Hugh Fitzgerald: The Taylor Force Act Does Not Go Far Enough (Part One)
The recent UN appeal to the world to fund the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay for Slay” policy offers an opportunity to point out that the Taylor Force Act, which brought about this UN appeal, does not go far enough.
The Taylor Force Act is an attempt to prevent the Palestinian Authority from continuing to reward “Palestinian” terrorists and their families. The law ends American economic aid to the Palestinian Authority until the PA changes its laws, and ceases paying stipends funneled through the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund to those who commit acts of terrorism and to the families of deceased terrorists. Families of individuals killed by Israeli security forces are paid stipends of at least $1,000 per month. The families of convicted Palestinians serving time in Israeli prisons receive $3,000 or higher per month, many times more than the average Palestinian salary. These sums have served as great incentivizers, both for those terrorists who choose to be “martyrs” and die while killing Jews, and for those who choose not to be martyrs (e.g., preferring to run Israelis over, or stabbing them, rather than becoming suicide bombers), it’s a way to support their families in grand style while they are imprisoned; when they are released, they continue to receive support from the PA.
One example, cited by Prime Minister Netanyahu, was of Hakim Awad, who murdered the Fogel family — husband, wife, three children, and an infant, in a West Bank settlement. Akad now receives about $14,000 a year from the PA. But because payments increase with the length of incarceration, Awad will be be paid more than $1.9 million if he lives to the age of 80, the male life expectancy in Israel. That money, of course, will go to benefit his family. The total given by the P.A. for the support both of imprisoned terrorists and to the families of dead terrorists now exceeds $400 million a year; this is more than 10% of the PA’s total budget.
The Taylor Force Act was signed into law on March 23, 2018. Unfortunately, it contained loopholes, which still allow funds to be released to the PA for specified purposes. A State Department official has said that $61 million was released to the PA in mid-August for such purposes as “international narcotics and law enforcement as well as non-proliferation, anti-terrorism and de-mining funding.” By “anti-terrorism” funding, of course, the PA does not mean it has any intention of acting against its own, PA terrorists (who are heroes and martyrs, and deserve financial support), but may act to prevent the acts planned by other terrorists, including its enemy Hamas. The Trump Administration released that $61 million without having gained anything in exchange from the PA, no hint of an end to the PA’s “Pay For Slay” policy. Indeed, Mahmoud Abbas has angrily insisted there will be no change whatsoever in the PA’s policy of giving generous stipends to terrorists — the PA-approved kind — and their families.
This attempt by the Administration to ignore both the spirit and letter of the Taylor Force Act is disturbing. What has our government ever gained from the large sums it has lavished over several decades on the Palestine Authority? There has been not the slightest change in the financial support given to terrorists and their families. There has been no change, either, in the PA’s policy of honoring terrorists by naming town squares and streets and parks and summer camps after them, of using children’s television programs to honor those terrorists and to have little children sing — literally — praise for those who kill “Jews” and pledge to do the same themselves when they are old enough. Even if the P.A. were miraculously to end its subsidies to terrorists, there remains its celebration of terrorists and its promotion of terrorism against “the Jews,” beginning with television programs for very young children.
Why should any American money go to the Palestinian Authority, a group that is no different from Hamas in its ultimate goal of destroying Israel? The only difference is that the PA engages in a Slow Jihad, including propaganda and diplomatic campaigns to weaken support for the Jewish state, in the hope of forcing Israel to yield control of still more territory, while Hamas attempts, repeatedly, to engage Israel in a Fast Jihad of both qitaal (combat) and terrorism.
Mahmoud Abbas has made it absolutely clear that he would continue to lavishly fund both imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists. Yet the Administration has not only refused to punish him as directed by the Taylor Force Act, but has answered his intransigence with a transfer of $61 million. This sends exactly the wrong message to the endlessly mendacious Mahmoud Abbas, with his no-one-here-but-us-accountants masquerade. It confirms his sense that he can defy the Americans, and continue his “pay for slay” policy without retribution.
One hopes this transfer of $61 billion was a single, not-to-be-repeated mistake, and that American aid will be decreased not just by the the amount that the PA pays imprisoned terrorists and their families, but will also include severer cuts in aid, in order to punish the PA for all the other ways that it encourages or glorifies terrorists and terrorism.
Let’s start with the glorifying of Palestinian terrorists.
A single example should suffice. Dalal Mughrabi was a member of a terror squad that in 1978 sailed from Lebanon and landed on the beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They first encountered Gail Rubin, a nature photographer taking pictures on the beach. They asked what country they were in. Rubin replied “Israel.” Mughrabi then shot her dead. They then commandeered a taxi, murdering everyone in it, managed to stop and take over a bus, and then still another bus, as they careened along the Coastal Road, murdering as they went. In the end, 38 Israelis, including 13 children, were killed, and 72 were wounded. Mughrabi and eight other terrorists were killed.
Dalal Mughrabi has become a national hero for the Palestine Authority. A public square has been named after her. So have many schools, a computer center, a soccer tournament, a women’s center, and a summer camp. There is a Dalal Mughrabi Girls High School (PA Television, March 31, 2000); a Dalal Mughrabi Summer Camp in Rafiah (PA Television, August 9, 2001); a Dalal Mughrabi Kindergarten in Dura (Al Ayyam, May 30, 2001); and a Dalal Mughrabi Course in the Fatah Women’s Young Staff Preparatory Course. The murderous Ms. Mughrabi is held up as a role model for young women, a martyr who should be both honored and emulated.
There are many other “Palestinian” terrorists who have been honored in the same way, with streets and squares named after therm, including Abu Iyad, who, among other deeds, helped plan the Munich murders of Israeli athletes in1972, and Yahya Ayash, who masterminded many attacks, including a bus bombing in 1995.
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