The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has renewed its long-standing call for an end to U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) following detailed revelations U.S. funds are reaching the hands of blood-soaked Jew-killing terrorists. A report, utilizing among other sources Palestinian statutes and official PA media reports, presented to the U.S. Congress by Palestinian Media Watch, demonstrates that Abbas’ PA pays monthly salaries to 5,500 jailed Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including terrorists and that it funds these salaries from its general budget, a good deal of which is provided by U.S. financial aid.

This runs contrary to U.S. law, which prohibits funding of any person who “… engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity.” U.S. law also prohibits funding “for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism.” Also, the 2010 legislation that authorized aid to the PA said that the State Department must “take all appropriate steps to ensure that such assistance is not provided to or through any individual, private or government entity, or educational institution that the Secretary knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity.”

The PA, as the ZOA has repeatedly documented, glorifies and honors individual terrorists, naming schools, streets and sports teams after them, as well as supporting an educational system which glorifies terrorism, including suicide terrorism.

An April 2011 PA law, PA Government Resolution of 2010, numbers 21 and 23, places all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes on the PA payroll for the purposes of receiving a monthly salary from the PA. Already in 2004, the PA defined by law that “prisoners” refers to “Anyone imprisoned in the occupation’s [Israel’s] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation.” Thus, for example, Palestinians jailed for theft do not receive a salary, but every terrorist in prison, including those whose acts led to the deaths of Israeli civilians, are on the PA payroll. The salary goes directly to the terrorist or the terrorist’s family, and prisoners receive their salaries from the day of arrest. other findings included the following:

·         Terrorists receiving salaries include not only members of Fatah, but also Hamas.

·         In May 2011, the PA paid $5,207,000 in salaries to Palestinian prisoners.

·         The new PA law stipulates that payment of salaries “will be implemented… on the basis of available sources of funding” – indicating that foreign, including U.S., funding, which provide the vast bulk of the PA budget, serve as major sources for these salaries.

·         The US contributed $225 million in 2010 to the general PA budget from which the salaries are paid.

·         Prisoners’ average salary is higher than that of either PA civil servants or military personnel in the PA armed forces (‘PMW report presented to members of Congress on US funding of Palestinian terrorists,’ Palestinian Media Watch, July 27, 2011).

ZOA National Chairman of the Board Dr. Michael Goldblatt said, “Recognition is slowly increasing that, on both moral and strategic grounds, the U.S. should cease funding Abbas and his anti-peace, terrorist-sponsoring PA. This became already clear earlier this month when the U.S. Congress passed an almost unanimous bipartisan resolution urging President Barack Obama to cease U.S. financial aid, following the Fatah/PA unity government agreement with the ‘kill every Jew’ Hamas terrorist movement.

“Almost every Republican and Democrat in Congress opposes the continuation of U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to the PA because of its unity government agreement with Hamas, its continuing refusal to negotiate with Israel and its violation of the Oslo accords by seeking a unilateral declaration of statehood at the United Nations. Indeed, it would be a national disgrace if aid to the PA – something that in any event should not have been occurring because of the PA’s actions – continues now that Fatah and Hamas have signed a unity government agreement.

“It was always obvious that U.S. aid to the PA enables it to fund pro-terror activities and incitement. PA media, mosques, schools and youth camps that inculcate hatred are able to function because of this continuing inflow of funds. Now, it is even clearer that the PA funds terrorists as a matter of policy, using aid from foreign sources, including the U.S. We renew our call for the immediate termination of aid to the PA.”