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THE ISSUE of government subsidies for Palestinian terrorist salaries has returned to the international spotlight. What began in November 2013 as a barely believable revelation — that taxpayers in Britain, the US and other Western nations were bankrolling terrorist salaries — has now become a universally-acknowledged, impossible-to-deny and impossibleto-defend embarrassment for governments.
For years, officials dissembled and dodged when the question came up. After a period of silent disbelief, the mainstream media now openly confirms the salaries and routinely refers to the programme. Political challengers on both sides of the Atlantic have stridently demanded that governments terminate foreign aid that amounts to taxpayer-incentivised terrorism.
A recent in-depth study has calculated that all terror incentives and rewards paid by the Palestinian Authority over the past four years total a mind-numbing $1 billion.
As more citizens are murdered by Islamist terrorists in Great Britain, Europe, the US and elsewhere, Western donor governments have found their financial involvement with the Palestinian Authority terrorist salary programme increasingly indefensible.
Things might be changing. Are things changing? Maybe.
Public outrage over terrorism has resulted in intense pressure on governments to stop the financing. But it has been a long road.
Revelations that convicted Palestinian terrorists were receiving monthly salaries paid by the PA and using foreign donor funds first hit global headlines in November 2013.
The Palestinian “Law of the Prisoner” openly rewards those convicted of even the most heinous attacks with generous monthly “salaries” and a phantom job in the PA government.
The salaries increase on a sliding scale. The more carnage inflicted and the longer the prisoner sentence, the higher the salary.
Terrorists receiving a five-year sentence are granted just a few hundred dollars each month. The bloodiest murderers are paid as much $3,000 monthly. Cheques are sent directly to the prisoner, who appoints a power of attorney to distribute the funds.
In 2013, the first salary programme operated by the Ministry of Prisoners to be discovered was estimated to consume some $5 to $8m monthly, with other benefit programmes doubling that sum. In all, some eight per cent of the PA budget was diverted to terror. But that was the tip of the cash pile.
The chronically bankrupt PA relies on foreign aid but prioritises the salary programme ahead of any civic expenditures on health, welfare, education or infrastructure. In every Western country, financial support for terrorism makes such funding illegal. But the UK, EU, and the US effectively act as Family of Mohammed Tarayreh, who murdered an Israeli girl, 13. They are eligible for a stipend
the chief bankers for the terrorists.
Government paymasters in various countries sought to portray the monies not as “salaries” but as “welfare”. Ironically, the PA itself vigorously refutes that claim, bragging that such payments are proud rewards for its cherished fighters, including the type of terrorist who would slash the throat of children in their kibbutz beds. Indeed, the Arabic term for the payments is ratib, which does not mean “welfare” — it means “salary”.
Shortly after the 2013 disclosures, US Congressman Trent Franks of the House of Representatives’ Terrorism, Non-Proliferation and Trade Subcommittee became one of the first politicians to grasp the implications. He scheduled a formal hearing on the topic and demanded that Washington cut all foreign aid to the PA. American foreign aid payments amount to roughly $400 million a year.
Likewise, in February 2014, British MP Guto Bebb, known for investigating financial misconduct, was one of the first to sponsor a presentation on the topic in the House of Commons. Mr Bebb insisted that London halt the roughly £70-£90 million annually donated to the PA by the Treasury.
A formal hearing in the Canadian House of Commons and a session in the European Parliament yielded a similar outrage among a few key legislators. But most other US, UK and Canadian legislators were incredulous and felt the disclosures could not be true. No change occurred.
But after a fractious debate in the US, the first meaningful change in a Western government’s approach to