The Palestinian Authority has reportedly reached out to the Trump administration and senior members of Congress, saying it will drop its so-called “Martyrs’ Fund” that rewards terrorists for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
The P.A. said it would change its system of payments to Palestinian prisoners convicted of terror attacks so that the money would not be based on the acts they committed but on their socioeconomic status, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Tuesday.
Senior sources in Ramallah said that in exchange for this concession, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is asking that the United States repeal the Taylor Force Act, which cuts financial aid to the P.A. until it ends its payments to terrorists and their families.
Abbas also wants Washington to lift other sanctions imposed on the P.A.
In addition, he wants Israel to stop deducting tax money from the P.A. equal to the amount the P.A. pays to terrorists. The Knesset passed a law to that effect in 2018.
Although Israel and the United States have targeted the P.A.’s “pay-for-slay” program, the Fatah Party-led authority has shown determination in maintaining it. Abbas said in October 2019, “The martyrs and their families are sacred, [and so are] the wounded and the prisoners. We must pay all of them. If one penny remains in our hands it is for them and not for the living.”
Abbas has made good on his pledge. The P.A. has cut salaries to its employees to ensure that imprisoned terrorists are paid in full. When P.A. banks risked falling afoul of international terror financing laws for having bank accounts for imprisoned terrorists, the P.A. started a new bank dedicated solely to paying out terrorist stipends.
Many of the terrorists recently released by Israel in the ceasefire agreement are millionaires, flush with cash from years of receiving monthly “pay for slay” stipends, a Jerusalem-based watchdog group revealed on Feb. 5.
In total, the terrorists received $141,837,087, or more than half a billion shekels, Palestinian Media Watch found. Of those, 316, or nearly half, received more than a million shekels.
