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Ending Aid to Palestinian Terrorists
(Wall Street Journal) Editorial - Since the 1990s, as the U.S. and other countries have sent billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, Palestinian leaders have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in rewards to those who carry out bombings, stabbings and other attacks in Israel. These payments, codified in Palestinian law, are an official incentive program for murder that in any other context would be recognized as state sponsorship of terror. Senators Lindsey Graham, Dan Coats and Roy Blunt have introduced a bill to end U.S. economic aid unless Palestinian leaders stop rewarding terrorists. It's called the Taylor Force Act, after the 28-year-old U.S. Army veteran stabbed to death in March by a Palestinian in the Israeli city of Jaffa. Other American victims of recent Palestinian terrorism include 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel and 18-year-old Ezra Schwartz. "They will never achieve peace when you pay one of your young men to kill someone like Taylor Force. That's inconsistent and it needs to stop," Graham says. "We're not going to invest in a group of people that have laws like this. It's just not a good investment." The same Palestinian laws guarantee civil-service employment to terrorists upon their release from prison - the bloodier their crime, the cushier their post. The truth is these payments are blood-soaked gifts from a Palestinian leadership still devoted more to destroying Israel than to building a Palestinian state. This has always been the chief impediment to peace.