Earlier this year, Congress passed a bill known as the Taylor Force Act, named after a West Point graduate and Army veteran who was murdered in Israel by a Palestinian terrorist.
The measure put severe cuts on U.S. aid allocations to the Palestinian Authority, especially if those dollars were being used to fund the PA’s “Prisoners and Martyrs” Fund, which pays the families of terrorists killed or imprisoned.
Israel’s Knesset, with an overwhelming 87-15 vote, passed similar legislation on Monday to put an end to what it referred to as the “pay to slay” PA practice of paying Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who attack Jews. The measure withholds tax transfers to the PA to offset the salaries it pays to the terrorists or their families.
Perhaps one of the most important and accurate quotes out of the Knesset in some time came along with the bill. MK Avi Dichter of Likud, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said, “The PA turned itself into a factory that employs murderers of Jews mostly, but also Muslims…and others.”
Israel transfers more than $2.4 billion to the PA each year. The PA funds its terrorists and their families to the tune of $360 million.
That the Palestinians had the sickening nerve to take American tax dollars and Israeli allocations and use it to incentivize the killing of Israelis and Americans speaks volumes about what the PA is all about. That Ramallah couldn’t find a way to use these generous funds to pay for an infrastructure of peace instead of an architecture of terror underscores the intentions of the PA, those being death instead of life, war instead of peace.
Good for the U.S. and Israel for its legislative actions.
Let’s hope that more nations wonder where their funds are really going when they are sent to the PA. Why, after all these years, is it not known for its educational infrastructure, economy or political prowess. Instead of incentivizing educators, it motivates terrorists.
Maybe Israel and the U.S. can’t fully stop the terrorism. But after Monday, at least Israelis and Americans won’t be paying for it.
