Some of you may already know this, but the Palestinian Authority pays the families of terrorists. It’s a tradition that predates the establishment of the PA in the 1990s when the Palestinian Liberation Organization paid families of “martyrs” who launched attacked Israelis, according to Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. Lake added that the U.S., and recently Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would start deducting aid payments to the Palestinian Authority for every dollar sent to families whose members have attacked innocent Israelis:
According to the latest report of the Russian, European, U.S. and U.N. group known as the Quartet, there have been 250 of these kinds of attacks since October. It says, "These terrorist attacks, which have been carried out mostly by young, unaffiliated individuals, contribute to the sense among Israelis of living under constant threat."But this misses important context. The Quartet's report, which is even handed to a fault, makes no mention of the "martyr's fund," through which the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization pay the families of all Palestinian prisoners and the families of martyrs. So while there is no evidence that the Palestinian government plans these killing sprees, it encourages them as a legitimate act of resistance.
As Commentary's Evelyn Gordon wrote this week, the prisoners and the families of the prisoners themselves are actually paid a higher wage than what most Palestinians earn for nonviolent work.
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One problem is that the payments to terrorists' families are exceedingly popular these days. Ziad Asali, the president and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, told me that in recent years the media and politicians have elevated these payments to something "sacred in Palestinian politics." Asali said the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and others are too weak to stop it. "This is where we find ourselves now. The vast majority understand there has to be an end to violence; it's not serving the Palestinians in any way," Asali said. "But I think nobody really has the stature and clout to confront these issues publicly."
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So, the family of Palestinian terrorist Mohammed Tarayra, who murdered 13-year-old American-Israeli Hallel Yaffa Ariel in her bedroom as she slept, is probably going to get paid for this horrific act. His mother is very proud of him, calling her son a “hero.” Tarayra was killed in the aftermath by Israeli security forces.
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