PLO official supports salaries for terrorists; describes structural changes in PLO prisoners’ affairs commission

Official PA TV News, hosting PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Administrative Committee member Abd Al-Fattah Doleh

PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Administrative Committee member Abd Al-Fattah Doleh: “The response (to implementation of Israeli legislation to deduct terror salaries from PA tax money; see note below –Ed.) has come clearly from the head of the Palestinian pyramid: His Honor [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas said clearly: ‘Even if we’re left with one penny, we will pay it to the prisoners, to the Martyrs, and to their families. This is a red line.’ And this is proof that the Palestinian position is firm. Therefore, everyone is now adopting this position, which His Honor the president expressed clearly. Everyone is a soldier for the defense of the Palestinian prisoners and the Martyrs’ rights. Inside and outside the prisons, the prisoners, the prisoners’ children, and their families are being defended. We will defend this right, and we will defend it with all of the means ‎(i.e., term used by Palestinians, which also refers to the use of violence and terror)‎ and might at our disposal…

You know, several months ago President Mahmoud Abbas appointed a group of brothers to manage the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs. The commission had been led by one man, and the director of the commission had managed it. Now the commission is an administrative system that is managed by an administrative committee. Among the missions that have been given to this committee is arranging and correcting the situation with the institutions that work with the prisoners.”

Israel's Anti "Pay-for-Slay" Law - Israeli law stating that the PA payments to terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is a financial incentive to terror. The law instructs the state to deduct and freeze the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of "Martyrs" from the tax money Israel collects for the PA. Should the PA stop these payments for a full year, the Israeli government would have the option of giving all or part of the frozen money to the PA. The law was enacted by the Israeli Parliament on July 2, 2018. During the parliamentary vote, the law's sponsor Avi Dichter said: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee received much help in its deliberations... from Palestinian Media Watch who provided us with authentic data that enabled productive and professional deliberations, nuances that are very difficult to achieve without precise data.” [Israeli Parliament website, July 2, 2018] In accordance with the law, as of September 2021 Israel’s Security Cabinet had ordered the freeze of 1.857 billion shekels ($580.15 million) - the sum equivalent to the PA payments to terrorists in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

The terms “all means,” “all means of resistance,” “all forms,” are ‎used by PA leaders to include using all types of violence, including deadly terror ‎against Israeli civilians such as stabbings and shootings, as well as throwing rocks and Molotov Cocktails.