by Itamar Marcus and Ephraim D. Tepler
By its own admission at various times, the primary reason that the PA finds itself in this financial situation in the first place is because of its insistence on paying salaries to terrorists.
Since 2019, PA refuses to pay full salaries to employees, but it continues to pay $350 million a year in Pay-for-Slay terror rewards
2019 – PA Ministry of Finance:
“The March [2019] allowance salaries of the prisoners... will be paid in full tomorrow, in accordance with the orders of President Mahmoud Abbas… [but] the public employees' salaries will be paid at a rate of 50%”
2024 – PA Ministry of Finance:
“The April [2024] salaries of the [PA] public employees will be paid on Sunday [June 9], at a rate of 50%”
Columnist at PA daily:
“The PA will not [stop paying salaries to prisoners]… because if it had done so, it would have admitted that these people are terrorists, as Israel claims”
“The [PA] employees have received only half of the monthly salary [since 2019]. In other words, with the passage of more than five years, this [PA] employee is defined as one of the poor of society.”
Al-Marsad – Social and Economic Policies Monitor:
“The [PA] Monetary Authority is forcing the [PA] public sector employees to take loans to cover its loans”
It is hard to imagine how unpredictable life must be for Palestinian Authority employees and their families because the PA prioritizes the rewarding of terrorists rather than the payment of salaries to its working civil servants. According to the PA’s official daily, PA employees are poverty-stricken:
“[Since 2019] out of solidarity (i.e., with the terrorists), the [PA] employees have received only half of the monthly salary. In other words, with the passage of more than five years, this employee is defined as one of the poor of society.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida website, June 8, 2024]
Why didn’t the PA stop paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of terrorist “Martyrs,” and save the Palestinian civil servants from poverty?
“The PA insisted on continuing to pay these salaries, because it cannot do otherwise… The PA will not do this (i.e., stop paying terrorists) because if it had done so, it would have admitted that these people are terrorists, as Israel claims… “
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida website, June 8, 2024]
PA employees literally don't know what their take-home pay will be from month to month or when they will receive it. Salaries are so erratic that even the partial 50% that they received in mid-June was not the May salary but was for April—a month and a half late.
The following PMW chart and table review the PA cuts in salaries in many of the months since 2019:
Palestinian Authority financial abuse of its own employees
Month | Civil Servants | Prisoners and Martyrs | Backpay |
|---|---|---|---|
March 2019 | 50% | 100.00% | 0.00% |
April 2019 | 60% | 100.00% | 0.00% |
May 2019 | 60% | 100.00% | 0.00% |
June 2019 | 60% | 100.00% | 0.00% |
July 2019 | 60% | Not specified | 0.00% |
August 2019 | 60% | Not specified | 0.00% |
September 2019 | 60% | Not specified | 29.41% (Full reimbursement for March salary) |
October 2019 | 100% | Not specified | 66.66% (Full reimbursement for April-June) |
November 2019 | 100% | Not specified | 50% (Full reimbursement for July) |
December 2019 | 100% | Not specified | 100.00% (Full reimbursement for September) |
May 2020 | 50% | Not specified | 0.00% |
September 2020 | “Trying to pay” 50% | Not specified | 0.00% |
August 2021 | 100% | Not specified | 0.00% |
January 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 0.00% |
February 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 0.00% |
March 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 16.00% |
April 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 20.00% |
May 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 5.00% |
July 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 10.00% |
November 2022 | 80% | Not specified | 5.00% |
April 2023 | 80% | Not specified | 0.00% |
May 2023 | 85% | Not specified | 0.00% |
June 2023 | 85% | Not specified | 0.00% |
July 2023 | 85% | Not specified | 0.00% |
August 2023 | 90% | Not specified | 0.00% |
September 2023 | 90% | Not specified | 0.00% |
October 2023 | 50% | Not specified | 0.00% |
November 2023 | 65% | Not specified | 14.00% |
December 2023 | 60% | Not specified | 0.00% |
January 2024 | 65% | Not specified | 0.00% |
February 2024 | 70% | Not specified | 0.00% |
March 2024 | 50% | Not specified | 0.00% |
April 2024 | 50% | Not specified | 0.00% |
Note that in the first four months on the chart, in spite of the salary cuts of between 50% and 40% to civil servants, terrorists in prison still received 100%. Shockingly, when the PA began making the deductions, it made a point of announcing that although it was cutting employees’ salaries, it would NOT be cutting the salaries of terrorists in prison. Later on, however, the PA stopped disclosing what the terrorists received and it remains unclear whether it actually ever cut terrorists’ salaries by the same percentages.
