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PLO official: Calls to stop salaries are "insolence and an act of provocation"; recipients are "freedom fighters," not terrorists

Headline: "The call to stop the allowances of the families of the Martyrs, prisoners, and wounded is insolence and an act of provocation"
     "PLO Executive Committee member and member of the political bureau of the Democratic Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] Tayseer Khaled emphasized that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements about stopping the salaries of the Martyrs (Shahids), prisoners, and wounded are insolence and an act of provocation, and come as part of an organized campaign led by the occupation government in coordination with the American administration and several European parties.
Khaled added in an interview with the media outlets that this campaign is not meant to examine the will of the Palestinians to advance in the process of the political arrangement or the peace plan that the American administration is talking about. It is a trial balloon and a tool to measure the willingness to make a series of concessions - which the Al-Quds newspaper reported on from reliable and knowledgeable sources in Washington - including the Palestinian side's return to negotiations without preconditions and stopping the payment of the financial allowances to the prisoners in the prisons and their families. This is under the pretext that this is liable to encourage 'terror,' according to the claims of parties in the Israeli government and the American administration.
He emphasized: 'The source of terror in the region is Jewish–Israeli, and those whose allowances the American administration is demanding to stop are freedom fighters, and the Palestinian side cannot relate to these provocative demands. The Palestinian National Fund, which was established in the 1960s, takes care of the families of the Martyrs, wounded, and prisoners, and will continue to do so regardless of the positions of the Israeli government and the American administration.'"

In a governmental meeting on April 23, 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “The Palestinian Authority needs to stop funding the terrorists sitting in prison and stop funding the families of terrorists who were killed while committing their crimes. This is a simple and clear test of the Palestinians’ desire for peace. You cannot be in favor of peace with Israel, and at the same time glorify and fund the murderers of Israelis and the murderers of other innocents.” The statement came after Netanyahu, in an interview with Fox News on April 21, 2017, called on the PA to “stop paying terrorists.”

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