Giuliani: Terror-Financing Palestinian Authority ‘Not Entitled to Be a State’

The PA is a “murder machine” and “a prime supporter of terrorism and therefore not entitled to be a state,” Rudy Giuliani declared. 

By: United with Israel Staff

Rudy Giuliani, attorney to US President Donald Trump and former mayor of New York, has sharp words for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which he said is a “murder machine” and “a prime supporter of terrorism and therefore not entitled to be a state.”

During a meeting with Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) director Itamar Marcus and head of Legal Strategies Maurice Hirsch, Giuliani reviewed reports on the PA’s payment of salaries to terrorist prisoners, 31 PA schools named after terrorists and texts presenting terrorists as role models from PA schoolbooks.

Giuliani called the PA a “murder machine” and “a prime supporter of terrorism,” noting its financial support and glorification of terrorists.

The PA paid terrorists and their families more than $347 million in 2017, and increased terror incentives by $56 million to $403 million for 2018.

According to Israel’s Defense Ministry, the PA in 2017 paid NIS 687 million to the so-called “martyrs’ families fund” and NIS 550 million to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club – some seven percent of its overall budget.

Palestinian prisoners serving 20-30 year sentences for carrying out terror attacks are eligible for a lifetime NIS 10,000 monthly stipend, the Defense Ministry said, citing PA figures.

Those who receive a three-to-five-year sentence get a monthly wage of NIS 2,000. Palestinian prisoners who are married, have children, live in Jerusalem or hold Israeli citizenship receive additional payments.

‘Absolute Human Rights Outrage and a Crime’

Commenting on the PA’s conduct in March, Member of Knesset Avi Dichter, former Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) head and current chairman of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, explained that the increase in funding “means that the PA will employ more terrorists as PA workers. Except that the terrorists who work for the PA have a special quality – they are employed both as dead and living terrorists.”

“The payment of money by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists who are convicted of terrorism is an absolute human rights outrage and a crime in and of itself,” Giuliani stated. “To give money to people who slaughter innocent human beings, including children and women and innocent people of all kinds, is a direct contribution to terrorism… The fact that the Palestinian Authority does this, carries this out on a massive scale, is yet another indication that the Palestinian Authority is a prime supporter of terrorism, and therefore not entitled to be a state.”

Giuliani believes that countries must cut off all funding to PA.

“The United States, for example, should not give the Palestinian Authority any money, and not just restrict the use of money, because money is fungible. So if they get money for one purpose, they just don’t use it for that purpose and they move it over to paying terrorists for killing Americans, because many of these terrorists have killed Americans as well as Israelis.”

Of note, Giuliani recommended even stricter financial sanctions on the PA than those imposed by the US Congress’ recent Taylor Force Act, which cuts American aid to the PA as long as it pays stipends to terrorists and their families, a scheme sometimes referred to as “pay to slay.”

The Taylor Force Act is named for the US Army veteran who was stabbed to death in March 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist while visiting Israel.

The terrorist who killed Force was later killed, but he was described as “heroic” by Fatah, the main Palestinian political faction, and his family receives a stipend from the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The Act permits limited US funding of the PA only for specific humanitarian needs. Giuliani is arguing that since money is fungible, any funding to the PA is equivalent to supporting terror.