Incentivizing Terrorism

 Mahmoud Abbas w/released terrorists(AFP Photo)

"The payments of salaries by the PA and the PLO to terrorists and to the families of dead terrorists reflect the core identity of the general Palestinian public as they see it. According to Palestinian leaders, achieving their national goal of establishing their state over all of Palestine commits them to struggling against Zionism in a wide variety of ways, including terrorism. Therefore, terrorists, even more than those who struggle through other means, are heroes fighting for the national and religious cause, and this is why they should be glorified and rewarded without any hesitation."

"The salary payments to terrorists from all Palestinian terror organizations, including Hamas as well as those who carried out terror attacks after the Oslo agreements came into effect, are made according to Palestinian Authority legislation that refers to the terrorists specifically as “fighters.” It makes clear that the Oslo accords are not considered by the Palestinian leadership and by most of the Palestinian people as a deviation from or an end to the battle against Zionism."

"The reaction of the donor community and Israel reflects the success of the Palestinians in portraying themselves as victims. The donors are uncomfortable making official Palestinian support of terror an issue of dispute with the PA."

"The donors and some in Israel are also concerned that steps against the Palestinian Authority opposing this practice may lead to further radicalization of the Palestinians that may cause a deterioration of the fragile situation. The Palestinians perceive this readiness to willfully turn a blind eye towards the payments of the salaries as a green light to continue the solicitation of terror through the payments as well as other kinds of incitement, hate indoctrination, and delegitimization of Israel and the dissemination of this ideology in the West and in Israel itself."

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 

The family of Mohammed Tarayreh, who stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her bed, is now eligible for a monthly stipend from the Palestinian “Martyrs’ Fund.”  (AP Photo)

Western nations, from Canada to the U.S., the European Union and other nations dedicated to the United Nations, continue to give financial aid annually to Palestinians through the auspices of he United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN refugee agency established to permanently deliver aid to Palestinian 'refugees'. It's hard to imagine that hundreds of thousands of people who chose to temporarily leave a geography in anticipation of the destruction of a state they feel has usurped them from the territory they claim, continue to claim refugee status after over 70 years of self-exile.

 

Or that the United Nations and its agencies are complicit in agreeing to regard them as refugees and to extend that designation to all their issue over the past 70 years, magnifying the original number of  an estimated 700,000 to six million at present, all claiming entitlement to UNRWA services. And in the bargain, claiming right of return to Israel. The 'refugee camps' they live in are anything but rude shelters; they're modern cities with high-rise buildings and shopping centres.

 

Diaspora 'refugees' who have settled in Arab/Muslim countries of the Middle East for generations are held by those countries to be 'refugees', never having permitted them to attain citizenship on compassionate or any other grounds, which is how most of the world's refugees are settled elsewhere than their original places of origin. Most Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians' having wrenched that term from historical Palestinian Jews, originally hailed from Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Jordan.

Palestinian Chairman Abbas, PA Television, September 16, 2015. (Palwatch)

It is no secret that the Palestinian Authority relays 'martyrdom' funding to terrorists and their families, celebrating their attacks on Israeli Jews as acts of divine inspiration in a jihad against the presence of Jews on territory they claim to have been consecrated to Islam. And for simple, sheer hatred of Jews, normally referred to as antisemitism. If official confirmation was required, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs affirmed that the Palestinian Authority continues its program called 'pay-for-slay' payments for those who injure or kill Israelis.

 

These are generous payments made to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails for their criminal attacks against Jews; payment also goes out to families of 'martyrs' who die in attacks against Israelis, as well as to Palestinian terrorists who are injured during the course of their attacks. The payouts amount to a salary allocated to 'heroes' of Palestinian 'resistance', that is richer than the average wage of Palestinians in an enclave where unemployment hovers about 25 percent.

Palestinians, in fact, line up daily at border crossing points for well-paid employment in Israel. Crossing over from the PA West Bank where school curricula is infused with lessons for Palestinian children on the hated Jews in Israel, encouraging children to become future terrorists. This is a well-known situation but rather than chastising and penalizing by withholding the financial wherewithal the Palestinian Authority and Hamas use for incitement and terror-incentive drives, they're rewarded by humanitarian funding through the West.

The PA spends roughly $300 million yearly on its pay-for-slay program, representing ten percent of its complete budget. This relates directly to international assistance through UNRWA, subsidizing the cost of basic government services such as health care, education and allied social services. Donor countries pretend ignorance of the use of their funding since they funnel it through a third party; UNRWA. Canada, for example, uses the disclaimer that it:

"...will remain closely engaged with UNRWA and continue to exercise enhanced due diligence for all humanitarian and development assistance funding for Palestinians."

"This work includes ongoing oversight, regular site visits, a systematic screening process and strong anti-terrorism provisions in funding agreements."

In 2014, a stockpile of Hamas rockets was discovered in an UNRWA-sponsored school. The agency's staff was charged in 2021 by UN Watch of promoting antisemitism on social media. Reports published by various groups indicate that UNRWA-funded school textbooks contain antisemitic content including student incitement toward hatred of Israel and Jews. UNRWA officials admit this to be a problem, but feel they cannot interfere with Palestinian school curricula.

In 'refugee'-hosting countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, minority Palestinian populations are maintained in a holding pattern, never given equal standing as citizens, retained as a living scab whose wounds are never meant to heal until such time as Jews are dislodged from the territory on which the Jewish state sits. Canada's Department of Global Affairs issued a press lease stating that:

"In Syria, 91 percent of Palestinian refugee households live in absolute poverty."

"In Lebanon, more than 89 percent of Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria are in critical need of sustained humanitarian assistance."

In Lebanon, Syria and even Jordan where Palestinians have been given citizenship, they are restricted from advancement in society, not given rights of ordinary citizens, relegated to third-class status. In Israel, by contrast, some two million Palestinian Arabs enjoy full citizenship, serve in the Knesset and form part of the higher professions in law and medicine. The international community and the United Nations should, in fact long ago have advocated that Palestinians be integrated into their societies of origin, rather than funding an organization whose purpose is to ensure they remain refugees in perpetuity.

Palestinians attends a rally in solidarity to the escape of the six Palestinian prisoners from the Israeli prison of Gilboa on September 8, 2021, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)