can pay
back money, but we can’t bring back human lives taken by terrorism,” said Stern.
According to Youssef Jabareen, the
payments to terrorists and their families are similar to National Insurance
payments: “Their goal is to help the families so they don’t starve.”
Aida Touma-Sliman,
called the bill theft. “The proposal
says to ‘deduct,’ but really it means to steal,” she said. “This is the condescending attitude which
suits occupiers who think they can continue lashing out at another nation and
not admit that the occupation is the source of all injustice.”
Mossi Raz of Meretz argued that the
bill would be a violation of the Oslo Accords, in which Israel agreed to
collect the tax money for the PA.
The bill passed 52-10. There is a second version of the legislation,
drafted by the Defense Ministry, which the Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee is holding up, because it opposes an article in the proposal that
would grant the security cabinet the option of not deducting the funds.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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