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PA’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Payments to Rise by $1.3 Million Per Month
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank January 31, 2023. Majdi Mohammed/Pool via REUTERS
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced that since Hamas launched its war on Oct. 7, an additional 3,550 terrorists have been recognized as prisoners of Israel, making a total of 8,800 prisoners.
The overwhelming majority of those included in this number have been captured during Israel’s activities against terror in the PA-controlled areas, while 661 are Hamas terrorists from Gaza:
The prisoners’ affairs institutions:
“The total number of prisoners in the occupation’s [i.e., Israel’s] prisons at the end of December 2023 reached 8,800. Of them, more than 80 female prisoners are in Damon Prison alone … The number of those [prisoners] whom the occupation classifies as ‘illegal fighters’ [i.e., Hamas terrorists from Gaza] is 661.
This means that the number of all the prisoners increased by 3,550 prisoners since Oct. 7. The number of administrative [detainees] increased by 1,971.”
[PA-funded Prisoners’ Club, Telegram channel, Jan. 3, 2024]
Before Oct. 7, the PA had been rewarding 5,250 prisoners and nearly 8,000 released terrorist prisoners with approximately $13.4 million (50 million shekels) in monthly salaries as rewards for terror.
The nearly 67% rise in the number of prisoners will initially cost the PA an additional $1,331,000 per month (4,970,000 shekels), adding $16 million to last year’s expenditure of $161 million (600,000,000 shekels) on terror salaries.
The additional $1,331,000 per month are only the initial costs. According to PA law, as Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) already exposed in 2011, each of the new terrorist prisoners will receive a starting salary of 1,400 shekels per month ($375 per month), which will rise the longer he or she is in prison, reaching a maximum of 12,000 shekels per month ($3,215 per month).
23,210 additional “Martyrs”
In addition, the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida announced on Wednesday that there are 23,210 additional “Martyrs.”
This follows the official announcement by the PLO “Families of the Martyrs and Wounded Institution” three days ago that it recognized an additional 22,000 “Martyrs” in Gaza — which makes their families eligible to receive monthly stipends as well.
Through the PLO, the Palestinian Authority pays the families of so-called “Martyrs” — including all terrorists who were killed attacking Israelis — an immediate one-time 6,000-shekel grant and then 1,400 shekels per month for life.
After previous Israeli wars against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, it took several years for the PA to process the thousands of “Martyrs,” but eventually their families received money from the PA.
While most of the names and other information about the “Martyrs” from Gaza are certainly unknown at this stage, the PA was quick to announce that it will make sure to guarantee their families a “dignified life … [and] will continue its efforts to provide the services that it gives these families”:
Chairwoman of the [PLO] Families of the Martyrs and Wounded Institution Intisar Al-Wazir said that this year [Palestinian] Martyrs’ Day is taking place at a time when acts of genocide and massacres by the occupation’s forces against our people in the Gaza Strip are continuing … the result of which was more than 22,000 Martyrs…
She emphasized that the leadership led by [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas is committed to taking care of the families of our Martyrs and wounded and makes sure to guarantee a dignified life for them. She also emphasized that the Families of the Martyrs and Wounded Institution … will continue its efforts to provide the services that it gives these families, which have sacrificed that which is most precious to them for the homeland.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 7, 2024]
The expression of guaranteeing a “dignified life” has been used by the PA before to justify the monthly payments the PA makes to terrorists and their families.
What is clear from both the new PA announcements and past policy is that the PA does not differentiate between Hamas terrorists who committed atrocities after invading Israel on Oct. 7, the Hamas terrorists killed by Israel in the ensuing war, and civilian non-combatants killed in the Gaza Strip while being used as human shields by Hamas. They are all considered “Martyrs” whose families are eligible to receive stipends of 1,400 shekels per month for life.
It should be noted that the PA and PLO institution’s figures for “Martyrs” are based on the Hamas-run Ministry of Health’s announcements, which are certainly exaggerations as can be seen in the one case where there is clear evidence.
After an Islamic Jihad rocket landed in the parking lot of a Gaza hospital killing an estimated 50 people, the PA and the Hamas Ministry of Health both announced that 500 civilians were killed inside the hospital by an Israeli bomb.
Likewise, analysis has debunked the Hamas daily announcements of numbers of “Martyrs,” showing that there are days when the PA reported more women and children as having died than the total number of dead reported for that same day. The casualty figures are clearly exaggerations intended to bring international condemnation of Israel and international pressure for a ceasefire.
In the same article announcing the new “Martyrs,” the PA daily emphasized how highly the PA values the terrorist “Martyrs”:
“Palestine’s Martyrs constitute a medal of honor for our people. They are the symbol of freedom and self-sacrifice, and they are the stars who do not disappear from our skies. They perfume our land with their deep-red and fragrant blood, and they are more honored than us all.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 7, 2024]
Because of its “pay-for-slay” terror rewards, the PA has lost billions of dollars in foreign funding, a billion dollars that Israel deducted from tax transfers per Israel’s deduction law [according to PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh on Al-Araby TV, Dec. 10, 2023], and billions of dollars wasted on funding terrorists and their families.
As a result, the PA currently does not have the money to pay salaries to Palestinian civil servants, including teachers, and has been making only partial payments for over two years. Now, the international community is asking Israel to release the money it has frozen because the PA is sending it to Gaza, while complaining to Israel about the PA’s dire financial situation.
The new salaries just for the prisoners alone will cause the PA an additional budget deficit of $16 million per year. When the PA begs for international aid because of its great deficit, the donor countries should remember that when they fund the PA — either through direct aid or by paying expenses — in essence, they will be reimbursing the PA for money it spent to fund terror.
It’s time the donors conditioned their funding on the end of the PA’s “pay-for-slay” program.
The author is the founder and executive director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post PA’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Payments to Rise by $1.3 Million Per Month first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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