UNRWA's Palestinian Refugee Permanence, 'Pay-for-Slay'

"Once again we have witnessed the nauseating spectacle of western governments -- which sanitize, fund and pump up the genocidal Palestinian Arab cause -- expressing shock and sympathy with Israel over these attacks [while continuing] to fund the Palestinian Authority despite the PA's 'pay-to-slay[' policy of rewarding the families of terrorists for every Israeli Jew they murder, and despite its never ending incitement to murder Jews and steal Israel's land."

Melanie Phillips, British journalist

 

"It's time to admit that Palestinian institutions are broken, and that they have developmentally harmed generations of Palestinian men and women, boys and girls, by whipping them into a constant froth with violently antisemitic educational and media content that celebrate 'martyrdom' attacks against Israelis."

"The Palestinian Authority provides a financial incentive for terrorism by providing pensions to the families of those who attack Israelis."

Palestinian political analyst Bassem Eid

"We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

AN ISRAELI flag hangs as a religious man ponders at the scene of a terror attack at the entrance to Jerusalem.

(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

This is the man who presents himself on the world stage as the aggrieved partner-for-peace while denouncing Israel as a cruel occupier of Arab land that just happens to be located on ancestral Judean geography. But then such bothersomely inconsequential details are an irritant that Mahmoud Abbas is accustomed to dealing with. As he iterates and reiterates the misconceptions of history, personally giving his assurance that this land always belonged to Arabs who were, he avers, the original Palestinians

 

Even the Roman Empire got it wrong, and out of the goodness of his heart, Abbas stands prepared to correct their misimpression and he has already started, publishing maps identifying no Judean land, only a large swath labelled 'Palestine" as he lobbies the United Nations member bodies to proceed with giving its imprimatur to a unilateral announcement of the State of Palestine becoming an honoured member of the General Assembly. Or who knows...the permanent Security Council for its expertise in war and peace.

 

As for paying the martyrs and the prisoners and ex-prisoners of justifiable and honourable 'resistance' to the occupation that annoyingly keeps resisting the violence streaming at it from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nothing, ever, will deter their handsome emoluments for a job well done. Recently the human rights group Palestinian Media Watch revealed that recently-released prisoners Karim and Maher Younig each collected close to $100,000 for their murder of Avraham Bromberg, a corporal in the Israel Defence Forces.

Where does an incipient 'nation' given refugee status in perpetuity by the United Nations' UNRWA get the funding to award such munificent sums to its terrorists from? An Arab-administered area so penurious that the international community through the United Nations, United States, European Union and other Western countries feel obligated to fund its civil infrastructure to enable the Palestinian Authority (Fatah/PLO) and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza to operate?

It has long been documented that the PA schedules rewards for the terrorists it incites into the martyrdom death cult, from childhood onward through school curricula to social media programs to identify Jews as their enemy, to teach the vulnerable young of their duty as Palestinians to 'resist' the 'occupation' of apartheid Israel -- with its two million Palestinian citizens, along with Christian, Druze, Baha'i, Bedouin citizens --  creating in them a passion for martyrdom.

The PA has a per capita GDP of about $3,500, and an unemployment rate of 25 percent. Many Palestinians find employment and a working wage through jobs offered them in Israel where they can earn more than working in the West Bank or Gaza, if they can find jobs there.  Without outside funding for civic services, for hospitals, schools and social programs, there would never be finances available to pay for the PA's well-institutionalized 'pay-for-slay'.

 

That funding arrives through the generosity of the United States, its largest funder which provides hundreds of millions to the PA and Hamas through UNRWA. Canada too is a large contributor to the extended programs that effectively pay salaries to terrorists or to their families should they die in the line of duty to kill Israeli Jews. The countries that gasp in horror at the atrocities committed in Jerusalem against Jews are those very countries that fund the actions of the murderers.

