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John Spencer is a West Point professor who, after 25 years in the American military, become a leader in the field of urban warfare. His own study of the IDF in Gaza has led him to conclude that “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires.”
Now he has published a piece on the “Pay-For-Slay” program that is still supported by the Palestinian Authority. This program provides large monthly stipends both to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of terrorists who died while carrying out their attacks. The American government passed the Taylor Force Act in 2018, declaring that American aid to the PA would be suspended as long as “Pay-For-Slay” remained in force. The program continues, but the Biden administration managed to find various excuses, and imaginative misinterpretations of the law, for not enforcing Taylor Force and cutting off all aid to the PA.
John Spencer’s piece on the need for the Trump administration to end “Pay-For-Slay” can be found here: “Peace in Israel isn’t possible until Palestinians stop paying terrorists to kill | Opinion,” by John Spencer, USA Today, January 10, 2025:
An 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, Ludmila Lipovsky, was brutally murdered last month in Israel while waiting for her daughter to take her to a doctor’s appointment. A 28-year-old Palestinian man from the West Bank is accused of stabbing her to death.
This horrific act is yet another example of the violence incentivized by a multimillion dollar program known as “pay to slay,” which is written into Palestinian law and governed by the Palestinian Authority.
Some view it as simply a system that rewards Palestinians for committing acts of terrorism against Jewish Israelis. In reality, it is a deeply ingrained economic structure and societal program in the West Bank and Gaza that incentivizes violence, thus undermining any chance of a sustainable peace deal.
The amounts provided by the PA to imprisoned terrorists and the families of terrorists who died as “martyrs” in the commission of their terror attacks are substantial, much higher than the average monthly wage in either Gaza or in the Palestinian-populated parts of Judea and Samaria. These large sums both reward past terrorist acts and incentivize the commission of future terror attacks.
The program provides monthly payments to Palestinians convicted of violent acts against Israelis and imprisoned for their crimes. Crucially, these payments are not extended to those convicted of non-terror-related crimes. The payments increase with the length of the prison sentence, which perversely rewards perpetrators of the worse crimes.
For example, as of 2017, a prisoner sentenced to up to three years receives $400 monthly, while someone sentenced to 10 to 15 years earns more than $1,500 monthly. During incarceration, the Palestinian Authority also pays the individual’s social security and pension fees. The payments to prisoners are adjusted to account for increases in the cost of living.
Upon release, the benefits continue. Released prisoners receive a lump-sum grant ranging from $1,500 to $25,000, depending on the duration of their imprisonment. Employment in government institutions is guaranteed, with job placements prioritized based on years spent in prison. Those who cannot secure jobs receive unemployment stipends − provided they served at least five years for men or two years for women.
Moreover, released prisoners enjoy free college education and lifelong health care. A male prisoner who has spent at least one year in an Israeli prison is exempt from tuition fees at Palestinian universities and professional training programs, as well as from health insurance payments.
If a terrorist is killed during an attack or by Israeli forces, their family is supported through the “martyrs” fund. Families receive monthly payments − spouses for life and children until they reach adulthood − ranging from $100 to $1,200.
Does “Pay-For-Slay” really incentivize terror attacks? The data certainly suggests so. In 2024, there were 18,000 terror attacks on Israelis. Many were rockets and drones launched by Hamas from Gaza and by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. But close to 2,000 were committed inside Israel by Palestinians living in the West Bank, or by Israeli Arabs.
Clearly “Pay-For-Slay” is having the desired effect: huge numbers of terror attacks on Israelis, by every conceivable means — arson, Molotov cocktails, shootings, use of explosives, stabbings, car rammings, bombings, and abductions. “Pay-For-Slay” works — it rewards and massively incentivizes terrorism, and that is why it is essential that the Trump administration return to the policy of the first Trump term, which was to assiduously enforce Taylor Force after it was passed in 2018, by cutting off all aid to the PA. Unfortunately, just a few months into his first and only term, in April 2021, Joe Biden reversed Trump’s course and renewed aid to the Palestinian Authority, with a lot of Jesuitical casuistry about how these PA payments were not really “pay-for-slay” rewards, but should be thought of as welfare payments, being given to Palestinian prisoners and families who most “needed” the money. This claim might have been more plausible if the payments were made to all the poorest Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including those who had been sentenced for non-terrorist-related crimes. But this is not the case: only those who committed acts of terrorism, and no matter how well off they might be, are eligible for the PA’s stipends. And the families of those Palestinian Arabs who died in the course of committing not terrorist attacks but common crimes (robbery, burglary, arson, rape, and so on) are similarly not eligible for monthly stipends from “Pay-For-Slay.”
President Trump should declare his intention to enforce the Taylor Force Act, denounce the PA’s “continued reward to terrorists and their families with generous monthly stipends,” and cut off all the aid to the Palestinian Authority that the Biden administration had reinstated in April 2021. I suspect that once that happens, the PA — facing four years of Trump enforcing Taylor Force — will suddenly discover that it really can do without its “Pay-For-Slay” program after all.
“provided they served at least five years for men or two years for women”
Equal rights?
The problem is that an imprisoned Arab who murders a Jew experiences far more comfortable conditions in Israeli prisons compared to the harsh treatment he would face for murdering an Arab in an Arab country.
Israel should ensure that prison sentences are as strict and unpleasant as legally permissible. Incarceration should serve as a punishment to be feared, not a retreat to be remembered fondly.
No TV, conjugal visits, cell phones and social fun of any kind. Ah, and consumption of meat only once per week. Let them eat cakes in Allah’s paradise.
They should be executed. That ends any more terrorism committed by said person. Those exchanges made should have all been dead bodies like Hamas turns over. Show power. That 2 mile sniper should be able to track Abbas.
Would 50 Years in a Prison be too easy on persons like This? They can have Obama as a Cellmate
Clinton(Bill)Obama and Biden as Cell Mates should be a interesting Trio like the Terrible Three