Palestinian Authority considers ending pay-for-slay policy – report

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said officials are considering honoring the U.S.’ demand for an end to paying salaries to convicted terrorists and their families.

By World Israel News Staff

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Palestinian officials are considering honoring the U.S.’ demand for an end to pay-for-slay policies, which see prisoners convicted of terror attacks against Israelis and their dependents receive a monthly stipend from the PA, according to a report from Kan News.

Israel and the U.S. have long said that the practice rewards terror and creates an incentive for planning and executing violent and deadly terror attacks.

Kan reported that during a meeting with foreign press in Ramallah on Thursday morning, Shtayyeh said that the PA was open to ending pay-for-slay, but emphasized that the policy was not intended to support terror.

Rather, Shtayyeh claimed, the funds are simply meant to provide to support the families of the incarcerated in the spirit of humanitarianism.

When asked by a foreign reporter about an official PA law which demands the death penalty as a punishment for Palestinians that sell land to Jews in Judea and Samaria, Shtayyeh demurred.

Without stating if he supports the ultimate punishment for those who sell land to Jews, he reportedly replied that land is a political issue, not a real estate matter, and Palestinian law does not allow the sale of land to non-Palestinians.

Despite previously clashing with embattled PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Shtayyeh brushed off concerns around the elderly statesman’s plunging popularity.

A recent poll found that some 80 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign, and would prefer to see a government led by Gaza-based terror group Hamas.

“Popularity is like the weather in England, it goes up and down,” Shtayyeh reportedly quipped.

“When you keep calling for peace and it’s fruitless, you’re going to have a hard time. [Abbas] doesn’t want to be popular. He cares about the national interests of the Palestinians.”

Shtayyeh then referenced what he said is a demographic victory over Israel, claiming that there are 6.7 million Israeli Jews and 6.9 million Arabs.

The figure of 6.9 million Arabs would count residents of Gaza, PA-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria, as well as Israeli Arabs.

He said that if the two-state solution does not come to fruition, Israel will become a “South African-style apartheid state” in which the Jewish minority controls the Arab majority.