 

In the very week, scant days afterward, of the slaughter of 7 Jews after Friday prayer at a synagogue  and the wounding of many others, the U.S. Secretary of State on a Middle East visit to Israel and the West Bank handed an additional $50 million over to the PA, over and above the $300 million recently given UNRWA. Funding that was revoked by Canada's former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and by former U.S. President Donald Trump in acknowledgment of UNRWA's role in transferring funds used to fund murder.

 

Funding that was speedily restored by their successors, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Both of whom give no thought whatever to what it is they are actually funding.

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)

Life As Usual In Israel

Israeli soldiers stand near artillery units deployed near the Lebanese border northern Israel on August 26, 2020. Photo by David Cohen/Flash90.

"In response, overnight, the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] attack helicopters and aircraft struck observation posts belonging to the Hezbollah terror organization in the border area [between Lebanon and Israel]."                                                Israeli military spokesperson 

"Our message to Hezbollah is sharp and clear: We will continue to thwart its attempts to gain achievements."                                                                                    Brig. Gen. Shlomi Binder, commander, IDF Galilee Division

"It is our assessment that the choice of location by Hezbollah [for the sniping attack] was not accidental ... probably in order to [draw] Israeli retaliation towards a United Nations position or near it."                                                                            "I would emphasize that this was a very dangerous and cynical practice to deliberately locate their combat troops close to U.N. positions and then engage against the IDF, violating U.N. Resolution 1701 [which bans the presence of armed Hezbollah cells in south Lebanon] … and probably hoping for there to be U.N. casualties as a result of Israeli retaliation. The IDF is very much aware of the location of U.N. troops, and does [its] utmost not to affect them."                               "Our objective is not to escalate the situation, but to protect our civilians, uphold sovereignty and allow hundreds of thousands of Israelis enjoying [he] last days of summer to vacation in northern Israel."                                                                 Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, Israeli military spokesman 

An IDF labeled view showing the proximity of the Hezbollah terror squad to UN peacekeeping forces and the Israel-Lebanese border. Source: Screenshot.

Palestinians  release balloon-borne explosive to Israel  Fadi Fahd/Flash90

"One device was found next to a playground and a second was found in a tree. In both cases, a police sapper was called. No damage or injuries were caused." Eshkol Regional Council spokesperson

"Following the continued violation of security stability, and following the decision to close the Kerem Shalom Commercial Crossing with the exception of humanitarian equipment, it will be noted that the import of vehicles, which has so far been carried out through the Erez Crossing, was stopped as well starting today."                                                                   Spokesperson, Erez crossing with Gaza

Oh, did Lebanon just several weeks back suffer a horrendous Beirut-dock explosion that killed 200 people, injured thousands and made hundreds of thousands Beirutis homeless, causing thousands of Lebanese to march in the streets demanding their Hezbollah-driven government step down? If so, the magnitude of the catastrophe has not yet penetrated the minds and consciences of the Hezbollah elite who far prefer to provoke Israel by attacking its soldiers across the blue line in Israel in hopes of inciting a lash-back to harm UN representatives keeping the 'peace' to enable an 'incident'.

The Israeli military responded as it must, striking Hezbollah posts with no loss of life, in the knowledge that the incident was a ruse to place UN personnel within the nearby peacekeeping post at risk. According to a Lebanese army announcement Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a local environmental group center. The following day the Israeli military gave the all-clear to Israelis living near the border -- instructed to remain indoors -- that they might now resume normal activities. Israel's north and Lebanon's south are on uneasy terms.

An attempt by Hezbollah operatives the month before to infiltrate Israel failed. Within Israel itself, Palestinians find the opportunity to stab Jews, sometimes causing grave injury, and sometimes causing death as happened last week when an Israeli rabbi was stabbed to death in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva, leaving four children without a father. The attacker, father to five children, will now face Israeli justice, and his family will be left homeless when their house is destroyed.

