According to documents obtained from a New York terror trial, payments made to Palestinian terrorists and their families were signed off at the highest level within the PA, and adjusted according to the specifics of each terrorist act.
Thousands of files being used as evidence by relatives of victims of terrorism from 2001-2002 to sue the Palestinian Authority in a case now under way in New York were obtained via an outside media lawsuit filed by this reporter.
The documents appear to show that the $3-7m given in monthly salaries to terrorists and their families by the PA were not handed out in blind, automated payments.
Rather, they appear to show that senior PA officials as high as President Mahmoud Abbas scrutinise the details of each case, the carnage caused and the details of each terrorist act before approving salaries and awarding honorary ranks in either the PA government or the military.
The PA is dependent on foreign donor countries to supply much of its budget, which now exceeds $4.2 billion annually. About ten per cent of the PA budget, more than $400 million, is contributed annually by US foreign aid. The US and many other countries have enacted laws forbidding any payments when the monies directly or indirectly support or encourage terrorism.
According to the documents, PA security reviews dated February 3, 2009 and July 6, 2009, note that convicted terrorist Ahmad Talab Mustafa Barghouti’s special compensation began retroactively from July 1, 2002, the start-date of his 13 life sentences. While in an Israeli prison, Barghouti’s annual salary of NIS 12,953 was gradually escalated, the files appear to show.
Sa’id Ibrahim Sa’id Ramadan shot dead pedestrians on a Jerusalem street on January 22, 2002. Police killed him at the scene. Five days later, on January 27, 2002, according to the documents, Ramadan’s case was reviewed by the PA’s Ministry of Social Affairs to determine the financial benefits that would accrue to the family. That review was apparently conducted by the “Martyr’s Families and Injured Care Establishment”, a body created in 1969 by the PLO to systematise financial benefits to those wounded or killed in “martyrdom” attacks.
Ramadan’s “martyrdom” incident is described in a section headlined, “Date and Place of Event,” which says: “January 22, 2002, West Jerusalem.” The form states: “He was martyred… in West Jerusalem. The operation led to the death and injury of a number of Israelis.”
In a biographical sketch, Ramadan is described as “a calm person and faithful to his country… He was martyred while performing his national duty.”
Copies of the payment order were allegedly passed to the PA’s Financial Administration, the Maritime Police, Social Affairs, Medical Services, Supply and Equipment and computer departments, among others.
How much would he get? A married martyr would have a family payout of about NIS 1,300 monthly. But the family of an unmarried martyr would only be entitled to NIS 400.
Barghouti and Ramadan are just two of hundreds of terrorists who are apparently rewarded for their actions — not in a blind, faceless programme, but a meticulous, exacting official process that can remain in place for years. The money is represented to donors as “government salaries”. Most taxpayers in donor countries have no idea that their money is financing the flames of terrorism.
Edwin Black is the author of the award-winning IBM and the Holocaust, as well as his most recent bestseller, Financing the Flames which broke the story of taxpayer-funded terrorist salaries.
