UN Appeals to the World to Fund Palestinian ‘Pay for Slay’ Policy

The sum that the UN and the PA are requesting from the international community is equivalent to the $355 million the PA allocated in its 2018 budget to reward terrorists and their families.

By: Palestinian Media Watch

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) issued a joint statement on Monday in which they launched a US$350 million appeal to “address critical humanitarian needs of Palestinians.”

In the appeal, they call “upon the international donors’ community to help us in securing the requested funds for 2019 in order to maintain the humanitarian interventions.”

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) noted that outrageously, the sum that the UN and the PA are asking the international community to donate – $350 million – is equivalent to the $355 million the PA allocated in its 2018 budget to fund its payments rewarding terrorists and their families. This includes payments to terrorist prisoners, released terrorist prisoners, and to the families of the so-called “Martyrs” – i.e., terrorists killed while carrying out attacks, including suicide bombers.

“Instead of the UN asking donor countries to contribute $350 million to provide for Palestinian humanitarian needs, the UN should be joining the unequivocal call from many governments that the PA immediately stop squandering the $355 million of its own funds on its ‘Pay for Slay’ policy that incentivizes and rewards terrorism, and instead spend that money on needy Palestinians,” PMW stated.

“Were the UN to adopt this basic and elementary moral requirement, it would strengthen the international forces that are mobilizing against the PA’s terror support,” the watchdog, which monitors Palestinian incitement, added.

PMW further noted that putting an end to the Palestinians’ “Pay for Slay” policy would re-open the door for the PA to receive the approximately $215 million of US aid to the PA, withheld by the Taylor Force Act.

Ending the PA’s “Pay for Slay” policy would also avert the imminent deduction by Israel of the PA’s expenditure on the salary program from the tax revenues Israel collects and transfers to the PA, PMW added. Moreover, it would ensure that the PA would not lose its Australian funding and part of its funding from The Netherlands.

“As more international donors withdraw their funding due to the PA’s insistence on paying salaries to terrorists, it is obvious that the so-called Palestinian ‘humanitarian’ crisis is a self-imposed crisis, created by the PA and its leaders,” PMW said.

While the leaders of the PA have repeatedly made their moral bankruptcy crystal clear and with PA head Mahmoud Abbas saying that even if he only have one penny left in the bank, he will spend it on the terrorists before any other Palestinians, it is altogether unclear why the UN’s OCHA has decided that it is appropriate to assist the PA in raising the funds it needs to support its pugnacious policy of financially rewarding terrorists, PMW underscored.