November 18, 2013 | Quote
The Palestinian Authority Reportedly Just Gave Out $50,000-Bonuses to Convicted Terrorists
The Palestinian Authority has given convicted terrorists released from Israeli prison in recent months a $50,000 bonus, Israel Radio reported Monday morning, prompting one Israeli news site to ask whether crime does, in fact, pay.
The Israeli government has agreed to a request from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to release 52 prisoners as a goodwill gesture to encourage Palestinian officials to return to long-dormant peace talks. A total of 104 prisoners are set to be freed as part of the Obama administration-brokered deal.
All of those released since the summer were convicted murderers, and among those, perpetrators of gruesome crimes including kidnapping, axing, torturing or burning their victims to death. They had all been sentenced to serve life sentences.
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“This is part of a larger pattern of financial mismanagement and waste that dates back to the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury Department terrorism finance analyst now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Schanzer, author of the new book, “State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State” told TheBlaze on Monday that the “transfer of state funds to convicted murderers is not only unethical, it is a gross misallocation of resources, particularly given the ongoing financial crisis in the West Bank.”
“It will now be critical for U.S. policymakers to learn what specific funds were tapped for the transfer of these monies in order to determine whether U.S. taxpayer dollars were associated in any way,” Schanzer said.