European Lawmakers Furious at Palestinians for Using Foreign Aid to Pay Terrorists
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European Members of Parliament in several countries condemned the PA for its practice of offering incentives to potential terrorists and rewarding those with blood on their hands incarcerated in Israel with financial benefits.
Lawmakers from three European countries condemned the Palestinian Authority (PA) last week for their rewarding of terrorists, promotion of violence and glorification of the murder of Jews.
Holland, the United Kingdom and Germany are donor countries who have contributed to the PA’s budget for several years. Most recently, they looked into where their donations were being used, following evidence presented by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) director Itamar Marcus.
The PA claims to have stopped paying salaries to prisoners serving time in Israeli prisons for terrorism, but the PMW’s evidence proved otherwise.
Guto Bebb, James Morris and Andrew Percy of the British Parliament stated that British aid to the PA should be reviewed and reconsidered. “British taxpayers will be appalled to discover that the Palestinian Authority is handing their hard-earned money to convicted Palestinian terrorists. The PA should be strongly condemned for deceiving well-intentioned donor countries into thinking that it had ended this shocking practice. The British Government must seriously reconsider its provision of aid to the PA’s general budget until it ceases this abhorrent practice of financially rewarding and incentivising terrorism,” they stated.
C.G. van der Staaij of the Dutch Parliament focused on the anti-Semitism in the Palestinian media, saying, “It is important that the sowing of hatred is stopped…. We still find in the official Palestinian media numerous anti-Semitic statements, the glorification of violence and hatred, and honoring terrorists. I have read the reports from Palestinian Media Watch carefully.”
Albert Weiler, an MP at the German legislative body, condemned the PA’s support for terrorism. “It should not be possible for anti-democratic terror organizations to murder Jews or Christians in the name of their religion. We must fight this strongly. And the whole world should be doing it together,” he declared.
PA Deceiving Donor Countries
For years, Western donor countries have been demanding that the PA stop paying salaries to convicted terrorist prisoners. The PA finally claimed to have stopped paying the salaries in August 2014 when its Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs, the body responsible for paying the salaries, was changed to PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs. The PA stated repeatedly to their own people that the change was merely a change in name amd that none of the salaries or benefits to prisoners would be changed. They stressed that by transferring responsibility for paying the prisoners’ salaries to the PLO, the Europeans and the US would not stop funding the PA.
This is a mere cosmetic change, but the international community accepted PA assurances that it was no longer paying the salaries to terrorist prisoners.
For instance, when the Dutch government was asked about this it issued a statement in April in which it accepted the Palestinian cover-up. “The responsibility for payments to prisoners was transferred to the PLO and will no longer be charged to the budget of the PA, and these [payments to prisoners] are not funded by PA tax revenues or donor funds. The PLO pays such costs from their own income, where the Cabinet has no access.”
However, ample evidence presented by the PMW contradicts the PA’s assurances to the Dutch and other donors. Their evidence is based entirely on PA statements and data, including significant documentation.
One of the key indicators exposed is that in March, when the PA was challenged financially because Israel had withheld tax funds that it collects on behalf of the PA, it cut the salaries of all civil servants by 60 percent. The next day, the PA Ministry of Finance announced the same reduction in salaries to prisoners. Had the PLO been paying prisoners’ salaries from non-PA money, then salaries to prisoners should not have been affected by the PA shortage of resources, PMW points out.
PMW stated in its report that Western donors may have been intentionally misled by the PA, which continues to pay salaries to imprisoned terrorists: “This report exposes that the PA’s creation of a PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs to fulfill the same services previously supplied by the PA Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs was done solely to satisfy Western donors’ demands that the PA cease paying salaries to terrorist prisoners. This report further documents that the existence of the PLO Commission has not changed the policy of paying salaries to terrorists. The PLO commission may have been created for the sole purpose of deceiving the European donors, who don’t want their money to the PA to be used to reward terrorists. The PA continues to pay salaries to terrorists in prison in spite of European and US demands that donor money to the PA not be used to reward terrorists.”
Western Tax Dollars Funding Palestinian Terror
The PA receives approximately over one billion dollars in international aid annually. Several European countries and the US have been threatening to stop this funding since PMW exposed in 2011 that the PA pays high salaries to terrorist prisoners and released terrorists, amounting to over $150 million dollars in 2015 alone. For example, in June 2014, the Dutch Parliament voted overwhelmingly – 148 – 2 – in favor of demanding an end to this practice.
Palestinian head Abbas (C-L), celebrates with released terrorists from Israeli prison. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90)
In October 2014, the PA announced that there were more than 200,000 recipients of PA salaries. This figure “includes the families of the Martyrs (Shahids) and wounded, as well as the prisoners’ and released [prisoners].” In January, the PA Ministry of Finance announced that the PA budget includes transfer of salaries to prisoners in Israeli jails, who were from Gaza.
Some 5,500 terrorists serving time in Israeli prisons receive a substantial monthly salary from the PA. A base sum is paid out, which increases gradually based on the length of incarceration. In addition, the PA covers the living expenses of the prisoners’ families. Each security prisoner who served time in jail in Israel for at least a year is given a one-time grant upon release starting from $1,500 for those who served between one and three years and up to $25,000 for prisoners of 30 years and more.
PA Chair Abbas Encourages Terror
Commenting on this phenomenon, Israeli Minister Naftali Bennett stated: “Did you murder Jews? Have you abducted children? Get up to 12,000 shekels a month from Abu Mazen [PA head Mahmoud Abbas]!”
“Meet Abu Mazen’s ‘preferred employment’ track: murderers, terrorists and child abductors. We [Israel] have preferred status for gas station attendants. Abu Mazen gives it to those who pour fuel on the fires of death and destruction.”
“The system is simple,” Bennett explains. “With one hand, Abu Mazen ‘condemns’ terror, and with the other, he hands out cash for terrorism. He encourages it.”
By: United with Israel
(With files from PMW)
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