AP wrote about the Palestinian teacher's strike a couple of weeks ago.
Palestinian public schools in the West Bank have been closed since Feb. 5 in one of the longest teachers’ strikes in recent memory against the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority. Teachers’ demands for a pay raise have escalated into a protest movement that has vexed the increasingly autocratic Palestinian self-rule government as it plunges deeper into an economic crisis.
The self-rule government, limping along as it struggles with an economic slowdown and soaring debt, argues it cannot afford to pay all its employees. Earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government further crippled the authority when it decided to deduct an additional 50 million shekels (over $14 million) each month from the tax revenues it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf, among other punitive measures.“We are facing dangers from declining donor support and an enemy that denies our existence and perpetuates our financial crisis with unfair cuts,” said government spokesman Ibrahim Melhem. “We have done everything we can.”
The European Union (EU) called for an immediate solution on Friday to the ongoing two-month-long Palestinian teachers' strike."We are aware of the teachers' demands, as well as the chronic financial crisis facing the Palestinian Authority. We will continue our communication with the Palestinian government, and we will discuss the possibility of accelerating the disbursement of European contributions to help the Palestinian Authority in this critical situation," [the statement said.]
Seven percent of the PA budget goes to terrorists and their families. That is about $350 million a year. Those hundreds of millions of dollars would easily cover the teachers' demands for a 15% pay hike, which would cost only about $60 million a year. (Articles say that about 40,000 teachers are on strike and they average about $870 a month salary.)
If the Palestinian Authority would stop financially supporting terror, the teachers could be paid and a million students could return to school. And the PA would have hundreds of millions of dollars more for other essential services.
Yet no one dares suggest this.
Why not?
The EU is very concerned about the strike. They are in talks with the Palestinian leaders about it. Yet they don't even mention the simplest solution of ending "pay for slay" - instead blaming Israel for withholding tax revenue that is going towards terrorists and their kin.
For its part, the Palestinian government is telling its people that paying terrorists is an infinitely higher priority than educating children. And the children are getting the message loud and clear.
Additionally, some of these bored children decide to liven things up by attacking Israeli soldiers, with predictable results. Why not? School is for idiots - the adults say martyrdom is more important, and murderers make far more money than the suckers who stay in school and get a regular job when they graduate.
This is a deeply sick society that rewards murdering Jews and doesn't care about educating their own children. But that support for terror is so embedded in Palestinian life, and so accepted as normal, that its main funders don't even consider broaching the subject.
Neither does the World Bank. Neither does the International Monetary Fund. And the media simply calls this monetary support for terror "welfare payments."
Its much easier to blame Israel for the budget crisis than to blame the PA, since no one expects the PA to act like responsible adults with their money anyway.
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