{Special to The Jewish Press Online}
Congressional legislators were astonished last year to learn that the Palestinian Authority was issuing monthly payouts totaling $3-7 million as salaries and other financial rewards to specific terrorists and their families. The money was channeled, in part, through the Ministry of Prisoners pursuant to the Law of the Prisoner. The law set forth a graduated scale, pegging monthly salaries to the length of Israeli jail sentences, which generally reflects the severity of the crime and the number of people killed and/or injured.
Thousands of documents, newly obtained by this reporter through a lawsuit to unseal court-protected files, demonstrate that these payouts are not blind automated payments. Rather, senior Palestinian Authority officials as high as President Mahmoud Abbas scrutinize the details of each case, the specific carnage caused, and the personal details of each terrorist act before approving salaries and awarding honorary ranks in either the PA government or the military. Ministry of Prisoners spokesman Amr Nasser has explained, “We are very proud of this program and we have nothing to hide.” Nonetheless, in response to the international furor, the Palestinian Authority announced it would replace the Ministry of Prisoners with an outside PLO commission known as the Higher National Commission for Prisoners and Detainees Affairs.
The PA is dependent upon foreign donor countries to supply much of its budget, which now exceeds $4.2 billion annually. About ten percent of the PA budget, more than $400 million, is contributed annually by United States foreign aid. The US and many other countries have enacted laws forbidding any payments when the monies directly or indirectly support or encourage terrorism.
The interdepartmental bureaucratic notations the Palestinian Authority has recorded on each terrorist before approving the level of salaried compensation is extensive. For example, one prominent case involved Ahmad Talab Mustafa Barghouti, who personally coordinated numerous terrorist acts. These included a January 2002 shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, killing two and wounding 37; a March 2002 shooting spree at a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing three and wounding 31; and finally a March 27, 2002 attempt to smuggle an explosive suicide belt in an ambulance. The Israel Defense Forces arrested Ahmad. On July 30, 2002, a military court concluded that he was responsible for murdering 12 Israelis, and Barghouti was sentenced to 13 life sentences.
According to on-going internal Palestinian Authority security reviews dated February 3, 2009 and July 6, 2009, Barghouti’s special compensation began retroactively to July 1, 2002, the first of the month that the 13 life sentences were imposed. At the time of his arrest, Barghouti was a Sergeant in the Palestinian Police. As a reward, while in an Israeli prison, Barghouti’s annual salary of 12,953 Israeli shekels was continued and gradually escalated when he was promoted to First Sergeant. Still in prison, Barghouti was promoted again, this time to Warrant Officer, pursuant to a November 13, 2008 Presidential Order 15999/3, according to Palestinian internal security records. One document lists Barghouti’s bank account as account 36079 at the Housing Bank for Trade and Finance in Ramallah. A related document tabulates additional monthly allocations for Barghouti’s two named beneficiaries, showing they jointly received 900 shekels in 2002, beginning the month he was sentenced. That monthly allocation rose to 1000 shekels in January 2004. The beneficiary payments were deposited into account 628134 at the Arab Bank’s al Bireh Branch 9030, the documents show.
In another case, terrorist Sa’id Ibrahim Sa’id Ramadan went to a busy Jerusalem street around 2:30 p.m. on January 22, 2002, and began randomly shooting passers-by. Two people were murdered: Sarah Hamburger, 79, and Orna Sandler, 56. Dozens of others were injured. Police shot and killed Ramadan at the scene. Just five days later, on January 27, 2002, Ramadan’s case was reviewed by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Social Affairs for martyrdom status and to determine the financial benefits that would accrue to the family. That review was conducted by the Martyr’s Families and Injured Care Establishment, a little known organization originally created in 1969 by the Palestine Liberation Organization to systematize financial benefits to those wounded or killed in terrorist attacks deemed acts of “martyrdom.” “Martyrdom Establishment” compensation is dispensed worldwide, wherever the terrorist act takes place, according to a 2010 Palestinian Authority Social Ministry report. The report states that by 2009, more than 288 million shekels were paid in the program, of which more than 97 million went outside Israel and the Palestinian region to reward international terrorism.