Palestinian Social Welfare

"It seems that Israel wants to spark chaos in the Palestinian territories. From the beginning, we have said we want stability and calm. Despite that, Israel on every occasion is using lethal force against peaceful young protesters, and peaceful demonstrations are being suppressed with the power of weapons. This is not acceptable at all."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press

This photograph demonstrates what peaceful young protesters look like. The tires they set afire, the firebombs they lob toward IDF forces, and the rocks they hurl can do some pretty deep damage to human flesh. Two young men peacefully demonstrating as seen above, ages 17 and 19 were killed on Wednesday. The Israeli army explained a military checkpoint was being attacked with firebombs and they responded with live fire.

For the most part, when confronting crowds of peaceful rock-tossing 'youth' the security forces respond with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets. As for who is responsible for the violence, perhaps it is an administration that openly encourages violence, and rewards it handsomely. Israeli intelligence research has revealed that at least 4% of the PA's budget is set aside for salaries for imprisoned terrorists. Monthly transfers amount to about 17.5 shekels. This is the social assistance arm of the PA.

The data indicate that the support percentage is based on the number of years a prison sentence represents; the more serious crimes committed, the higher the social welfare salary in gratitude. The scale set by the PA means that an imprisoned terrorist serving over 30 years in an Israeli prison gets 12 thousand shekels monthly while those sentenced to 25 years receive 20 thousand, and those serving five to ten years, four thousand shekels.


Violence perpetrated against Israel must be acknowledged, honoured and handsomely remunerated. And those thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails to ensure they don't continue committing atrocities against Israeli citizens, and in penance for having done just that, can be assured of benign treatment, exposure to educational opportunities, wholesome diets, and medical attention. If a man in his 60s contracts a deadly cancer there is just so much modern medicine can do.

The death of a prisoner, Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, 64, from throat cancer, was nature's usual culling of her flock, not the neglect of Israeli authorities through the withholding of medical treatment, as claimed by raging Palestinian protesters. The peaceful nature of Palestinians in general can readily be assessed by the numbers held incarcerated for violent crimes. Abu Hamdiyeh was serving a life sentence for an attempted suicide bombing in a crowded Jerusalem restaurant.

"The Palestinians have an interest in controlling the violence, and that is a mutual interest that we have so we don't see it spinning beyond that. You know where you begin with this violence. You don't know where it ends and that, for us, is a red light, something that we have to follow very closely", explained Major Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

Yet it is Israel that is responsible for the violence, insists Mahmoud Abbas. It is an attempt to divert attention from a four-year standstill in peace efforts, he claims. The skill of the Palestinians in turning every incident on its head by a charge that is so outrageously out of whack with reality has lulled their supporters into a stupor of belief. While the truth is, Abbas has persistently ignored Israel's pleas to return to the bargaining table.

When Israel was persuaded by Washington to halt all West Bank settlement activities, Israel did just that for an experimental year, hoping that by so doing, the PA would agree to resume talks. Nothing ensued from that experiment but frustration. The Palestinian Authority gave no indication it was interested in pursuing peace talks to result in a sovereign Palestinian State, because it simply was not interested.

But now that settlement activity has resumed and increased, it is held to be responsible for the stall in the peace talks.