Incendiary balloons launched from Gaza have caused dozens of fires in Israel in recent days  AFP

Attacks by Palestinians on Jews, though routine enough, and incited by the Palestinian Authority which claims the attackers to be Palestinian heroic 'martyrs', are not the only means of violence committed against Israel. Incendiary devices attached to helium-filled balloons are regularly released by Palestinians over the border from Gaza into Israel, where vast acreages of forest and farmland are burned. Other balloons carrying explosive devices wreak carnage of the type that exploded into a home in an Israeli town last week, its occupants miraculously escaping harm.

Israeli aircraft and tanks last Friday retaliated by striking Hamas facilities in Gaza while Hamas responded by firing a half-dozen rockets into southern Israel. No casualties were reported despite the exchanges, on either side, Israel or Gaza. According to Israel, the military struck underground infrastructure and a military post belonging to Hamas, as well as a Hamas armed training camp. This time, it is Israel's south and Gaza's north where the neighbourly exchanges are taking place.

Israel has responded to the attacks by bombing militant targets  Reuters

These are pressure tactics used by Hamas to 'persuade' Israel to open the blockade of Gaza, to allow Hamas free reign to bring in materials to continue building tunnels, and arms to continue posing its existential threat to Israel. Israel, despite the blockade, opens the Erez crossing daily to ensure that vital supplies enter Gaza. The cement and other building materials that Israel will not permit entry other than in limited amounts, is smuggled into Gaza by Hamas and  used not for civilian infrastructure but for more tunnel-building.

The endless cycle of threats and violence plays its course through the relationship Israel labours under, with its neighbours who place low value on quality of life for ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese and high value on destroying stability for Israelis, with the intention of  ultimately bringing violent destruction to the nation, cleansing the historical heritage Judean landscape of the presence of Jews in a Jewish state, renewed with the intention of defending Jews in their own homeland restored, from a world that has repeatedly proven it has no place for them elsewhere in the diaspora.

What other nation on Earth has its legitimacy and sovereignty challenged continually by its neighbours in never-ending attacks? What other nation must defend its population from ongoing threats of attack leading to death from violent terrorists, the world looking on with detached interest, while segments of that world rise to the defense of the attackers claiming them to have been ill done by, refusing to condemn the violence, and expecting Israel to escape condemnation by restraining its military from imposing the full strength of its defence against indomitable hatred and hostility threatening to annihilate the country?

An Israeli soldier battles a blaze close to the southern kibbutz of Nir Am that was apparently caused by a balloon-borne incendiary device launched from the Gaza Strip, August 23, 2020. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

Interesting Analysis of Violence-Promotion

"It's always been seen as a symbol of rebellion [portrayal of AK-47 in political messaging]."
"Anything I've ever done in this country, anywhere in the world has always been pushing the idea of diplomacy resolution. But at the same time, we see the right of our people to defend themselves when needed in Punjab."
"It has nothing to do with Canada."
"[The SLF -- Sikh Liberation Front] overtly supports the establishment of Khalistan by any means necessary within the spectrum of Gur-sidhant -- the Guru's teaching --."
"The last resort, the picking up of arms, is what we're mandated to do within the Khalsa, once you've gone through the process of trying everything you can."
"We're not talking about doing any of those things in the present day. But we're still being maligned as ... extremists for that."
Moninder Singh, president, Surrey, British Columbia Sikh Gurdwara

"AK-47s aren't symbols of peace, they're devastating weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists."
"If ... you're a Khalistani and you want to dismember India, AK-47s aren't symbols of peace."
Ujjal Dosanjh, former British Columbia Premier, Khalistani opponent

"To those who scream 'peace ... peace', I want to ask, where and how will this peace come?"
"Khalsa jee, peace will come from the bullet leaving the barrel of the gun."
Jugraj Singh Toofan, 1980 Khalistan militant

The Sikh Liberation Front logo. sikhliberationfront.com

When Public Safety Canada issued its latest terrorism report last December it listed "Sikh (Khalistani) extremism" as a potential public threat within Canada. According to Moninder Singh, a co-founder of the Sikh Liberation Front with its logo featuring three images of AK-47 assault rifles and Moninder Singh's own SLF-linked Instagram account which includes quotes from and tributes to militants who fought the government of India in the 18980s and 1990s, this is an outrage.