This entire financial crisis is because the PA rewards terrorists. Since Palestinian Media Watch discovered and notified donor countries in 2011 that the PA rewards terrorists with high monthly salaries, donor countries have cut support by more than two billion dollars. In addition, since 2019, Israel has deducted close to one billion dollars in tax transfers to the PA—part of the amount that the PA has paid as terror rewards during this period. This has placed an extreme burden on the entire PA civil service, and it is all due to the PA’s insistence on rewarding terror and making it a priority.
This month, the PA announced once again that its employees would receive only 50% of their salary (PA TV, June 7, 2024). And as stated above, the reduced salary they are receiving in mid-June is not for May but for April, since the PA salary payments are more than a month behind schedule.
April 2024’s salaries
“The Ministry of Finance announced that the April salaries of the public employees will be paid on Sunday [June 9], at a rate of 50% of the salaries… The ministry emphasized that the rest of the payments to which they are eligible are considered a debt to the employees, and that they will be paid when this becomes financially possible.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, June 6, 2024]
March 2024’s salaries
50% was also deducted in May:
“The [PA] Ministry of Finance announced… that ‘since Israel has yet to transfer the tax money for April [2024]…the ministry will pay the [public] employees’ salaries for March on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, at a rate of 50%...’ The rest…is considered a debt.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, May 12, 2024]
These deductions were 20% greater than in January and February, when the PA paid 70% and 65%.
February 2024’s salaries
“The [PA] government also decided to pay the February [2024] salaries of the [PA public] employees tomorrow, Wednesday [April 3, 2024], at a rate of 70%.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, April 2, 2024]
January 2024’s salaries
Headline: “The [PA public] employees’ salaries will be paid tomorrow, Thursday [March 7, 2024], at a rate of 65%”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 6, 2024]
Pride in perverse values – overview since 2019
The PA actually takes pride in its twisted values. The decision to pay full salary rewards to the terrorists while the rest of the employees would receive as little as half was openly made by Mahmoud Abbas himself. For example, the PA Ministry of Finance announced in April 2019:
“The March allowance salaries of the prisoners, released prisoners, and families of the Martyrs (Shahids) and wounded will be paid in full tomorrow, in accordance with the orders of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas… The public employees' salaries will be paid at a rate of 50%.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, April 1, 2019]
The exploitation of employees continued the next month when the PA again announced under the instructions of Abbas that terror-rewards recipients would receive full payments while the working PA employees would receive 60% [Official PA TV News, May 1, 2019].
This repeated itself in August and September 2019 as well—60% for the working PA employees and 100% for terror-reward payments [official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 30, 2019, Oct. 2, 2019].
Only in September 2019 did the PA announce that it would start partially compensating for the deductions from March.
Six months later, in May and June 2020, the PA was still paying only 50% to its employees [official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3, 2020].
In September 2020, the PA announced that it was “striving to pay 50%” [official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 23, 2020].
In 2021, full salaries were paid in the middle of the year, but they decreased again to 75% in December.
From January to June 2022, the PA raised the salaries to 80% but dropped them again to 70% in July. In the middle of the year, it also announced it would pay 20% of some of the money lost in the deducted salaries. In November, salaries returned to 80%, with additional promises of eventual debt repayment [official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 6, 2022].
As mentioned above, the 2023 and 2024 salaries were a maximum of 90% and currently are 50% of the regular salaries. Moreover, the salaries are paid a month late. The 50% being paid this June was not for May but for April.
The salary deductions make economic planning impossible for Palestinian Authority civil servants.
