TEL AVIV — Palestinian security forces have detained former Palestinian Authority Prisoners Affairs Minister Ashraf al-Ajrami for a number of hours in response to his criticism of salary payments to Palestinian prisoners.
Ajrami, known in leftist circles in Israel, participated in a conference in Jerusalem to mark 24 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords. During the conference, he said, “When I was minister of prisoner affairs, I was not committed to paying the salaries of prisoners, which does encourage violence and that’s not something I was interested in.”
Ajrami added, “The payment of large sums to the families of the perpetrators of attacks encourages violence and when I was minister I wasn’t committed to this.”
After making the comments, Ajrami was brought in for questioning by Palestinian intelligence. His comments garnered an angry response from the Palestinian public and Palestinian organizations.
In a joint statement, the Palestinian terrorist organizations active in Gaza condemned the former official’s comments, saying, “These comments are a stab in the back of the Palestinian people, denial of the prisoners’ sacrifice and free service for the occupation. These comments encourage the occupation to continue its schemes and to harm the prisoners, our heroes.”
Palestinian terrorist groups routinely refer to the State of Israel as “the occupation.”
The jihadist organizations active in the Gaza Strip took advantage of the occasion to attack the Palestinian Authority, whose policies, they said, align with Ajrami. “These unpatriotic declarations represent the views of the Palestinian Authority. These declarations are foreign to the tradition of our people and they reveal the depth of cooperation with the policies of the occupation and the part played by the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, with the support of Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in delegitimizing the resistance and struggle of the prisoners as well as the showing of a positive image of the occupation before the world instead of the persecution of the occupation and holding it accountable for its crimes against our people and against our prisoners.”
The Palestinian terrorist organizations called on the Palestinian people “to pressure the leadership of the Authority so it will cease its policies and shameful declarations in order to deal with this view, which is far from all national morals and values. The silence on these declarations represents encouragement of them and an attempt to please the occupation.”
Confronted with public pressure, Ajrami was forced to state that his comments were taken out of context.
Approached by Breitbart Jerusalem for comment, Ajrami said that he wasn’t interested in responding and he condemns the attempt to take advantage of his comments for political gain.
In July, the PA boosted its payment to prisoners, which includes terrorists and their families, by 13 percent, with the total annual amount of $344 million equal to almost 50% of the total foreign aid received by the PA per year.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.