Nellie Bowles, a New York Times technology reporter recently claimed that it is a “far-right conspiracy” that the “Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions For Terrorist Families.” She’s wrong.
It is not a fancy of the far-right nor conspiracy that the Palestinian Authority (PA) remunerates terror through payments to the families of Palestinians who carry out attacks on Israelis. It’s a well-documented fact.
As Liel Leibovitz points out in Tablet: “In 2017, the PA doled out more than $347 million to families of terrorists who had murdered Jews, increasing the amount to $403 million this year. Between 2013 and 2017, the PA spent $1.12 billion on supporting terrorists and their families, as Yosef Kuperwasser, the former head of the IDF intelligence research branch, reported in Tablet last May.”
In March, Congress cut funding to the Palestinian Authority over exactly this practice, saying that funds would be cut “until the PA ends the abhorrent practice of providing payments to terrorists and their families in reward for acts of violence.” As Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee stated: “Since 2003, it has been Palestinian law to reward Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails with a monthly paycheck.”
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority admits, even advertises these payments. And Abbas has said he doesn’t “intend to cease payment[s] for families of prisoner martyrs,” i24 News reports.
Abbas admits the practice, but a New York Times reporter denies it.
The PA’s funding of terror is not a figment of the right wing’s imagination, it’s real problem. Bowles ought to correct this glaring error.
