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JERUSALEM – The Israeli parliament on Monday passed a law that holds hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for Palestinians from social benefits for attackers and their families.
The new legislation will deduct the money that Palestinians are allocating to their "Martyrs' Fund" from taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
The development, condemned by the Palestinians, has aggravated a fiscal crisis for the Palestinian government already hit hard by the US cuts. [19659004] Israel has long pushed Palestinians to end the benefits – which benefit some 35,000 families of Palestinians killed and wounded in the conflict with Israel – and said the practice encourages violence. Among the beneficiaries are families of suicide bombers and other activists involved in deadly attacks.
Allowances amount to $ 330 million, or about 7% of the $ 5 billion budget of the Palestinian Authority in 2018.
Legislator Avi Dichter The godfather of the law, said the families of the Palestinian attackers had easy access to these funds.
"The only thing you have to do is kill Israelis, get arrested or kill," he said. say the number of people involved in deadly attacks is a small percentage of those helped by the fund. They say that tax revenues, collected by Israel for them under past peace agreements, are their money, and that the Palestinian Authority has a responsibility to all its citizens like any other government.
For Palestinians, families of attackers – like all Palestinians in the territories – are widely perceived as victims of half a century of Israeli occupation.
Saeb Erekat, the main Palestinian negotiator, accused Israel of "theft and piracy."
"The Palestinian Authority is responsible He said that the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, approved the law and that 87 of the 120 legislators in the House voted in favor of the bill, while providing protection Palestinian families, I objected to this, the remaining MPs were absent.
Elazar Stern, legislator of the Yesh Atid party who co-sponsored the bill, said the money withheld would be set aside , giving the Israeli government the opportunity to restore it to the Palestinians
A previous bill stipulated that the money would go to Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks, but it was abandoned because of potential legal complications. asserted that the martyrs fund offers higher benefits to those who are involved in more serious attacks.
"This is not only that they encourage their people to take terrorist actions. They even encourage them to kill more innocent people, "said Stern.
Arab lawmakers denounced the bill before the vote." Jamal Zahalka, from the joint list of Arab parties, said the draft was "despicable" and he called Dichter, former head of the Shin Bet security agency, a "terrorist."
"You steal the Palestinian people" Zahalka shouted
Israeli law was passed the same day as Australia declared that it put an end to direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, saying that Australian donations could increase its ability to paying Palestinians convicted of political violence
The US Congress approved the Taylor Force Act, a bill to stop US funding to the Palestinian Authority until it stops paying allowances to blame attackers and their families.
The United States is currently looking for $ 200 million in assistance for Palestinians. He also cut some $ 300 million to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, known as UNRWA, which weighs more on the Palestinian budget.
Stuart Force, father of Taylor Force, an American student killed in 2016 in Israel, attended the Knesset vote on Monday. He said that he was "really comforted" by the support of Israeli lawmakers to Taylor's force law during his time in Congress
"When there was an opportunity to show my support, I would I jumped on it. He said the vote "will bring awareness" to the issue and hoped that other countries would follow suit.
The short – lived Palestinian Authority, which relies heavily on Israeli tax funds and international aid, has suffered chronic fiscal problems. 19659024] Issa Qarakeh, the PA's Minister of Prison Affairs, said that even if Israel stopped the transfer of funds, the Palestinian government would continue to pay the allowances
"When we signed the Agreement Oslo, the authority pays these families, and they have never objected to it.Now they create a problem just to avoid tackling the real problems, which arise from the Israeli military occupation and construction of settlements on our land, not money from welfare to families who have lost their source of life ".
Israel's decision to further cut funds underscored weak prospects for peace in this decades-long conflict
A survey released on Monday revealed that Israelis had little hope in the peace proposal of the Trump administration. According to the Israel Institute of Democracy and Tel Aviv University, nearly three-quarters of respondents believe that the plan has a very low or moderately low chance of success. The survey did not ask respondents why they thought so
The poll, which had a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points, included 600 Jewish and Arab respondents.
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