ByMICHAEL STARR

The Palestinian Authority is attempting to conceal its "pay-for-slay" stipends to terrorists by creating thousands of new civil and security service positions, according to a report by the NGO Palestinian Media Watch. 

Palestinians released from Israeli prisons will be provided with special jobs within the PA. These 7,500 positions can only be held by those imprisoned by Israel, notably those who were convicted for terrorism offenses. By holding these special positions, the stipends will be disguised as paychecks, PMW alleged. The concealed stipends would frustrate interference by Israel, the US or the EU.

“Following His Honor the president’s [Mahmoud Abbas's] decision, the integration of the prisoners has begun both in the military sector and in the civilian sector," PLO commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr said on official PA TV news. "Every prisoner will fill out a form with the needed information and ask for what he wants, whether in the security or civilian framework.”

PMW also made special note that former terrorists will be recruited into the authority's security services as part of this program. The PA and Israel have security cooperation to stop terrorist activity from groups such as Hamas; convicted terrorists operating within PA services could jeopardize Israeli security and cooperation.

"Pay-for-slay" refers to the stipends that the PA provides to jailed terrorists and their families. Israel argues that the payments encourage Palestinian terrorism, being like an open-ended bounty on Israeli civilians.

While the PA has been heavily pressured to cease the payment program, Abbas remains committed. “Since the martyrs are the most sacred among us, and since the wounded are the most sacred among us, and since the prisoners are the most sacred among us, we cannot abandon them and their families,” he said on PA TV news on March 13. "If we are left with only one penny, we will give it to their families."

Numerous pieces of legislation have been passed in the US and Israel against the pay-for-slay policy. In 2018, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, named for an American army veteran killed in 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist in Israel. The bill conditions US aid to the PA upon the cessation of pay-for-slay payments. Former president Donald Trump cut more than $200 million in aid to the PA in 2018, although the Biden administration has pledged to renew funding.
Israel has passed a law to deduct the amount paid to terrorists and their families from tax transfers to the PA. Further, legislation that came into effect in 2020 criminalized the facilitation of pay-for-slay payments. This included banks, which apparently began to discontinue participation in the illegal transfers following a PMW campaign. 
Following bank pullout, the PA desperately sought a solution to continue the program. "We hope that the payment of the salaries via the banks will be renewed in April," Abu Bakr said in a phone statement to Al-Quds. "A team of 64 employees in the commission and in other institutions is working even on vacation days to arrange this matter, which is sacred from our perspective."

The PA initially sought to create its own bank, but this was deemed unfeasible. The solution of the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs' to continuing payments to released terrorists does not apply to those who remain in Israeli custody, and it is still seeking an alternative solution.

Palestinian Media Watch is an Israeli non-profit organization that monitors, translates and analyzes Palestinian media.