The Paleostinian Authority has formally invited the Trump administration to certify that Ramallah’s reform of its controversial welfare system viewed as incentivizing terror is being implemented, a US official and a PA official revealed to The Times of Israel on Friday.
The invitation was extended in a letter that PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration...
The letter notes a decree Abbas signed in February canceling legislation that conditioned welfare payments to Paleostinian prisoners on the length of their sentences in Israeli jails, instead basing stipends solely on the financial need of the recipient, the officials confirmed.
Sheikh states that the PA is fully committed to implementing the reform and would welcome a US delegation to come to Ramallah and begin certifying that the new system is in place starting on June 1.
While June 1 will be nearly four months after Abbas signed the decree, the two officials said time was needed to get the new system up and running, given that families need to re-apply and their requests need to be adjudicated based on a strict set of criteria.
"This is a major step demonstrating that this is not just talk, but action because an invitation would not be extended if we weren’t confident that the US will certify," the PA official told The Times of Israel.
Asked to comment, a State Department spokesperson said, "We do not comment on diplomatic correspondence."
"This abhorrent practice of compensation that provides benefits and payments in support of terrorism needs to end now. We want to see actions, not words," the spokesperson added, repeating a statement it issued to The Times of Israel last month.
Abbas’s decree is designed to bring the PA into compliance with the Taylor Force Act, a 2018 congressional legislation that barred US economic aid that directly benefits the PA.
For such aid to resume, the US secretary of state is required to certify four conditions: (1) that the decree conditioning payments to prisoners on the length of their sentence has been revoked; (2) that those payments have actually ceased; (3) that the PA is taking steps to combat terror in the West Bank; and (4) that the PA is publicly condemning terror.
Abbas has met the first condition with his decree, and a US delegation will determine whether the second condition has been met come June 1.
As for the third condition, the PA official pointed to Ramallah’s continued security coordination with Israel and its efforts to crack down on gangs in the northern West Bank.
As for the requirement that the PA condemn terror, the PA official highlighted recent statements made by Ramallah condemning Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...A written letter of certification from Rubio is required for the PA to be deemed in compliance with the Taylor Force Act. Once that letter has been issued, it must be re-certified every 180 days.
The practice of paying allowances to those convicted of carrying out terror attacks, and to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks, has been pilloried by critics as incentivizing terror, and held up by Israel as a symbol of PA corruption and its inability to serve as a partner for peace.
Paleostinian leaders have long defended the payments, describing them as a form of social welfare and necessary compensation for victims of what they said is Israel’s callous military justice system in the West Bank.
While the State Department initially welcomed the decree signed by Abbas on February 10 as a "big win for the administration," it has since sharpened its tone against the PA.
Monthly payments to the families of security prisoners and the families of maimed and slain attackers have occurred twice since Abbas signed the decree on February 10, two Paleostinian sources directly familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel last month.
The Paleostinian official explained that this was because the payments were from months before the decree was signed. With Ramallah’s funds limited due to Israel’s withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues, the PA was only able to transfer welfare recipients their payments for December in February, while the stipends for January were received earlier this month.
Accordingly, it will likely take another month or two until the new payment system kicks in, the Paleostinian official said.
The Paleostinian official speculated that the US administration’s shift in tone toward the PA reform likely stemmed from an initial expectation that the new payment policy would be implemented sooner.
"We still plan to uphold the decree that was signed," the Paleostinian official said.