The Ministerial Committee on Legislation which on Sunday approved a bill aiming to deduct from the funds transferred by Israel to the Palestinian Authority the sums the PA spends to support terrorists in Israeli prisons. A document authored by intelligence and security expert Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, former chief of the research division at the IDF Intelligence Corps and a former director general of the Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Ministry, reveals the elaborate system of salaries and pensions governing the PA’s terrorist pay.
According to the document, a summary of the Palestinian Authority’s budget in 2016 reveals that the sum of $310 million was allocated to support terrorists and their families. A similar sum was allocated each year from 2013-15. During those years, these sums were divided between salaries to terrorists and released security prisoners and salaries to their families. These include murderers, but also rioters who threw Molotov cocktails and stones and attack planners.
Kuperwasser presented the monthly list of salaries which are determined according to years served behind bars. A terrorist who was sentenced to up to three years in prison receives $400 a month; from three to five years in prison – $570; up to ten years in prison – $1,150 a month; up to 15 years in prison – $1,700 a month; up to 30 years in prison – $2,267; and prisoners serving 30 years or more receive $3,400 a month.
Naturally, since Israeli courts sentence terrorists based on the depravity of their actions, the bloodier you are, the bigger your reward.
But that’s not all! In addition to their monthly salaries, the convicted terrorists receive a monthly stipend after they are released from prison, also determined according to the length of their imprisonment. Stipends range from $425 a year after three years in prison, all the way up to $7,100 to those murderers whose crimes were heinous enough to qualify for 30 years or more in jail.
It should be noted that payments to the terrorists behind bars and to the families of the killed terrorists are anchored in legislation that was promoted by the Palestinian Authority, securing the financial future of the murderous prisoner and his family. According to this law, the Authority will grant a monthly stipend during the terrorists’ years of imprisonment, followed by salaries and guaranteed jobs. Released prisoners are also entitled to free education, free medical treatment, and free vocational training, and receive additional benefits.
It should also be noted that Israel’s defense establishment has traditionally opposed deducting debts and other monies from the funds going to the Palestinian Authority for fear of further undermining the status of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, fearing that such moves would lead to even more extremism and violence, and even to the collapse of the PA as a whole.
This is critical in the case of payments to terrorists, which amount to a whopping 7% of the PA budget, and go to the core of the most dominant and dangerous people in the streets of Arab Judea and Samaria. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have strongly and repeatedly insisted that payment to these horrible men and women should be stopped as a condition for peace, Abbas would likely be signing his own suicide note should he actually comply.
The PA attempted to use the salary curb against Hamas prisoners, as part of its ongoing attempt to derail Hamas’ campaign to take over the Ramallah government some day. But going against his own killers could only result in Abbas’ demise.