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| Don't tell me how to spend the money the West sends me! |
The International Monetary Fund visited Israel and the territories this month to give advice on helping the Palestinian economy.
They issued a final statement with a summary of their findings. But there was something missing:
A single word about the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund or the other programs that pay terrorists and their families.
The PA spends about $270 million every year on prisoner salaries and "martyr" family payments, a significant chunk of the PA budget altogether (a few years ago, it was 8%, it has probably increased since then.) It is nearly 2% of the total Palestinian GDP!
This is similar to the April World Bank report that also didn't mention "Pay for Slay" as a potential target for cost cutting.
Mahmoud Abbas has said many times that the top priority of spending for the Palestinians is on paying these terrorists - more than healthcare, more than education, more than retirement benefits.
That appears to be the reason the IMF and World Bank don't bother making the recommendations to cut a program that throws hundreds of millions of dollars away annually to terrorists and their families - because they know that the PA will ignore them. But that is a profoundly bad reason - their job is to make the best recommendations they can, and then report if the PA refuses to comply.
By hiding a huge source of the PA's financial woes, these world financial organizations are not doing anyone any favors. On the contrary - they become complicit in supporting terrorism.
Say the truth, and let the PA defend the indefensible.
