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Aug 11, 2016

Palestinians: The “Country” Where Crime Is an Official Job

by Yves Mamou
August 7, 2016

Crime is not supposed to pay in any country, but for Palestinians in the West Bank, crime helps you become a public officer.

In this small piece of land, headed by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), every killer of a Jewish Israeli citizen is called “martyr.” This word “martyr” means that each time a Palestinian stabs a Jew, he accomplishes an act of pious virtue. And because the killer is a good Palestinian Muslim, his family becomes eligible for regular payments from the Palestinian Authority’s “martyr’s fund.” This fund is used financially to compensate Palestinian prisoners and the families of “martyrs.”

After a 17-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Tarayra, stabbed to death a sleeping 13-year-old Israeli girl, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, in her bed in the town of Kiryat Arba, the terrorist’s house was decorated with Fatah and PLO flags. No doubt the family will be soon on the list of payments from the Palestinian “martyr’s fund.”

According to an analysis by Bloomberg’s Eli Lake:

“The origins of these payments goes back a long way. Before the Palestinian Authority was established in the 1990s through the Oslo peace process, the Palestine Liberation Organization paid the families of ‘martyrs’ and prisoners detained by Israel. That practice became standardized during the Second Intifadah of 2000 to 2005. The Israelis even found documents in the late Yasser Arafat’s compound that showed payments to families of suicide bombers.”

The money the Palestinian killers make is not small change. Evelyn Gordon reported in Commentary:

“The PA has for years paid above-market salaries to the perpetrators of anti-Israel terror attacks. The salaries range from 2,400 to 12,000 shekels a month ($600 USD to $3,000 USD) and are paid for the duration of the perpetrator’s jail sentence in Israel (people killed while committing attacks get other benefits). The lower figure is roughly equivalent to the average — not minimum — wage for people who actually hold jobs in the West Bank, and about 40 percent higher than the average wage in Gaza; figures at the higher end of the range are the kind of salaries most Palestinians can’t even dream of. In short, the PA has made terror far more lucrative than productive work.”

Yigal Carmon, president and founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), submitted testimony to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs on July 6, 2016. He gave interesting details.

First: the payments are highly structured by law.

“This financial support for prisoners is anchored in a series of laws and government decrees, chiefly Laws No. 14 and No. 19 of 2004, and Law No. 1 of 2013…” According to these laws, the PA must provide prisoners with a monthly allowance during their incarceration, and salaries or jobs upon their release. They are also entitled to exemptions from payments for education, health care, and professional training. Their years of imprisonment are calculated as years of seniority of service in PA institutions. It should be noted that whoever was imprisoned for five years or more is entitled to a job in a PA institution. Thus, the PA gives priority in job placement to people who were involved in terrorist activity.”

Technically, the PA transfers the funds through two PLO organizations:

The National Palestinian Fund, which transfers moneys for the prisoners and released prisoners (further to be disbursed by the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs).
The Institute for Care for the Families of Martyrs, which transfers moneys for the families of martyrs.

What are the amounts?

Prisoners and families: “[T]he PA invests significant sums in underwriting the expenses of the prisoners and their families — $137.8 million according to the PA’s 2016 budget (about 7% of which is for officials’ salaries and operating expenses).