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Palestinian Authority Admits It Prioritizes Terrorists Over Children’s Education
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
It is more important to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to provide terrorists with millions of dollars in rewards than to provide Palestinian children with an education, admits a senior PA education official.
The official confirmed what Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has long been reporting — that the PA prioritizes terrorists over its children’s education.
In an interview on PA television, the official declared that teachers refrain from working full-time because they are not paid their full salaries by the PA.
The teachers are not paid in full because Israel freezes the tax money that it collects for the PA as long as the PA financially rewards terror. This is known as Israel’s Anti Pay-for-Slay Law, which she called “theft of funds” by Israel.
What the official did not mention is that if the PA would not prioritize terror payments, there would be no Israeli deductions, and teachers would work full-time.
Official PA TV host: “Dr. [Suhair Qassem], tell us more details about the obstacles facing the [education] system or the educational training programs.” …
PA National Institute for Educational Training Director-General Dr. Suhair Qassem: “If we talk about the reason why we are reducing the [teachers’] work hours, why the teacher refrains from working, the reason for this is the theft of funds [i.e., Israel’s freeze of PA taxes used for Pay-for-Slay].”
[Official PA TV, Educational Podcast, Oct. 15, 2025]
The PA teachers’ union had announced two months ago that if the PA did not pay the teachers their full salaries, they would only work three or four days a week. The PA has only paid 70% of the salaries of its employees, which include these teachers, since the start of the school year.
Therefore, teachers have not been working full time, and the children are only receiving a part-time education.
PMW has explained that were the PA to stop its “Pay-for-Slay” terror-rewards program, the PA’s entire financial crisis would be resolved and its employees would all be able to regularly receive their salaries in full.
The PA runs its Pay-for-Slay program with full knowledge that it will not have money left to pay its teachers. These terror salaries come to a tune of 30 million USD a month.
Earlier this year, PMW exposed that the PA was lying about having changed its system to become need-based and that families of prisoners and Martyrs continued to receive terror payments as they have in the past.
The PA’s financial crisis is self-inflicted — the result of its “terrorists first” ideology institutionalized from the very top by Mahmoud Abbas, who has repeated again and again that “even if we have [only] one penny left, it is for the prisoners and Martyrs.”
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.