Palestinians are still paying terrorists despite Taylor Force Act
Washington Free Beacon:
The Palestinian Authority is continuing to pay out salaries to convicted terrorists using funds provided by the American taxpayer, a policy that defies a recent U.S. law mandating the PA stop these subsidies or face a cutoff in U.S. aid dollars, according to U.S. and Israeli lawmakers who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.The US should immediately begin making a dollar for dollar reduction in aid payments to the Palestinians. The US should not be subsidizing terrorism.
Palestinian officials in recent days have rejected a new U.S. law, known as the Taylor Force Act, or TFA, that bans the PA government from providing salaries to terrorists and their families, a longstanding policy that had become the center of controversy after it was found U.S. taxpayer aid dollars to the Palestinians had been used to subsidize this practice.
While the Taylor Force Act—named after an American who was killed by a Palestinian terror attack in 2016—mandates the PA cease these payments or face a cutoff in U.S. aid, Palestinian officials have made clear in recent days they have no intention of ending this practice of funneling U.S aid dollars to the Palestinian Authority Martyr's Fund.
Palestinian leaders have continued to praise the so-called "pay-to-slay" policy since the TFA's passage, prompting outrage and concerns from Israeli and U.S. lawmakers who spoke to the Free Beacon about the situation.
Rather than obfuscate these payments, as the PA did for many years to avoid public disclosure, Palestinian officials have begun to brag about them. Mahmoud Abbas, the PA's longstanding president, vowed to continue these payments and defy the new U.S. law earlier this year.
"There is something that the Americans are telling us to stop—the salaries of the martyrs and the martyrs' families," Abbas said in January, when the new law was being debated in Congress. "Of course we categorically reject this. We will not under any circumstances allow anyone to harm the families of the prisoners, the wounded, and the martyrs. They are our children and they are our families. They honor us, and we will continue to pay them before the living."
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