A common trope in the United States is that teachers should be paid like basketball players. In the Palestinian Authority, it’s terrorists, not athletes.
A new policy paper by the Israel Defense and Security Forum (ISDF), an organization of retired Israeli military leaders (known in Hebrew as “Habithonistim”), delves into some of the implications of the PA/PLO’s “Pay to Slay” program, which rewards terrorists for killing Israelis and Americans.
While anti-Israel activists attack the Jewish state over the state of health care in the PLO territories, the PLO that chooses to spend its money on terrorism, not health care.
According to the ISDF report:
“In 2018, the budget of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which is responsible for the health of 5 million inhabitants, stood at $530 million USD ($111.6 USD per capita per year), while the budget paying beneficiaries of terrorists, which serves 12,200 incarcerated and released prisoners, and 37,500 family members of “martyrs” and wounded terrorists, which constitute a minuscule part of the population, stands at $370 million USD ($8,820 USD per capita per year).”
In other words, the PA budget allocates nearly 80 times more per capita for terrorism than for health.
As far as teachers go, things don’t get much better.
“In comparison to the world average, the income level of a Palestinian terrorist serving 30 years in prison and above is ranked the 18th in the world. He/she earns 4 times the average Palestinian salary and 8 times the average Palestinian minimum wage,” according to the report.
Thus, it continues, “The PA’s policy makes it 5 times more profitable to become a convicted terrorist than a teacher.”
The report also notes that terrorists earn many times more than doctors or engineers.
You get what you pay for, and the PA/PLO chooses to fund terrorism. And so it gets world-class terrorists and very poor health care and education.
“Upon their 30th year in prison, their salaries reach $3,750 USD per month, equivalent to the salary of the President of the Palestinian Supreme Court, and eight times the average minimum salary in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”). It is also 4 times the per capita average monthly salary earned by Palestinians,” the report notes.
Priorities.
All of this is funded by U.S., European and Japanese taxpayers. And under the Biden administration, the flow of money to the terrorists is back on. All the talk of humanitarian aid can’t disguise the simple fact that the PA relies on foreign aid to provide its basic services while it focuses on terrorism and murder.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.
This article was first published by FrontPage Magazine.
