RUTHFULLY YOURS

Did Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas halt payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families? Or is he just trying to fool the Americans to persuade them to resume financial aid to the PA?

On February 10, the American media outlet Axios reported:

“Abbas has issued a decree revoking the system of payments to families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or to families of Palestinians who were killed or wounded during attacks against Israelis.”

The payment program is known as “Pay for Slay.”

PA officials told Axios that they hope Abbas’s decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with Congress and lead to the resumption of US financial aid to the PA.

In 2018, US President Donald Trump signed into law the Taylor Force Act to stop American aid to the PA until it ceases paying stipends through the PA’s “Martyrs Fund” to individuals who commit acts of terrorism and the families of deceased terrorists.

Abbas, however, has not ended the “Pay for Slay” program. He simply changed its name, with the aim of deceiving and misleading the US and other Western donor countries.

Abbas’s move is not a policy change. It is nothing but a sneaky maneuver designed to attract more international funding.

The Palestinian Authority has made it clear that it is making this change not because it believes it is wrong to fund terror, but because it needs US money. The Arabic version of the decree clearly states that the main goal is to “restore international aid programs that were suspended in the past years, which we need to implement development and economic recovery programs.”

“Abbas claims to have ended the ‘Pay for Slay’ program – but it’s just a rebranding,” according to the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy.

“Terrorists and their families will still receive payments, just through a ‘foundation’ under Abbas’s control instead of a ministry. The new foundation remains tied to the PA, making this a deceptive move, not real reform. The PA must truly end terror payments and incitement — not just change how they disguise them.”

The reports about the alleged cancellation of the payments to the terrorists were based on a “presidential decree” issued by Abbas on February 10:

“President Mahmoud Abbas… issued a decision-law to cancel articles contained in the laws and regulations related to the system of paying financial allowances to the families of prisoners, martyrs, and the wounded… transferring the computerized cash assistance program, its database, and its financial, local, and international allocations from the Ministry of Social Developments to the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment.

“All families that benefited from previous laws, legislation, and regulations are subject to the same standards applied without discrimination to all families benefiting from protection and social welfare programs,”

Abbas is actually saying that the payments will no longer be made by the PA government, but by a new NGO managed by a Board of Trustees appointed by him. The move is aimed at avoiding being directly blamed by the US for maintaining this program under the pretext that the allowances are now coming from private parties, not the PA government. The decree simply “restructures” the payment system so that its beneficiaries will receive the same benefits from the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment.

“Did the Palestinian Authority stop paying imprisoned terrorists?” wrote Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which played a vital role in exposing the “Pay for Slay” program.

No. The PA has not stopped paying imprisoned terrorists, but because of US pressure, it will be paying from a different account that also includes welfare recipients. According to several PA/Fatah sources, the salaries will remain very high, identical to what they were, while according to a different reading of the law, they will be based on social welfare needs. The law seems intentionally ambiguous.

“The difference between the PA terror payments for people who murder and its welfare payments for people in need is shocking.

“The PA currently rewards terrorists in prison between 1,400 to 12,000 shekels [$400 – $3500] a month, depending on how long there have been incarcerated. PA welfare benefits based on financial need range from 250 to 600 shekels/month [$75 – $170].”

While several international media outlets continue to argue that Abbas halted the payments to the terrorists, Monica al-Jaghoub, a senior official with the PA’s ruling Fatah faction (headed by Abbas), denied the claims. In an interview with the Saudi-owned Al-Hadath TV channel, al-Jaghoub said:

“These reports are false. President Abbas did not stop the salaries of anyone. President Abbas issued a law transferring these salaries, in their entirety, to another body. Instead of receiving their salaries from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Commission, the prisoners will from now on be paid by the social welfare system. The salaries will not be affected.”

Palestinian columnist Dalal Iriqat wrote:

“The decree may be to restructure the mechanism for proving support to prisoners and families of martyrs in a way that reduces the financial and political targeting of the Palestinian Authority… Instead of disbursing allocations directly, released prisoners will be included in ‘economic empowerment’ programs, a step that may be an attempt to circumvent Israeli measures…”

Iriqat is referring to the Israeli law passed in 2018 to deduct the amount that the PA pays to the terrorists from the taxes and tariffs Israel collects on behalf of the PA.

The reality is that Abbas did not — and never will — stop the payments to terrorists and their families. He knows that the moment he does so, his people will revolt against him, denounce him as a traitor, and try to kill him.

It is time to remind the world of what Abbas himself said in the past:

“If we had one single penny left, we would spend it on the families of the martyrs and the prisoners. We consider the martyrs and the prisoners to be stars in the sky of the Palestinian people and struggle. We value and respect this group of people. They way we see it, they are paving the path for the liberation of Palestine for the sake of future generations.”

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.