Bill to slash funding to PA over incitement heads to ministerial vote

These payments are incitement and an incentive to commit acts of terrorism against Israelis, Stern said.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Updated: JUNE 7, 2017 00:15
Hamas social media (photo credit: PALESTINIAN SOCIAL MEDIA)
Hamas social media
(photo credit: PALESTINIAN SOCIAL MEDIA)
A proposal to cut tax money sent to the Palestinian Authority in proportion to the amount it pays terrorists and their families is set to go to a first vote in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday.
The bill submitted by MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) points out that by law in the Palestinian Authority, terrorists who killed Israelis and are in Israeli prisons, and the families of those who were killed while engaging in terrorism, receive monthly payments. The greater the punishment from Israeli authorities, the higher the payments, such that the more Israelis a Palestinian kills, the more the PA pays him or her.
These payments are incitement and an incentive to commit acts of terrorism against Israelis, Stern said.
“We have to put an end to the fact that terrorists and their relatives are paid for murdering Israelis,” he said.
“It cannot be that they get salaries for murdering Israelis. The state must do everything to fight terrorism, and this bill is critical for Israeli security.”
The legislation has broad support in the coalition and opposition, including from former senior security figures such as ex-Shin Bet chiefs MKs Avi Dichter (Likud) and Yaakov Peri (Yesh Atid), and former major-generals Stern and MK Eyal Ben-Reuven (Zionist Union).
In addition, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid has expressed support for the bill.
In the past few weeks, Norway, Denmark and the UN have pulled funds from the PA because it went toward incitement, such as to a women’s center named for Dalal Mugrabi, who took part in Fatah’s Coastal Road Massacre in 1978, killing 39 Israelis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly come out against the payments to terrorists in recent months, pointing to the fact that international donors’ money is going to incitement.
At an American Jewish Committee conference in Washington on Tuesday, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said: “The US should stop funding the PA until the PA stops teaching children to kill. Not one cent of American taxpayer money should support Palestinian terror.”
Meanwhile, in the US, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) proposed the Taylor Force Act, which would stop all US funds to the PA until the terrorist salaries are stopped.