Paying Terrorists’ Families by Accounting Sleight of Hand

As you read this you will likely recall that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has had some “issues” over the last 27 years with abandoning terror.

As Israel Today has reported in the past, one of these issues is the fact that the PA pays salaries to the families of suicide bombers and convicted terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons. Rewarding terrorists is obviously unacceptable to Israel, and it is clearly not helping the so-called peace process. Nations contributing to the Palestinian Authority have stipulated that such payments must cease.

However, Palestinian Media Watch recently reported that the payments have not ceased but rather have been lumped into an accounting phrase called “PLO institutions.” These payments amounted to at least $US 159 million US dollars in 2020. The trick the PA used was to not make the payments directly, but rather transfer the money to the PLO which then made the payments. [The main donors to the PA have been the European Union and the United States, as well as Muslim nations to a more limited extent.]