No evidence exists of extremist activity, he claims. The document smeared the entire Sikh community in Canada. And Mr. Singh and his supporters have taken a vow to bar Liberal politicians, formerly wholeheartedly supported by the Sikh community at large, from speaking at the Surrey Khalsa Day parade, regarded as the largest such parade outside India itself.

That outraged push-back by the politically engaged in the community of Sikhs resulted in the Liberal government agreement that the references to Sikhs and Khalistanis appearing in the report as advocates for a Sikh homeland in Punjab state and doing so with threats and violence, would be removed. It is not as though Canada has not experienced violence from Khalistani extremists in the past. Canadian Sikh terrorists bombed Air India Flight 182 in 1985, a deadly attack that killed 329 passengers and crew.

This, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India by her Sikh bodyguards after Indian troops had invaded the Golden Temple at Amritsar to remove Sikh terrorists who had taken refuge in the Sikh holy place. Which led Hindus to respond with riots that the ruling Congress party did nothing to stop, an ensuing rampage seeing the slaughter of over 8,000 Sikhs, in 1984. According to Moninder Singh, the Punjab-based militants committing their acts of terror did so in a "completely valid" manner.

On Mr. Singh's Instagram account one of the assassins of Indira Gandhi and a suicide bomber who killed a chief minister of Punjab state along with other 17 people are quoted approvingly. The SLF's use of Kalashnikov imagery represents merely an emblem of resistance, certainly not meant to represent a call to arms. Ujjal Dosanjh, a former federal Liberal Member of Parliament, has seen rap videos posted by Sikh Canadians "waving around AK-47s", vowing to bring about a Khalistani homeland.

On a recent visit to Punjab by Mr. Dosanjh he was met with Indian Sikhs who thought the movement in Canada was a "joke". The SLF logo quotes Sikh scripture meaning "brave is the one who fights for the faith, willing to be cut to pieces but never abandoning the arena". However, neither he nor the SLF support the use of force to promote the establishment of Khalistan, insists Mr. Singh. On his Instagram account with its tribute to one of Gandhi's two assassins, when Satwant Singh was asked what he would do if his gun jammed, he said: "My arms are very long, I will strangle her to death if I must".

A record-breaking crowd attended Surrey's annual Vaisakhi parade . Francis Georgian / PNG

The Moderate Palestinian Authority/Mahmoud Abbas

"We have documented how he and his leadership have continually called for violence and turned killers into heroes – all the while professing Palestinian victimhood. His role in perpetrating the slaughter of innocent people is no different from that of dispatchers on the ground, who physically supply terrorists with weapons and drive them to the scenes of their crimes."
"[Mahmoud Abbas] should be imprisoned for murder."
 Itamar Marcus, founder /director, Palestinian Media Watch 

The October 3 murder of Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Bennett, that took place in the Old City of Jerusalem, serves as an illustration where stabbing attacks are encouraged and glorified by the Palestinian Authority. The perpetrator of the attack, Muhannad Halabi was urged by Arab passers-by and local shopkeepers to attack anyone he could identify as a Jew. After the attack, when the wife of Mr. Bennett pleaded for help as she stumbled about, a knife stuck in her back, she was mocked by those same passers-by and shopkeepers.

Muhannad Halabi was shot dead by Israeli security forces, as he continued his lethal rampage. But the Palestinian Authority saw to it that he had his martyrdom reward. His posthumous award was to be honoured by having a street named after him. The Palestinian Law Society granted him an honourary law degree, as a law student who hadn't completed his studies, and "holy soil" from the area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was provided for the burial site of the "heroic martyr".

