Mahmoud Abbas is hurting his own cause by continuing to give priority to financially rewarding murderers, says Palestinian Media Watch.
By United With Israel Staff
While 39 countries are gathered in Bahrain at a conference aimed at bringing economic prosperity to the Palestinian Authority, “the PA itself is in fact the greatest obstacle and reason for its own financial crisis,” writes Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israeli research institute that studies Palestinian society.
PMW charges that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is hurting his own cause by continuing to give priority to financially rewarding murderers and terrorists through “pay-for-slay” salaries instead of spending the PA’s money “where it is needed and would do good.”
Palestinian Media Watch says that it has documented that PA leaders are backing the decision to continue the payments “even at the expense of ordinary, law-abiding Palestinian citizens.”
Recently, three PA top officials stressed their support for the imprisoned Palestinian murderers and terrorists, says PMW.
One of them, says the Israeli institute, is head of the PA General Intelligence, Majed Faraj, who described murderers and terrorists who attack Israelis as “the most honorable, the best, and the most supreme among us.” He has referred the dead and imprisoned terrorists as second only to Allah.
Faraj apparently has been mentioned as one of the possible successors to Abbas at the helm of the Palestinian self-rule authority.
“In his speech, Faraj also singled out several murderers worthy of ‘greetings,’ among them arch-terrorist Abu Jihad who organized the murder of at least 125 Israelis and Abu Iyad who planned the murder of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972,” says PMW.
“The PA Mufti, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, who is the highest religious authority in the PA and was appointed by Abbas in 2006, directly stated his support for the payment of salaries to Palestinian murderers and terrorists, explaining that the PA ‘prioritizes’ them and that they come “before all,'” the watchdog adds.