On May 7, the Knesset approved the first reading of proposed legislation by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Israel’s Justice Ministry that would enable the government to withhold money destined for the Palestinian Authority (PA). Under the proposal, the government would deduct payouts to families of convicted Palestinian terrorists from the tax revenues transferred by Israel to the PA.

Ahead of the vote, the Ministry of Defense issued figures showing the amount of money given to the families of Palestinians jailed for terror attacks against Israelis throughout their incarceration. Thus, for example, Karam Fathi Lutfi Razaq, convicted of the October 2015 murder of Eitam Henkin and his wife, Naama, in the Samaria region of the West Bank, has thus far received 40,600 shekels ($11,370) — 1,400 shekels for each month in jail. The ministry calculated that by the time he is 80, Razaq will have received over 11 million shekels ($3.08 million). Another terrorist, Omar Abu Jalil, convicted of killing three members of the Solomon family in the West Bank in July 2017, also gets 1,400 shekels from the PA for each month he spends in jail, and by the time he’s 80 will have gotten over 12.5 million shekels. The more severe the Israeli sentencing, the higher the payout, which can go as high as 10,000 shekels a month. The Defense Ministry reports that the PA also pays stipends to the families of Palestinians carrying out terror attacks who were killed by Israeli forces.

In January 2018, the Defense Ministry published figures indicating that in 2017, the PA paid prisoners and former inmates more than 550 million shekels. The families of suicide bombers or of injured terrorists received an additional 687 million shekels. In all, the PA allocated 1.2 billion shekels, which constitute 7% of its annual budget, for such payments. The proposed bill, which faces a second and third reading before being enacted into law, would enable Israel to withhold sums equivalent to 3% of the PA’s budget. The proposal refers only to the payments made to families of prisoners, and not to payments made to families of assailants killed or injured during attacks.

The proposed bill would allow Israel to deduct the money from funds it transfers to the PA under the terms of the April 1994 Paris Protocol. Israel collects the money in duties on goods destined for the PA that are imported through its sea and airports. Israel would divert the deducted funds into a special compensation fund for the Israeli victims of terrorism and the funding of counterterrorism projects.