PA’s scheme to bypass donors’ demand to stop terrorist salaries: Released terrorists to become public employees

Palestine Today TV host: "According to [The New York Times] there may be amendments that will affect the prisoners’ and released prisoners’ salaries. Do you know anything about this?"

Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr: “These things are inaccurate and incorrect. We are working to realize the decision of [former PA President] Martyr Yasser Arafat. In 1994 there was a decision, and even an order, to attach every released prisoner to the [PA] Security Forces or the civilian institutions…. These numbers have risen and reached more than 7,000 [released] prisoners. I renewed this suggestion… to absorb all the released prisoners into the civilian or military institutions according to the desire of each prisoner. Mahmoud Abbas agreed to this matter, and currently we are attempting… to absorb all the released prisoners so there will be no released prisoner who receives his salary as a released prisoner. No. [Instead] he is an employee like all the [public] employees."

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.