Maurice Hirsch, who is also the Director of Legal Strategies for the Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), tweeted on Monday, “Yesterday, the Palestinian Authority doubled the monthly salary it pays the terrorist murderer of Ari Fuld, OBM from $522 to $1,044.”

Jabarin is serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for stabbing the 45-year-old Fuld to death at a shopping center in the Gush Etzion region south of Jerusalem in 2018. Despite being critically injured from the stab wound, Fuld managed to shoot Jabarin. Authorities credited Fuld with saving the lives of other people in the she shopping area.

Ramallah pays stipends to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and to the families of dead terrorists. Israeli officials say the payouts provide incentives for terror. Jerusalem regularly offsets an equivalent amount from taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Hirsch explained to the Tazpit Press Service that Jabarin’s increased terror stipend was simply a function of the PA’s salary scale.

“After five years, the salary of the terrorist goes up from 2,500 shekels to 4,000 shekels. That’s the way the salary works,” Hirsch told TPS.

Asked how much the PA spends on the “pay for slay” program, Hirsch said that estimates vary.

He said that in 2022, the Israeli government estimated that the PA spent 620 million shekels ($162 million) in salaries, while PMW’s own estimates are 850 million shekels ($222 million), based on figures and statements from both the Palestinian Authority and its Ministry of Prisoner Affairs.

With that money, “The Palestinians could build hospitals, pay teachers, they could increase welfare payments to needy Palestinians, they could build schools, they could do everything that in the meantime the international community is sharing that burden,” Hirsch told TPS.

“The Palestinian Authority is simply choosing to reward terrorism rather than actually meeting the payments of all those different services.”

The Palestinian Authority is legally mandated to allocate seven percent of its annual budget for its so-called “Martyr’s Fund,” which provides stipends to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons, and the families of terrorists killed in attacks. The size of the monthly payouts depends on various factors such as how many Israelis were killed, how long the terrorist has been incarcerated and family size.

Ramallah has been paying out stipends for years, but the issue came under a spotlight following the murder of Taylor Force, a U.S. citizen killed by a Palestinian who went on a stabbing rampage in Jaffa in 2018. Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which halted U.S. aid to the Palestinians as long as terror stipends are being paid out.

U.S. assistance to the PA resumed under the administration of President Joe Biden. In December 2022, American victims of Palestinian terror filed a lawsuit against the President and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arguing that the payments violate the Taylor Force Act.

Image - Nati Shohat/Flash90