Israel slashes Palestinian tax revenues over PA’s pay-for-slay policy

Israel is set to withhold tax funds from the PA based on its decision to continue paying salaries to terrorists and their families.

By World Israel News Staff

The Palestinian Authority (PA) should expect a major cut in the tax revenues transferred from Israel now that the Cabinet is set to approve a significant reduction based on the PA’s decision to continue funding terrorists, Israel Hayom reported.

Official PA policy pays lifetime stipends established by a sliding scale that increases monthly payments based on the brutality of the crimes.

The reduction will be enacted based on legislation passed recently by MKs Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) and Avi Dichter (Likud), which requires the Defense Ministry to provide the cabinet with data on the amount the PA pays terrorists and their families, the report explained.

“[T]he law will reduce terror and harm [to] Israelis, who would otherwise have joined the cycle of painful bereavement,” Stern said, according to Arutz Sheva.

Members of the Forum of Bereaved Families are protesting the delay in the implementation of the law, which came into force on January 1, 2019.

Last year, the U.S. passed similar legislation, titled the Taylor Force Act, which eliminates American aid to the PA. unless it stops paying stipends to terrorists and their families. The law is named after U.S. veteran Taylor Force, who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv while visiting Israel in 2016 as a Vanderbilt University graduate student.

Eleven victims in total were injured in the rampage. The terrorist was killed during the crime, making his relatives eligible for a monthly stipend under the PA’s “martyrs” fund.