JCPA: Incentivizing Terrorism: Palestinian Authority Allocations to Terrorists and their Families
The PA maintains longstanding legislation and payments to subsidize terrorists and their families. This amounts to an officially sanctioned PA government incentive system to kill Israelis. When I learned of this in November 2015, I was quite shocked. I proceeded to raise the issue with organized American Jewish community leaders and Israeli policymakers, and was told “everybody knows.” Disconcerted by my own lack of knowledge, I canvassed numerous American political leaders who, without exception, were unaware of the PA legislation/budget. The few leaders who were aware that the PA directly pays terrorists thought that the funding was only $5-6 million; they were shocked to learn that according to the official PA budget online, it was $300 million for 2016.Palestinians paid terrorists $1b in past 4 years, Knesset panel hears
During the past year, the prevailing opinion was that the wave of knifers against Israelis consisted of young and disaffected “lone wolves.” As I examined the issue more closely, I realized that the “incitement” is much more than just an errant cleric or wayward school board, but rather is an institutional campaign of violence against Israel, coordinated and funded by the PA itself. This “struggle” or war is endorsed by the Palestinian leadership, as evidenced by their 2004 legislation specifying, “The prisoners and released prisoners are a fighting sector and integral part of the fabric of Arab Palestinian society.” PA budget line items are earmarked for funding prisoners, released prisoners, and families of “martyrs.”
Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, my friend, led a distinguished career as an IDF intelligence officer at the most senior level, as well as a brilliant strategist, most recently serving as Director General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. In this study, he accurately presents the history and current state of the PA legislation/budget for terror, as well as policy recommendations.
The Palestinian Authority has paid out some NIS 4 billion — or $1.12 billion — over the past four years to terrorists and their families, a former director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and ex-head of the army’s intelligence and research division told a top Knesset panel on Monday.
Setting out the figures, Brig.-Gen (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the longer the period for which a Palestinian security prisoner is jailed, “the higher the salary… Anyone who has sat in prison for more than 30 years gets NIS 12,000 ($3,360) per month,” said Kuperwasser, according to the (Hebrew) NRG website. “When they’re released, they get a grant and are promised a job at the Palestinian Authority. They get a military rank that’s determined according to the number of years they’ve served in jail.”
Kuperwasser also told the committee that PA claims that the payments to terrorists’ families are social welfare benefits to the needy are false. The Palestinians’ own budgetary documents, he said, “clearly state that these are salaries and not welfare payments.”
Kuperwasser was briefing MKs days after US President Donald Trump visited Israel and held talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem. In an apparent public upbraiding of Abbas over the payments, Trump told him at their joint press conference: “Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded or rewarded.”
Corbyn attended terror conference after honouring Munich killer
Yesterday Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News he was “searching for peace” when he honoured a Palestinian terrorist involved in the Munich massacre. He was looking in some odd places…
Guido can reveal the next stop on Jezza’s 2014 Tunisia trip. After the wreath-laying ceremony, Corbyn attended a conference of Palestinian terrorists in Tunis. In his own words, the future Labour leader recalled hearing speeches from Hamas and the PFLP:
“The conference… heard opening speeches from Palestinian groups including… Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine”
Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation. The PFLP is a murderous terror group – also proscribed by the UK government – which has killed large numbers of civilians in bombings and armed attacks and aeroplane hijackings. In an article for the Morning Star, Corbyn described the conference as a “special event” and praised the “shared agenda and endeavour” and “the unity between all Palestinian factions”.
Corbyn also praised a speech given at the conference by Ramsey Clark, the lawyer of Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic. Clark famously said that “History will prove Milosevic was right”. Corbyn praised his speech at the conference as “very poignant and much appreciated”. Worth noting that Corbyn has also previously defended Milosevic.