The Netherlands passed a binding resolution on Monday to cut 7 percent of assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2019, JNS reported. The Dutch parliament voted 94-56 in favor of the motion.
The 7 percent cut in aid reflects the exact percentage of the PA’s budget spent on terror payments and comes after a series of deadly attacks in Israel that wounded and killed dozens. The PA runs a so-called “pay to slay” program under which terrorists and their families receive generous financial rewards for killing Jews.
“The need for such steps by foreign donors is as relevant as ever as the PA just added four new terrorists’ families to its growing terror rewards payroll,” said Nan Zilberdik, a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch. “One terrorist shot a pregnant woman, forcing an emergency delivery, but the newborn son died a few days later.”
Zilberdik continued: “Another terrorist murdered two of his Israeli co-workers. The other two terrorists were killed while attempting to kill Israelis. The families of the four terrorists will now receive monthly allowances for life.”
He said he hoped “the Dutch decision will serve as a precedent for other European parliaments.”
JNS reported Wednesday, that despite growing criticism of the practice, the PA allocated more than $319 million for its “pay to slay” program, which rewards terrorists who killed Israelis, and provides stipends to their families, in 2018.
The Netherlands is not the first government to penalize the PA for its ongoing support of terror.
In September, Belgium cut its aid to the Palestinian Education Ministry, after the PA named a school for notorious terrorist Dalal Mugrabi. The Belgian Education Ministry released a statement saying, “As long as school names are used to glorify terrorism, Belgium can no longer cooperate with the Palestinian Education Ministry and will not give out budgets for the construction of schools.”
In July, the Knesset overwhelmingly passed a bill to deduct the salaries paid to terrorists and their families from the aid that Israel provided the PA.
“The PA has turned itself into a factory that employs murderers of Jews mostly but also Muslims, Christians, Druze, Circassians, and others, including tourists,” explained MK Avi Dichter of Likud and former head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, co-sponsor of the legislation.
In December 2016, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom changed its guidelines for providing aid to the PA after reports showed that part of its budget was going to promote terror.
The move comes on the heels of an investigative report published in the Mail on Sunday in March and another released by the Overseas Development Institute think-tank in June, which found that British aid money was used to encourage Palestinian terrorism. The controversy prompted the UK government to suspend aid payments to the PA in October.
[Photo: Michiel Jelijs / WikiCommons ]