Palestinian Authority Rejects ‘Absurd’ U.S. Demand to Stop Pay-for-Slay Payments to Terrorists

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, the Palestinian Authority rejected the U.S. government’s request that the PA halt its pay-for-slay practice of rewarding convicted Palestinian terrorists and their families with monetary compensation.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s senior foreign policy adviser, Nabil Shaath, reportedly referred to the U.S. request as “absurd” during an interview with Israel Radio.

“It’s absurd to request that we stop paying the families of prisoners,” Shaath said, according to the Times of Israel. He then suggested, “That would be like asking Israel to stop paying its soldiers.”

Shaath claimed “the prisoners are victims of Israel and the result of the occupation.”

The response arrived one day after Abbas met with President Donald Trump at the White House. Prior to their meeting, three leading Republican Senators wrote a letter to Trump urging him to demand that Abbas end his government’s longtime practice of paying terrorists for attacks against Israel and its citizens.

During his meeting with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, Abbas misleadingly stated, “I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace,” Abbas claimed. “And we are endeavoring to bring about security, freedom and peace for our children to live like the other children in the world along with Israeli children with peace and security.”

In recent weeks alone, Breitbart Jerusalem has documented several examples of the PA’s attempts to incite violence against Israel through its official media and educational mediums. Breitbart Jerusalem Chief Aaron Klein notes that in the past two weeks:

• A leading Islamic cleric appointed by Abbas claimed in a PA TV sermon earlier this week that Israel is waging war against the Muslim world with drugs and “sex mania.”
• Official PA TV broadcast a special edition of a TV show from the family home of a terrorist who murdered his Israeli employer 15 years ago, referring to him as a “hero” and a “source of pride for Palestine.”
• On Abbas’s Fatah TV, a Palestinian woman declared that the real meaning of “The Promised Land” is the place where Allah will fulfill his promise to exterminate all the Jews.
• Abbas’s Fatah party published an anti-Semitic cartoon comparing Israel to the Islamic State terror group.
• An official PA daily newspaper published a cartoon last week depicting the message, “Water the soil with your blood.”

Breitbart News has also reported that the PA repeatedly uses maps that erase Israel and pushes propaganda that calls for the dismantlement of the Jewish state. Despite this, Abbas claimed on Wednesday that the “Palestinian people recognize the state of Israel.”

“There’s such hatred,” Trump said Wednesday. “But hopefully there won’t be such hatred for very long. All children of God must be taught to value and respect human life and condemn all of those who target the innocent.” He added, “Over the course of my lifetime I’ve always heard hat perhaps the toughest deal to make is the deal between the Israelis an the Palestinians. Let’s see if we can prove them wrong.”

Follow Adelle Nazarian on Facebook and Twitter.