Police and emergency medical services treat the victims of a terror attack in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem on Oct. 13, 2015. (Israel Police)

Richard Lakin, 76, a former American school principal who was shot in the head and stabbed in the chest during the terrorist attack that occurred two weeks ago, underwent several surgeries that saw his condition temporarily stabilized. Doctors pronounced him dead, however, on Monday, the third victim of the attack to die of his wounds. This man, formerly a resident of Connecticut, arrived in Israel with his family 32 years ago. The family settled in Jerusalem, where they opened a business to teach English.

Among their varied and many students were area Palestinian children. He remained a teacher to the end of his life. He was also a writer, authoring two books, one of which was titled "Teaching as an Act of Love". That love was not reciprocated by all, needless to say. A year ago, a Canadian-Israeli rabbi was horribly wounded in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem while he was praying at the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue.



The synagogue was full of worshippers early on the morning of November 18, 2014. Two Palestinian terrorists stormed into the building with guns, knives and meat cleavers to attack those immersed in prayer. Four men were killed outright, along with an off-duty Israeli Druze policeman. Seven additional men had been injured, and Rabbi Howie (Chaim) Rothman was the most seriously wounded among them.

The 55-year-old man was kept in a medically induced coma. He had been struck with a meat cleaver to the right side of his head, causing him to lose an eye. "He had an arm severed and they had to re-attach that", his brother explained at his funeral. "But the thing that really did the damage to him was the brain damage, the hits to his head". The attackers were two men from East Jerusalem, related to one another as cousins. The multiple surgeries that Rabbi Rothman underwent on his brain, eyes and arm failed to sustain his life.

He was maintained in long-term care hospitals in Jerusalem but recently he developed pneumonia, placed on a respirator where his blood pressure plummeted, and he died.

A Palestinian stone-thrower looks on as he stands in front of a fire during clashes with IDF troops in the West Bank village of Duma. (photo credit:REUTERS)

This is the savagery carried out by Palestinian 'resisters'. They 'resist' the 'occupation', put into effect as a protective device by Israeli authorities tasked to protect their citizens. The Palestinian Authority exhorts its population to exert themselves on behalf of the Palestinian dream the PA keeps alive, of a vanished Israel, leaving the Palestinians free to claim the entire geography they have so long been unwilling to share with Jews, starting with the United Nations' partition plan and extending to all offers since then by Israel to satisfy the demands of the Palestinians without causing the demise of Israel.

