Palestinian authorities have been paying prisoners for years, but the issue is now front and center as Israel’s government and its supporters in Congress are pressing the Trump administration to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority unless the payments stop, William Booth reports for the Washington Post.
“Fund peace, not murder,” Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said earlier this month.
“Aid provided by the donor countries to the Palestinian Authority every year ends up funding terrorists who murdered innocent Israelis,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon. “This is official Palestinian blood money, rewarding terrorists who kill Jews.”
Yossi Kuperwasser, a former top intelligence officer and Israeli army general, who now works as a scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said the Palestinian government allocates $300 million a year for these payments, which is more than 20% of the annual foreign aid given to the government by all donors. Kuperwasser said that it’s common-sensical that stopping payments to Palestinians who attack Israelis would reduce terror assaults.
(Washington Post)
{Matzav}
