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Checking the Washington Post's Fact Checker

(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and Sander Gerber - The Washington Post's Fact Checker's column, "Does the Palestinian Authority pay $350 million a year to 'terrorists and their families'?" (March 14, 2018), was less successful at fact-checking than at whitewashing the official Palestinian Authority policy of promoting and incentivizing terror by rewarding terrorists. The article verifies that the Palestinian Authority pays huge sums to perpetrators of terrorist acts and their families and confirms that the PA operates two organizations dedicated to this purpose. It also affirms that the salaries are malignly promised in advance to the terrorists and grow as the violence perpetrated causes greater damage. Appallingly, it excuses payments to civilian attackers for intentional violence against innocents to promote political and religious goals, citing the excuse: "one man's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." As Amb. Dore Gold has noted, the Post's columnist "enters the swamp of moral relativism, which in the current context means that no one is in a position to judge even the most heinous terror attacks, and this leads to terror with impunity and the world becomes more dangerous as international standards are not upheld." The terrorists are paid in accordance with Palestinian Authority law. This reflects the Palestinian narrative that regards the ongoing struggle against Zionism as an imperative for any Palestinian until victory. This is the logic behind the terror payments that is ignored. The PA promotes acts of stone throwing, stabbing, and vehicular attacks that go far beyond non-violent civil disobedience. The PA sees terrorists as warriors and heroes sent on their mission by the Palestinian authorities. This is why the PA leadership, including Mahmoud Abbas, insist that they will keep paying terrorists under any circumstances. The PA terror payments policy incentivizes terror that has claimed thousands of lives, including those of Americans. Providing any justification or rationalization for this is outrageous, immoral, illegal, and unacceptable. 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. Sander Gerber is a former vice chairman of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Both are Fellows of the Jerusalem Center.
2018-03-26 00:00:00
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