Please sign our petition to the UK Government about the shocking new revelations that the Palestinian Authority is increasing salary payments to terrorist prisoners.
To: The Secretary of State for International Development
We the undersigned, note the report published by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) on 3 July 2019 (http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=27753), which states that:
- In the months January - May 2019, the PA's (Palestinian Authority’s) expenditure on salaries to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners was 234 million shekels (over £52 million)
- This figure shows the PA has increased its salary payments to terrorist prisoners by 11.8% compared to 2018
- The PA Ministry of Finance put its budget expenditure reports back on its website only after PMW exposed that the PA was hiding its finances
- The reports reflect the PA's decision to plunge the Palestinian economy into crisis and punish its public employees by cutting their salaries, while guaranteeing the payment - in full - of the salaries to the terrorists
We call on the UK Government to use its leverage as one of the major donors to the PA to insist that it ends the practice of paying salaries to convicted terrorists.
Whilst the UK does not directly fund the salaries of terrorist prisoners, it is morally unacceptable that British taxpayers’ money is being used to fund essential services and public sector salaries in the PA at the same time that the PA is wasting its own resources on rewarding terrorists. As a donor state we are entitled to call out and condemn this reprehensible practice.
We do not understand how the UK assessment of the MoU between DFID and the PA can have concluded “that the Palestinian Authority continues to demonstrate a credible commitment to a range of DFID ‘partnership principles’, including the principle of non-violence” when the PA is paying salaries to terrorist prisoners.