Official PA TV praises terrorist murderers who were residents of Jerusalem
In a continuing effort to encourage Arab residents of Jerusalem to carry out terrorist acts, official Palestinian television chose to praise three murderous terrorists who lived in the Jabel Mukaber neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Based on the narrative of victimization and distorted reality, PA TV praised the terrorists as those who "refused to submit to the occupation.”
"Since the occupation of [Jerusalem], the residents of the village [Jabel Mukaber] (i.e., neighborhood of Jerusalem) have not stopped their resistance for one day against the arbitrary acts of the occupation that are manifested in the theft of their lands, the arrest of their children, and the destruction of their homes. The village [Jabel Mukaber] gave Martyrs for the sake of Jerusalem like Martyr Fadi Al-Qunbar, Baha Alyan, Alaa Abu Jamal, and many others who refused to submit to the occupation that is making their lives bitter, and to its blockade on the village of Jabel Mukaber.”
[Official PA TV News, June 26, 2021]
While in practice, the actions attributed to Israel - arrests, demolition of houses and the imposition of closure - were taken only in response to terrorist acts committed by residents of the neighborhood, according to the PA narrative all the arrests, house demolitions and closures were entirely arbitrary and lacked any cause, justification or background.
The terrorists praised were:
Fadi Al-Qunbar – 28-year-old Palestinian terrorist who murdered 4 Israeli soldiers – officer Yael Yekutiel, 20, and cadets Shir Hajaj, 22, Shira Tzur, 20, and Erez Orbach, 20 – and wounded over 15 other soldiers in a truck ramming attack at the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in southeast Jerusalem on Jan. 8, 2017. After ramming into the soldiers at high speed, Al-Qunbar ran over the prone soldiers again before being shot and killed by soldiers and an armed civilian. Al-Qunbar supported ISIS online.
Baha Alyan – 22 -year-old Palestinian terrorist who together with an accomplice on Oct. 13, 2015, boarded a bus in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood with a gun and a knife and attacked passengers, murdering Israelis Chaim Haviv (78), Alon Govberg (51), and Richard Lakin (76), and wounding 3 Israelis. Alyan was shot and killed by an Israeli security guard at the scene.
Alaa Abu Jamal - Palestinian terrorist who deliberately drove his car into Israelis standing at a bus stop on Malchei Yisrael Street in Jerusalem on Oct. 13, 2015, hitting three people. Yeshayahu Krishevsky, 60, was murdered and the other two were injured. Abu Jamal then got out of his car and started attacking people with an axe, wounding others. The terrorist was killed by a security guard.
As part of the PA's effort to encourage and incentivize Israeli Arabs and residents of Jerusalem to carry out terrorist acts, the PA pays these terrorists a special supplement above and beyond the "regular" salary it pays to imprisoned terrorists living in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
Thus, an imprisoned terrorist who is an Israeli Arab citizen will receive a supplement of 500 shekels to his monthly salary from the PA, and a Jerusalem resident will receive a supplement of 300 shekels to his terrorist salary, due to the fact that they reside in Israel.
The family of an Israeli Arab terrorist (citizen or resident) killed while attacking Israelis, will receive an additional 300 shekels in addition to the "regular" monthly allowance paid by the PA to the families of the terrorists living in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
According to calculations of Palestinian Media Watch, based on the official PA pay scale for terror rewards, the PA has by now paid the following sums to the families of the three terrorists mentioned above, solely because they murdered Israelis and were killed as terrorists: the family of the terrorist Al-Qunbar has been paid 153,700 shekels/$47,205 (Since the terrorist was married and the father of 4, his family receives an additional payment from the PA of 1,200 shekels per month); the family of the terrorist Alyan has been paid 121,600 shekels/$37,346; the family of the terrorist Abu Jamal has been paid 121,600 shekels/$37,346. The families of the terrorists Alyan and Abu Jamal continue to receive a monthly allowance of 1,700 shekels/$522, while the family of the terrorist Al-Qunbar receives a monthly payment of 2,900 shekels/$891.
Needless to say, these PA payments to terrorists are prohibited under Israeli law, and anyone involved in the payments commits an offense. Not only that, since these payments are prohibited, action can be taken to seize the funds. Indeed, once, in late 2019, following a recommendation from the PMW, the then Defense Minister, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, ordered the seizure of money paid by the PA to terrorists and their families as a reward for their terrorist acts.
Since it is clear to all, that the payment of terror rewards constitutes the prohibited encouragement and incentivizing of terror, in order to break the chain of terrorism, PMW recommends turning that one-time operation in to a routine course of action taken systematically by the Israeli authorities.