Former PA Minister of Prisoners in Hebrew denies PA has policy of incitement, salaries for terrorists, or naming monuments after terrorists
This is an edited version of Al-Ajrami’s speech. It is only an excerpt, which Wattan, an independent Palestinian news agency, chose to publicize.
Video of former PA Minister of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Ashraf Al-Ajrami speaking in Hebrew at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research on Sept. 12, 2017, at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Former PA Minister of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Ashraf Al-Ajrami: “Regarding the knifings, and the people who stab, I want you to review what the security forces in Israel are saying. All of the [Palestinian] people who are participating in stabbings are completely against the Palestinian Authority. No one is responding to what is called [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas’ ‘incitement’ or I don’t know what. Everyone is expressing disappointment and frustration over the current situation, and their personal situation affects them. There are even people with socio-economic problems, and that is the greatest motivation for people to go and stab and do an act like this individually…
Regarding the payments [of the prisoners’ salaries by the PA], many – what they are complaining about in Israel, the truth is that this came in what is called the Law of Prisoners, which recently after the elections in the Palestinian Authority many people – there is also a majority of Hamas members – entered the Palestinian PA Parliament (Legislative Council), and they essentially created this law. When I was the [PA] minister of prisoners’ affairs in 2007, I refused to implement the law, the law of payments. During my time, no one received a lot of money – [no one received] so much money, because I basically want – that what is important to the prisoners’ family is to live in dignity. In dignity, that [means] a little money…
They view themselves as a victim of the occupation. In their opinion, struggling against the occupation is legitimate, even though there are, say, exchanges of opinions (sic., differences of opinion) regarding how much violence and who is the target of this violence…
There is no [Palestinian] leader [who] can say: ‘Let’s, say, make a distinction between prisoners.’ This prisoner, say, fought against the occupation because he wants to liberate the Palestinian lands, or a prisoner who did an attack, say, on a bus or I don’t know where because he wanted to commit suicide, or his organization essentially [did it]; maybe the prisoner doesn’t know, or the Martyr (Shahid) or dead person doesn’t know that he is going to carry out something that essentially is against the Palestinian national interest or against the [Palestinian] Authority. That is something that is hard from a Palestinian social perspective to get into and talk about, because there are people who will say: ‘What do you want, we are under occupation. When we are under occupation we are allowed to use weapons against the Israelis, and the Israelis are occupiers.’ Therefore, there is no distinction that – even though in the Palestinian leadership they are always condemning every act of terror, terror attacks essentially, against citizens in Israel, and even acts in the occupied territories…
That’s also not true. It isn’t the Palestinian Authority, it is, say, a village or urban council here and there, they name [streets] and – it isn’t the Palestinian Authority, it is the municipalities that do it. And you know, in the municipalities too there are people there who belong to Hamas, belong to Islamic Jihad, belong to Fatah, all kinds of bodies, and they decide to name streets and squares after this or that Martyr. From my perspective, cities – essentially, I would name all of the squares after intellectuals and people in leadership.”
Video of former PA Minister of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Ashraf Al-Ajrami speaking in Hebrew at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research on Sept. 12, 2017, at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Former PA Minister of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Ashraf Al-Ajrami: “Regarding the knifings, and the people who stab, I want you to review what the security forces in Israel are saying. All of the [Palestinian] people who are participating in stabbings are completely against the Palestinian Authority. No one is responding to what is called [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas’ ‘incitement’ or I don’t know what. Everyone is expressing disappointment and frustration over the current situation, and their personal situation affects them. There are even people with socio-economic problems, and that is the greatest motivation for people to go and stab and do an act like this individually…
Regarding the payments [of the prisoners’ salaries by the PA], many – what they are complaining about in Israel, the truth is that this came in what is called the Law of Prisoners, which recently after the elections in the Palestinian Authority many people – there is also a majority of Hamas members – entered the Palestinian PA Parliament (Legislative Council), and they essentially created this law. When I was the [PA] minister of prisoners’ affairs in 2007, I refused to implement the law, the law of payments. During my time, no one received a lot of money – [no one received] so much money, because I basically want – that what is important to the prisoners’ family is to live in dignity. In dignity, that [means] a little money…
They view themselves as a victim of the occupation. In their opinion, struggling against the occupation is legitimate, even though there are, say, exchanges of opinions (sic., differences of opinion) regarding how much violence and who is the target of this violence…
There is no [Palestinian] leader [who] can say: ‘Let’s, say, make a distinction between prisoners.’ This prisoner, say, fought against the occupation because he wants to liberate the Palestinian lands, or a prisoner who did an attack, say, on a bus or I don’t know where because he wanted to commit suicide, or his organization essentially [did it]; maybe the prisoner doesn’t know, or the Martyr (Shahid) or dead person doesn’t know that he is going to carry out something that essentially is against the Palestinian national interest or against the [Palestinian] Authority. That is something that is hard from a Palestinian social perspective to get into and talk about, because there are people who will say: ‘What do you want, we are under occupation. When we are under occupation we are allowed to use weapons against the Israelis, and the Israelis are occupiers.’ Therefore, there is no distinction that – even though in the Palestinian leadership they are always condemning every act of terror, terror attacks essentially, against citizens in Israel, and even acts in the occupied territories…
That’s also not true. It isn’t the Palestinian Authority, it is, say, a village or urban council here and there, they name [streets] and – it isn’t the Palestinian Authority, it is the municipalities that do it. And you know, in the municipalities too there are people there who belong to Hamas, belong to Islamic Jihad, belong to Fatah, all kinds of bodies, and they decide to name streets and squares after this or that Martyr. From my perspective, cities – essentially, I would name all of the squares after intellectuals and people in leadership.”