Even the Nazis didn’t pay a reward for murdering Jews

• On Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day: Still today, murder of Jews is rewarded – not by the Nazis but by the PA

Today, on Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel, the Jewish people around the world, and others mark the murder of 6,000,000 Jews by the Nazis. And still today, in 2023, there is an organization that rewards the murder of Jews and literally pays hundreds of millions of dollars every year in cash rewards, to people who participated in terror and murdered Jews, simply for being Jews. It is not the Nazis this time, but the PA.

Much has already been written about the Palestinian Authority’s terror-rewarding Pay-for-Slay policy, first exposed by Palestinian Media Watch in 2011, and it is doubtful whether there is an honest government in the world that could deny knowledge of its existence.

Nonetheless, ignoring the unequivocal fact that the PA uses substantial parts of its budget to reward terrorists for murdering Jews, European governments, the European Union, and others have continued to provide funding to the PA. In fact, the recently published “European Joint Strategy in support of Palestine” noted, that “Since 2008 the EU, EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland have disbursed around USD 1 billion annually in official development assistance to Palestine and the Palestinians.”

The PA is not oblivious to this reality. Rather, the PA rightly interprets the continued aid provided by the international community to the PA as nothing short of an endorsement of its heinous terror-rewarding policy. It is this feeling of empowerment that allows PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – whose most important, if not only, legacy for the Palestinian people is the Pay-for-Slay policy – to brazenly and repeatedly declare that even if the PA is left with just one penny in its coffers, he will pay it first to the terrorists:

Abbas: “A blessing is sent to our loyal Martyrs, our prisoners, and their families who are standing firm and bearing their suffering with patience. We say to them, to the families of the Martyrs, that we will defend their rights regardless of the price we’ll have to pay. I won’t submit to what Israel has requested. I won’t submit. Even if I’m left with one penny, I’ll pay it to the families of the Martyrs, to the prisoners, and to the wounded, and I won’t withhold this from them.”  

[Official PA TV, June 4 (twice), 5 (twice), 6 (four times), 9 (twice), 11 (twice), 12, 15, 16 (twice), 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30, July 2, 3 (twice), 4, 6, 7, 8, 13 (twice), 17 (twice) 23, 26, Aug. 9 (three times), 13, 14, 20, 21, 29, 30 (twice), Sept. 26, Oct. 31, 2021, Jan. 30, 2022]

To mark Holocaust Remembrance day, the EU issued a special statement in which it wrote, inter alia:

“We pledge to speak out forcefully whenever and wherever antisemitism rises. It is unacceptable that today the hatred of Jews is once again on the march. We will not stand idly by when Jews are being attacked or harassed, when false conspiracy theories and stereotypes are spread, when the Holocaust is denied or distorted, when the State of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security is questioned.

Words are not enough.”

[Local EU Statement on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), webpage of the Delegation of the European Union to the State of Israel, Apr. 17, 2023]

If the EU is sincere in its commitment to “speak out forcefully whenever and wherever antisemitism rises”, they will not only speak out, but take action and condition any additional aid to the PA, on the later completely abolishing its policy to reward terrorists and murderers of Jews.

If the EU is sincere in its commitment to “not stand idly by when Jews are being attacked or harassed, when false conspiracy theories and stereotypes are spread, when the Holocaust is denied or distorted,” then it must publicly and officially castigate the PA for its promotion of false conspiracy theories and stereotypes about Jews, and for its vile Holocaust denial, distortion and perversion, as exposed yesterday by PMW, and demand the removal of all materials that deny, distort or belittle the Holocaust from all of Palestinian society.

As the EU correctly noted: “Words (which they never say anyway - PMW) are not enough”

If the international community is truly committed to “Never again!” all donors must hold the PA accountable for both its terror reward policy and its Holocaust denial, distortion and perversion.