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Bulletin
Dec.
1, 2016
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Will Mahmoud Abbas
pay
salaries to the
arsonists?
Op-ed by PMW director in today's Jerusalem
Post
by Itamar
Marcus
While Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas was accepting praise for
sending Palestinian firefighters to help put out fires in Israel, the PA Finance
Ministry was busy doing the paper work to start paying salaries to the
Palestinian arsonists who were arrested for setting many of those same fires. So
far Israel has arrested 23 suspected arsonists connected to the hundreds of
fires that raged across Israel last week burning more than 500 homes and 32,000
acres of forests and national parks. According to Palestinian law documented by PMW, anyone imprisoned for
"resisting the occupation" receives a high monthly salary. Therefore, all of
those convicted and imprisoned for arson will receive PA salaries "from the day
of arrest until the day of release."
Significantly, these
salaries for terrorists rise the longer terrorists are in jail. Terrorists
convicted of murder and serving life sentences will reach a high salary of NIS 12,000 a month - more than four
times the average Palestinian salary.
The PA has already paid the five
Hamas terrorists who murdered Eitam and Naama Henkin in front of their four
children last October in total NIS 91,000 as reward for their murders. And
terrorist Abdallah Barghouti has already received NIS 645,000
for building the bombs that murdered 67 Israelis at the Sbarro pizza shop,
Sheffield Club, Moment Café, the triple bombing at the Ben Yehuda pedestrian
mall, Hebrew University and No. 4 bus in Tel Aviv.
Today there are
approximately 7,000 Palestinian prisoners on the PA payroll. The PA rewards
them every month for terrorism, and this generous arrangement will cost the PA
NIS 488 million in 2016 alone, according to the PA's
publicized budget.
If Abbas was ever serious about stopping the PA's
ongoing support for terrorism, he now has the perfect opportunity to make a
difference. Instead of merely enjoying complimentary headlines and nice photo
ops of Palestinian firemen with Israelis, Abbas should decree that the arsonists
will not receive PA salaries.
Even though this is contrary to current
Palestinian law and practice.
Should Abbas insist on adding the
imprisoned arsonists to the PA payroll, his hypocrisy in sending a few fire
engines to Israel will be exposed to the world.
Should Abbas decide to
deny salaries to the arsonists this may indicate the beginning of a fundamental
change in the PA attitude toward terrorism. However, if Abbas cancels salaries
only to the arsonists, it will not be enough. If he says to the world that the
PA will not pay salaries those who burned trees, rocks and homes while it
continues to pay salaries to murderers of men, women and children, his values
and behavior, which cause many to see him as a terrorist leader, will remain
unchanged.
If Abbas' act of sending fire trucks to help Israel was a
sincere act indicating that he is no longer a terrorist leader, he now has a
great opportunity to prove it.
Right now while he has the world's
attention, having made this small gesture in the direction of peace, let him
take a serious step. Abbas should announce that not only will the arsonists not
be rewarded with PA salaries, but he is changing Palestinian law and canceling
the payments to all imprisoned terrorists altogether.
And what better
opportunity than now to announce this, during Fatah's Seventh General
Conference.
If Abbas continues to pay salaries to murderers and
arsonists, his gesture of sending fire trucks to Israel must be seen as an act
of contemptuous hypocrisy.
The author is
director of Palestinian Media Watch. In response to PMW's recent report on PA
salaries to terrorists, entitled "The PA's Billion Dollar Fraud," Britain froze 25
million pounds, one third of its foreign aid to the PA, and the US Senate passed
a bill to cut off from US yearly funding to the PA the amount the PA pays to
terrorists.
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