Palestinians' "Car Intifada" and Obama's Peace Process by Khaled Abu Toameh November 7, 2014 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4855/car-intifada It is hard to see how Abbas can return to the negotiating table while many Palestinians, at his behest, are busy thinking about how to kill Israelis. It is not enough for Kerry to listen to what Abbas or Erekat are telling him in English. Instead, Kerry and Obama should listen to what Palestinian leaders and activists are telling their people in Arabic. Perhaps they will understand that as long as the incitement against Israel continues, there is no chance — zero — for the success of any peace process. It began as a "children's intifada" in Jerusalem, where Palestinians aged eight to 18 were encouraged to take to the streets and throw stones and shoot fireworks at vehicles driven by Israelis and policemen. Now, however, Palestinians are referring to it as a "car intifada" after two Palestinian drivers deliberately ran over Israelis in Jerusalem over the past two weeks. The "car intifada," which has claimed the lives of four Israelis, including a three-month-old infant, is being hailed by many Palestinians as a "natural response to Israeli crimes." The "crimes" they are referring to are visits by Jewish groups and individuals to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority [PA], Hamas and Islamic Jihad are using these visits to stir up Palestinians against Israel. The recent terror attacks in Jerusalem are the direct result of this campaign of incitement. The widow of Ibrahim Akkari, the 48-year-old Palestinian who drove his car into a group of Israelis in Jerusalem on November 5, said that her husband was influenced by TV scenes of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount. The widow, Amira, said that her husband carried out the attack in retaliation against Israeli "assaults" on the Aqsa Mosque. "He was martyred for the sake of the Aqsa Mosque," she said. Security camera footage from the "Shimon Hatzadik" light rail station in Jerusalem shows four victims lying on the tracks as the terrorist, Hamas member Ibrahim Akkari, speeds away in a white van (upper right), November 5, 2014. One person was killed and 14 others were wounded in the attack. Recent statements by PA President Mahmoud Abbas may also have convinced Akkari to go out and run over Israelis. Two weeks before the attack, Abbas called on Palestinians to "use all means" to protect the Aqsa Mosque. "It is not enough to say the settlers came (to the Temple Mount), but they must be barred from entering the compound by any means. This is our Aqsa, and they have no right to enter it and desecrate it," Abbas told Fatah activists during a meeting in his Ramallah office. As if not enough, Abbas indirectly encouraged Palestinians to resort to violence against Israel by praising the Palestinian who shot and severely wounded activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick in Jerusalem on October 29. A special Israeli police unit caught up with the shooter a few hours later and killed him in a gunfight. In a letter to the family of the would-be assassin, Mu'taz Hijazi, Abbas wrote: "With anger, we have received the news of the vicious assassination crime committed by the terrorists of the Israeli occupation army against your son, who will go to heaven as a martyr defending the rights of our people and its holy sites." The letter of condolences contradicts Abbas's promise to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to work toward calming the situation and refrain from fiery rhetoric that leads to more violence and bloodshed. What is more disturbing is the widespread support among Palestinians for the recent terror attacks in Jerusalem. This support is being expressed mostly on social media, where Palestinian activists have launched campaigns that praise the perpetrators and encourage others to follow suit. The most popular campaign is entitled Daes, which translates into "run over" in Arabic. Daes is also a reference to Daesh, the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The online campaigns feature cartoons that encourage Palestinians to use their vehicles to kill Israelis. One cartoon depicts a child wearing a Hamas headband and driving a car. The caption reads: "O Palestinian, drive, drive forward!" The activists have published many other similarly-themed cartoons as part of their campaign to encourage Palestinians to launch terror attacks on Israel. One of many cartoons published by Palestinian activists and their supporters in the Daes ["run over"] social media campaign, aimed at encouraging Palestinians to run over and kill Israelis with their cars. The anti-Israel campaign, and the incitement by Abbas, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups, coincide with Kerry's renewed effort to revive the stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Earlier this week, Kerry met in Washington with a Palestinian delegation, headed by chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, to discuss ways of resuming the peace talks. But Kerry and the Obama Administration seem to be living on a different planet. While they are trying to find ways to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, Palestinian leaders and organizations are busy inciting their people against Israel. Even worse, Palestinian activists are busy organizing online campaigns urging and encouraging Palestinians to launch terror attacks on Israelis. It is hard to see how Abbas can return to the negotiating table while many Palestinians, at his behest, are busy thinking about how to kill more Israelis. The Obama Administration would do well to understand that it is a waste of time to talk about any peace process when Palestinian leaders and activists are openly glorifying those who use their vehicles to kill Israelis. The Obama Administration is talking about reviving the peace process while Abbas is telling his people that Jews are "desecrating" the holy sites in Jerusalem and praising an assassin as a "hero" and "martyr." It is not enough for Kerry to listen to what Abbas or Erekat are telling him in English. Instead, Kerry and Obama must also start listening to what Palestinian leaders and activists are telling their people in Arabic. Moreover, it would also be a good idea for Obama and Kerry to go online and view the most recent Palestinian campaigns that encourage and applaud terror attacks on Israelis. Perhaps then they will understand that as long as the incitement continues, there is no chance — zero — for the success of any peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Related Topics:  Israel, Palestinian Authority  |  Khaled Abu Toameh