The Knesset passed Monday the final reading of the law to revoke National Insurance benefits to Arab Israeli terrorists.

Until now, convicted terrorists who were either citizens or residents of Israel could receive a long list of benefits from the government that included unemployment and disability insurance, nursing care, maternity and child allowances, study grants and pensions.

A wife could also be eligible for income support throughout her husband’s imprisonment due to his involvement in committing a terror attack.

These disbursements could add up to thousands of shekels per month for terrorists and their families.

The bill stipulates the complete denial of all benefits to those who have been convicted of murder, attempted murder, and other serious terrorist offenses. These include active membership in a terrorist organization, possession of or trade in weapons and their accessories, and espionage or contact with an enemy.

Wives of such criminals will also be ineligible to receive any governmental support when they are in prison.

Those detained on suspicion of terrorist activity will have their benefits withheld until their conviction.

Coalition Chairman Ofir Katz, who ushered the bill through the Knesset, expressed great satisfaction with its passage.

“The situation where a terrorist who murdered a Jew would receive money from the State of Israel is delusional and incomprehensible,” he said. “We have put an end to the madness. My important bill passed, and a terrorist will not see a single shekel from the State of Israel.”

MK Yulia Malinovsky, one of the co-authors of the bill, called it “a dissonance that cannot be lived with” during the preparation for its second and third readings in the Labor and Welfare Committee last November.

Presenting intelligence agency data at the meeting that there were 33 pension beneficiaries accused of terrorist offenses detained in Israel, she said, “You can’t try to kill us and continue to receive a pension at the expense of Israeli citizens.”

While the person being denied benefits can appeal the National Insurance revocation in court, the department’s representative asked at the meeting that the law clarify that the burden of proof regarding the absence of a nationalistic motive in committing any of the listed offenses would be on the claimant.

The bill is an emendation of an existing National Insurance law that significantly reduced the provision of benefits to terrorists 12 years ago.

According to a Kan report in 2022, that law already stated that children or widows of terrorists killed in a terrorist attack are not entitled to survivors’ benefits or state pensions, and terrorists injured in attacks they committed would not receive disability allowances.

Image - Coalition Chairman MK Ofir Katz (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)