The Israeli government will soon face a decision on whether to deduct 926 million shekels ($282 million) from the tax money it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, the equivalent of the total it paid in stipends to terrorists and their families in 2020.
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The Palestinian Authority routinely spends hundreds of millions of dollars on payments to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks against Israel. The PA's "pay-for-slay" policy is a widely condemned practice that takes a growing cut of Ramallah's budget – funded by donor countries in the West and the Arab world – every year.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz submitted a report to the cabinet on Ramallah's highly controversial policy last year, but the matter has not been discussed yet. The new Diplomatic-Security Cabinet is set to convene Sunday for the first time since the swearing-in of the new government, but the Prime Minister's Office declined to comment whether the matter would be discussed at the session.
According to the Palestinian Media Watch NGO, the PA transferred NIS 750 million ($229 million) to terrorists and their families in 2020. Another NIS 176 million ($53 million) was used as stipends in December 2019 but was not included in the yearly report at the time by then-Defense Minister Naftali Bennett.
Israel, which collects taxes on behalf of the PA as part of a mechanism outlined in the 1993 Oslo Accords and transfers the funds to Ramallah monthly, began deducting the sums the PA uses to pay terrorists in July 2018, after the Knesset passed a law to that effect, in an effort to discourage the Palestinian practice.
However, due to various considerations, not every month did the government follow through on the law. In 2019, the Netanyahu administration decided not to deduct NIS 610 million ($106 million) from the taxes collected for the PA, the amount it used to pay terrorists between January and November that year.
Attorney Itzhak Bam has recently filed a petition with the High Court of Justice to require the government to adhere to the law. The petitioners are the "Choose Life" forum, which works with bereaved families, and Herzl and Merav Hajaj, whose daughter Lt. Shir Hajaj was killed along with three other Israelis by a Palestinian truck driver who deliberately rammed into a group of IDF soldiers in Jerusalem in 2017.
Maurice Hirsch of Palestinian Media Watch, said that the law is "meant to punish the PA for paying terrorists who killed Israelis. When the Israeli government doesn't follow the 'pay-for-slay' law, it sends a clear message: that it is letting the matter slide, and the authority then continues to use the money to fund killing more Jews."
The cabinet said in a statement that it has not yet scheduled a time to discuss the matter "due to the circumstances of the time, including the change of government."
"Pay-for-slay" has earned the PA scathing international criticism, but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to keep up terrorists' payments, even it if bankrupts the PA.
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