PA acts as a loan shark
While essentially taking free loans from its employees, the PA is “forcing the [PA] public sector employees to take [personal] loans to cover its loans” through the [PA] “Monetary Authority’s new orders regarding opening an overdraft account [for employees] at a rate of 3%.”
“Al-Marsad – Social and Economic Policies Monitor published a position paper today [June 15, 2023] under the headline ‘The [PA] Monetary Authority is forcing the [PA] public sector employees to take loans to cover its loans.’ The document discussed the Monetary Authority’s new orders regarding opening an overdraft account at a rate of 3% for the public sector employees who are borrowing to make payments that were not carried out, on the pretext of protecting the borrowers’ rights…
The financial statistics regarding the governmental loans from the banks showed a decrease in the rate of loans by the PA during the period of reducing the public sector employees’ salaries from November 2021 until the end of April 2023, as it decreased by approximately $295 million, in other words, more than 1 billion [Israeli] shekels. This strengthens the conclusion that the PA is attempting to resolve its crisis by paying 80% of the public employees’ salaries and taking the rest as a free loan from its employees.”
[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, June 15, 2023]
Reason for the crisis
By its own admission at various times, the primary reason that the PA finds itself in this financial situation in the first place is because of its insistence on paying salaries to terrorists.
“Today, Thursday [Nov. 9, 2023], the [PA] Ministry of Finance confirmed that yesterday it returned the tax money that was transferred, because Israel deducted sums that it claims equal the money that the Palestinian [PA] government transfers to the Gaza Strip (i.e., Israel deducted the percentage of PA monthly budget that goes to Gaza to prevent the money from going to Hamas) – as a result of which payment of the October [2023] salaries will be delayed… The ministry continued: ‘Given that the tax money is money that constitutes a main source for paying the monthly salaries of the [PA] public employees, we sadly inform you of a delay in payment of the October salaries.’”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, Nov. 9, 2023]
“The PA is currently facing a financial crossroads, with the deepening of the financial crisis after a number of months in which it has not succeeded in paying the salaries of its [public] employees in full or in fulfilling its commitments to the private sector…
The PA’s financial situation is becoming worse and worse; foreign aid dropped from $1.3 billion in 2013 to just $313 million at the end of 2021. The [PA] Ministry of Finance and Planning’s forecasts also indicate that the European promises to aid the PA this year [2022] will not cross the barrier of 225 million euros, as only 144 million euros of them are being allocated to support the [PA] budget.
This is while the Israeli government has doubled the scope of the tax money robbery from 50 million shekels ($15 million) [all parentheses in source] a month to 100 million shekels ($33 million) starting from July and until December 2021 (refers to Israel’s Anti “Pay-for-Slay” Law to deduct PA terror salaries; see note below -Ed.). The cumulative amount of deductions since 2019 and until June 2022 reaches approximately $530 million… In a meeting with journalists, [PA] Minister of Finance and Planning Shukri Bishara…emphasized that it is necessary to carry out reforms regarding the salaries and to lower their rate from amid all the expenses from 100% to 70% by the end of the current year, which requires making difficult decisions such as imposing early retirement.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 4, 2022]
EU to the rescue
The European Union has been coming to the PA’s rescue repeatedly during its crisis by paying its salaries. The EU, however, has never insisted that the PA stop rewarding terror so that it could pay salaries from its own budget. Instead, the EU keeps giving the PA money for salaries to many civil servants, thus enabling the PA to continue its terror salaries. On May 31, 2024, the EU announced additional salary funding to the PA:
“The Commission has today processed a second tranche of assistance of €25 million for the Palestinian Authority to contribute to the payment of salaries and pensions of Palestinian civil servants and disbursed €16 million for UNRWA to provide basic services such as health and education to Palestinian refugees.
The €25 million payment under PEGASE will help the Palestinian Authority to meet part of its commitments towards Palestinian civil servants in the West Bank.
The payment is the second tranche disbursed to the Palestinian Authority as part of the €118.4 million assistance package adopted in December 2023. The first €25 million payment were disbursed in March.”
