Yesterday, President Donald Trump made a modest request to the Palestinian Authority: stop paying terrorists and their families lifetime salaries. Seems reasonable right? To kindly request that they stop using their largely foreign-supplied coffers to reward murderers such as those who stabbed Kristine Luken to death and left our own Kay Wilson for dead?
The PA’s official response? To stop these payments is “mad”.
It’s “MAD” to NOT pay terrorists’ salaries funded by YOUR taxes.
Here’s why:
“The demand that Ramallah stop payments to the families of security prisoners is mad,” Shaath told the broadcaster, adding that “such a requirement is designed to destroy any chance for a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.”
Shaath also stated that “the prisoners are victims of Israel and the result of the occupation,” and drew an equivalence with the “IDF paying the salaries of Israeli soldiers.”
And lo, the Palestinian Authority just shot themselves in the foot and incriminated themselves for war crimes.
As noted by Eugene Kontorovich on Twitter:
The PA considers the terrorists that stab at random in the streets, run over people waiting at bus stops, break into homes and murder a family in their sleep, blow up cafe’s, buses, restaurants and Passover Seders to be the equivalent of IDF soldiers.
If the PA considers their terrorists to be “soldiers”, then as members of the International Criminal Court, the PA must be saying that they are responsible for their actions.
Many justify these payments as necessary for “dependent care”. If this were the case, why is the amount of payments based on the number of Israelis they kill, and length of prison term, rather than number of dependents? Why do Palestinian prisoners serving sentences unrelated to terror not get anything?
It’s because these payments are directly correlated to the amount of wanton damage they caused. The bigger the death toll, the bigger the pay. There is no distinction between citizen and non-citizen. Toddler or soldier, senior citizen or mother, even Jew or non-Jew.
Excuse me while I dwell on this for another minute.
Exhibit A: Israeli soldier, Elor Azaria shot a subdued terrorist dead after he attempted to murder Israelis. The outcry was global. Although the Israeli courts have handled the matter, there was even a condemnation at the UN because Azaria’s sentence was too light. These incidents happen infrequently. But when they do it’s taken extremely seriously by the Israeli military and treated as worldwide news. Anything short of putting the offender in the electric chair would be considered “too light” in the world’s eyes.
Meanwhile… in palestine. Exhibit B: A man who murdered 15 people and maimed 80 by detonating a refrigerator rigged with explosives made his family a king’s ransom while in prison, got a cushy job with the PA (which he was entitled to) after being released by Israel as a “goodwill gesture,” and then got his own monument in the center of Ramallah. Global reaction? Not existent. These incidents happen all the time. The payments encourage the kids to do likewise.
If the PA claims that “terror pay” is equivalent to IDF salaries, then they are saying Exhibit B above is not terrorism. If it is not terrorism, it is then an intentional killing of civilians by a state, which is the most classic example of a war crime.
Thank you, Palestinian Authority for your admission to a war crime.
