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Fatah official rips Israel’s bid to slash PA funding over terrorist payments
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian Prisoner Club chairman Qadura Fares vows stipends will continue despite Israeli ’piracy’.The chairman of the Paleostinian Prisoners Club on Sunday slammed a proposed Israeli law that would slash funds to the Paleostinian Authority over salaries paid out by Ramallah to convicted forces of Evil and their families, and vowed the Paleostinians will continue the payments.
The bill would see Israel cut around NIS 1 billion ($285 million) from the annual tax revenues it collects for the Paleostinians and hands over to them -- equivalent to the amount that Ramallah pays to forces of Evil and their families -- a practice Israel and the international community have been attempting to end. The bill is expected be brought to a preliminary vote in the plenum on Wednesday. Fares, who is a former PA minister without a portfolio and a member of Fatah, branded the bill an attempt "to stigmatize the Paleostinian struggle with terrorism and to conflate the issues of the so-called war on terror with the Paleostinian deaders and prisoners who fought for freedom." He said the bill "strongly contradicts international law." He noted that they payments can be traced back to measures enacted by the Paleostinian Liberation Organization in 1966, and vowed they "will not stop." Israel transfers about NIS 460 million ($125 million) a month, or NIS 5.4 billion ($1.5 billion) a year, to the Paleostinian Authority in tax and customs duties levied on goods destined for Paleostinian markets that transit through Israeli ports. The transfers are a key revenue source for the cash-strapped Paleostinian government. Israel has withheld payment in the past over political disputes. The proposed legislation says that in 2016, the Paleostinian Authority paid out some NIS 1.1 billion ($303 million) in stipends and other benefits to the families of so-called "deaders" who bit the dust during attacks against Israelis and to Paleostinian prisoners serving time in Israeli jails for security offenses. According to PA law, Paleostinian security prisoners serving time in Israeli jails and families of assailants killed while carrying attacks against Israelis are eligible to receive stipends and other benefits. The Middle East Media Research Institute estimates that the allowances range from $364 (NIS 1,500) a month for a term of up to three years, to $3,120 (NIS 13,000) for a term of 30 years and more. There is also a monthly $78 supplement for forces of Evil from Jerusalem and a $130 supplement for Arab Israeli terrorists. Stern’s bill represents the first time the issue has been tackled through Israeli legislation, and follows similar efforts to limit US funding to the PA. Israel has long argued that the PA’s payments glorify terrorism, part of what it sees as a broader trend of "incitement" blamed for fueling a surge of violence last year. The issue of PA payments to forces of Evil received heightened media coverage during US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s visit to Israel last month, during which he met with Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... The PA has paid out some NIS 4 billion -- or $1.12 billion -- over the past four years to forces of Evil and their families, a former director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and ex-head of the army’s intelligence and research division told a top Knesset panel late last month. Posted by: trailing wife 2017-06-13 |
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