[European Commission press release, May 31, 2024]
Incredibly, the EU looks away from the PA’s monthly announcements explicitly showing that it views the salaries of both terrorists and other employees as coming from the same pot. The EU is making a mockery of itself by imagining that somehow its euros are not helping to pay salaries to terrorists, or in the very least enabling those payments to terrorists.
PA intransigence on Pay-for-Slay
Despite all the financial obstacles being faced by the PA, it nevertheless consistently insists on making salary payments to terrorists a priority and a point of pride.
PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Deputy Director Abd Al-Qader Al-Khatib: “When we are asked about things the Europeans wonder about, which they were already taught by the Israelis, we have an answer to every question. We have nothing to hide and are not embarrassed of anything. It’s the complete opposite. We are proudly adopting the position of the Palestinian leadership led by [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, when he said: “Even if we are left with one penny, we will pay it to the prisoners and Martyrs.” This is our position. These are the heroes of freedom. We will not abandon them. We will not leave them to deal with their fate alone. They have sacrificed the best of their years for the sake of Palestine and the people of Palestine, and Allah willing we will be loyal to them. We will be their servants.
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, July 18, 2022]
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "Israel came and said that the Martyrs are criminals, terrorists, and murderers. Shame on you Israel! We will never agree to abandon our Martyrs… Our Martyrs, prisoners, and wounded are the most sanctified that we have. We will not agree to waive our money in full. Our Martyrs have a right to this money."
The video of Abbas has been broadcast on Official PA TV at least 48 times:
[Official PA TV, Nov. 11 (twice), 12 (twice), 15 (three times), 18 (twice), 30, Dec. 2, 4, 10, 12, 23, 24, 26 (twice) 28, 2019,Jan. 6, 16, 18, 26, Feb. 4, 13, June 8, 25, July 14, 16, 19, 23, Oct. 8, 11,15, Nov. 3, 17, 2020; Jan. 19, March 14, April 4, 5, May 1, Aug. 16, Sept. 8, 26, Nov. 17, 2021; Jan. 12, 2022, Oct. 2 2023]
By its own admission, the PA has lost billions of dollars in support from other countries due to its intransigence on continuing the “Pay-for-Slay” payments and the subsequent Israeli deductions. Were it not for its insistence on continuing this program, it would have an abundance of funds, both from its own revenue and from increased international donations. However, Mahmoud Abbas “has said repeatedly – that if we are left with one penny, it will be paid to the families of the Martyrs and the prisoners” [WAFA, official PA news agency, April 4, 2024].
Finally, for political reasons, the PA can’t stop itself from rewarding terror. Bassem Barhoum, a regular columnist for the PA’s official daily, described the PA’s dysfunctional situation quite succinctly:
“The PA insisted on continuing to pay these salaries, because it cannot do otherwise. After all, the PLO’s political ethics say that these people are ‘the most noble among us’ thanks to the sacrifices they have made. The PA will not do this (i.e., stop paying terrorists) because if it had done so, it would have admitted that these people are terrorists, as Israel claims… Since that time, and out of solidarity [with the prisoners], the [PA] employees have received only half of the monthly salary. In other words, with the passage of more than five years, this employee is defined as one of the poor of society.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida website, June 8, 2024]
Israel's Anti "Pay-for-Slay" Law - Israeli law stating that the PA payments to terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is a financial incentive to terror. The law instructs the state to deduct and freeze the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of "Martyrs" from the tax money Israel collects for the PA. Should the PA stop these payments for a full year, the Israeli government would have the option of giving all or part of the frozen money to the PA. The law was enacted by the Israeli Parliament on July 2, 2018. During the parliamentary vote, the law's sponsor Avi Dichter said: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee received much help in its deliberations... from Palestinian Media Watch who provided us with authentic data that enabled productive and professional deliberations, nuances that are very difficult to achieve without precise data.” [Israeli Parliament website, July 2, 2018] In accordance with the law, as of September 2021 Israel’s Security Cabinet had ordered the freeze of 1.857 billion shekels ($580.15 million) - the sum equivalent to the PA payments to terrorists in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Itamar Marcus and Ephraim D. Tepler
Source: https://palwatch.org/page/35179
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