Canadian court rejects asylum request from Palestinian who failed to reveal her role in the Palestinians’ pay-for-slay program.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
An Israeli media watchdog group called on Canada Tuesday to designate the PLO and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as terror supporters after a court in Montreal rejected an asylum request from a Palestinian woman who worked “incentivizing acts of terrorism against Israelis.”
Maurice Hirsch, Director of Legal Strategies for Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), said the woman, Khitam Khudeish, had her request for refugee status rejected after the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada discovered Khudeish worked for the Iraqi branch of the Palestine Martyrs’ Families Foundation.
The court discovered that the foundation, an arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has “a single purpose… of a criminal nature” and was created with the “criminal purpose of incentivising acts of terrorism against Israelis.”
Founded by PLO leader Yasser Arafat, the foundation is a front for paying stipends so that Palestinian terrorists kill and maim knowing that their families will be supported should they be eliminated while attacking Israelis.
The PLO is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, who is also president of the Palestinian Authority, and who has repeatedly expressed his complete commitment to paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually in financial support to families of killed terrorists, including the families of suicide bombers.
Khudeish appealed her rejection to the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) of the Immigration Board, but the appeal too was rejected.
“The RAD found, on a balance of probabilities, that the Palestine Martyrs’ Families Foundation was created by the PLO to fulfill the criminal purpose of incentivizing acts of terrorism against Israelis,” the court wrote in its findings.
The court also found that “Ms. Khudeish was not a credible witness … which is not an unreasonable position in light of the fact that she provided inconsistent, evolving descriptions of her duties.”
In approving the RAD’s decision to reject her application for refugee status, the court noted that the woman had made a “significant contribution to the criminal purpose of the [PLO] organization,” and adopted critical findings both relating to the Institute for the martyrs and the appellant.
“According to the Canadian court, Mahmoud Abbas heads an organization – the PLO – which created the Palestine Martyrs’ Families Foundation with “a single purpose… of a criminal nature” for “incentivising acts of terrorism against Israelis,” Hirsch reiterated, saying the court confirmed the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” policy is real.
“Since the Canadian court has recognized the criminal nature of the PLO’s support of terror, it would be only be fitting for the Canadian government to adopt the court’s ruling and declare the PLO and its Chairman Mahmoud Abbas designated terror supporters,” Hirsch said.
“The Government of Canada cannot hide from this unambiguous result,” said Michael Mostyn who heads B’nai Brith Canada. “It is fond of saying that ‘Canada is a friend and ally of the State of Israel, and a friend of the Palestinian people,’ but what sort of friend pays its people to murder the citizens of an ally?”