Netanyahu: PA must stop financing terrorists

Netanyahu’s call for the Palestinian Authority to end its financial support for terrorists followed similar remarks with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed in his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority must put an end to its sponsorship and provision of financial support to Palestinian terrorists.

“Over the weekend I made it clear that the Palestinian Authority needs to stop financing the terrorists that sit in prison and the families of the terrorists who were killed while committing their crimes,” Netanyahu said.

“This is a simple and clear test of the Palestinians’ desire for peace,” Netanyahu continued. “One cannot be for peace with Israel and at the same time extol and finance the murderers of Israelis and of other innocents.”

Netanyahu’s remarks on Sunday followed up similar comments during an interview in Israel with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity.

“I think the first test of peace is to say to them, ‘Hey, you want peace? Prove it,'” Netanyahu said to Hannity.  “‘Confront terrorism, stop rewarding terrorism, stop paying terrorists.'”

“They pay terrorists on a sliding scale, not on the cost of living, but on the cost of killing,” Netanyahu added. “The more you kill, the more you get.”

In the interview with Hannity, Netanyahu also said the Palestinian Authority continues to funnel large sums of money provided by the international community, to terrorists.

“It accumulates to vast sums, some of it contributed by Americans, by European governments,” he continued. “It could be more than a billion dollars that is given to terrorists.”

“I’m not talking about Hamas, I’m talking about the mainline Palestinian Authority headed by the president, who is going to see Trump in Washington,” Netanyahu noted.

Mahmoud Abbas’ meeting with US President Donald Trump is scheduled for May 3.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News