Palestinian President Signs Decree Ending ‘Pay to Slay’ System

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree on Monday canceling welfare assistance payments awarded to terrorists and their families for attacking Israelis.

The PA also reached out to United States President Donald Trump’s administration, asking the U.S. to end the Taylor Force Act, which cut U.S. financial aid to the PA until it stops rewarding terrorists.

The PA said it would change its “pay to slay” system and the Martyrs Fund, so that the money given will no longer be based on the acts they commit but on their socioeconomic status.

Prisoners to millionaires: On February 5, Palestinian Media Watch, a Jerusalem-based watchdog group, revealed that many of the Palestinian prisoners released from Israel under its ceasefire agreement with Hamas are leaving prison as millionaires.

• 734 of these terrorists together received $141,837,087 from the PA.
• Nearly half of them received over a million shekels each, which amounts to close to $300,000.

Reform: Abbas is asking President Trump to repeal the Taylor Force Act, created in 2018. He also wants the U.S. to lift other sanctions imposed on the PA and wants Israel to stop deducting tax money from the PA equal to what the PA gives terrorists.

Palestinian officials first presented this reform to the Biden administration. A senior Palestinian official told Axios that the Biden administration began negotiating with the PA and Israel, reportedly reaching a deal in principle several months ago.

Win? According to the official, Abbas waited for President Trump to take office so it would look like a “win” for President Trump, possibly improving relations in hopes that financial aid to the PA would resume.

Israel remains skeptical, however. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Monday:

This is a new fraudulent trick by the Palestinian Authority, which intends to continue making payments to terrorists and their families through other payment channels.

Abbas has been a major advocate for the Martyrs Fund, saying in October 2019:

The martyrs and their families are sacred, [and so are] the wounded and the prisoners. We must pay all of them. If one penny remains in our hands it is for them and not for the living.

Abbas has even cut the salaries of PA employees and created a separate banking system to ensure terrorists receive full payment.

It remains to be seen how President Trump will respond to Abbas’s request. It is impossible to trust that the PA will not continue to fund terrorism. And President Trump hasn’t always acted in Israel’s best interest.

As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained in the March Trumpet issue, terrorists are being released back into society largely because President Trump pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into signing the ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Learn more: Read Mr. Flurry’s article “President Trump Betrayed Israel.”