Let’s discuss the payments the PA makes to the families of terrorists in Israeli prisons. I understand that 1.25 billion shekels were given to these terrorists in 2017 alone! This is something that you researched.
The general responds: “about half of this funding goes for ‘salaries’ for these terrorists sitting in jail and the other half is spent on compensations to families of ‘martyrs who lost their ‘loved ones’ in a courageous act of heroism against the Zionist entity (which we call terrorism). This is 7% of the entire PA budget paid out in proportion to how long he sits in jail. The longer a prisoner is in the more he gets per month. A 20 year old murderer getting a life sentence will get about 5 million shekel from the PA over his lifetime in jail. The murderers of the Fogel family or the Solomon family, those terrorists will get this amount wither to them or their surviving families. This is the price the PA ‘invests’ in these terrorists.”
What about the law Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposed to deduct the amount spent on terrorists from funding Israel transfers to the PA if the money is in fact reaching those terrorists and their families?
General Kupperwasser responds: “The situation as such is insane. The Pa is not penalized for devoting a full 7% of its budget to supporting terror and encouraging people to go out and kill Israelis. This is totally not logical. This law is parallel to the Taylor Force law in America that wants to defund terror. According to PA LAW these salaries are anchored in their laws to provide the terrorists with these stipends. The US wants the PA to abolish this law and take it off their books and stop these payments and that’s what Israel wants to accomplish also. Israel itself doesn’t support the PA but acts as a conduit for funds coming to it since the Oslo and Paris accords. What this law says is that the funding the PA spends on encouraging terror will be deducted from the funds Israel sends to the PA. This is something simple that I can’t understand why we didn’t do until now.”
In summary this is not exactly our discussion, but what is your position on capital punishment for terrorists?
“This is something very complex and even if we have the law each case must still be weighed. We haven’t made such a law because we aren’t bloodthirsty and have no need to rush and legislate such laws. There are extreme cases that warrant capital punishment and only in those instances is it relevant. But we have other methods of dealing with terror and first of all we must do those things. Let’s perhaps stop paying to those who spend it on killing us.”
