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The Palestinian Authority Sponsors Terrorism, and the Taylor Force Act Puts It Out in the Open
(Washington Examiner) Sander Gerber and Yossi Kuperwasser - With the passage of the Taylor Force Act, Congress acknowledges that the Palestinian Authority has laws in place and budgets allocated to paying terrorists and their families. Yet articles in the Washington Post and Atlantic dispute whether the 2018 PA budget of $360 million for Prisoners and Martyrs in fact goes primarily to terrorists. They postulate that prisoners include innocents that happen to be arrested, and attempt to inject definitional terms on what a terrorist is. Both claim that these payments are a social responsibility. They are wrong. To claim that the PA sends money to car thieves or even minor offenders is simply untrue. The PA has a schedule for payments, and you need to achieve a 5-year sentence as a male and a 2-year sentence as a female to get a lifetime annuity. Currently there are 6,500 prisoners being compensated by the PA. The secretary-general of the PA government, Ali Abu Diyak, stated in December 2015: "The prisoners' salaries are paid to the fighter prisoners, who were arrested due to their national struggle, and not to others.... [The government] will not pay allowances and salaries to criminal prisoners." The PA has an institutional commitment to sponsoring terror against Israel that comprises more than 7% of its entire budget and 45% of the foreign aid it expects to receive in 2018. Sander Gerber is CEO of Hudson Bay Capital Management. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser was formerly Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence. Both are Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.