While US President Donald Trump threatened funding to the Palestinian Authority in a tweet and in action at the UN this week, the Knesset bill to slash tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues to pay terrorists, remained stuck on Wednesday, 10 months after it was proposed.
It is “uncomfortable” that the American version of the bill is making progress, but in Israel, it’s stuck, Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern told The Jerusalem Post.
Stern introduced the bill in March, based on the Taylor Force Act, a bill by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) that would stop all US aid to the Palestinians as long as they pay salaries to terrorists and their families.
The bill, named after an American victim of Palestinian terrorism, passed in the House of Representatives in December and is awaiting Senate approval.
Stern’s version would deduct the amount of money the PA gives to terrorists in Israeli prisons or to the families of those killed by Israel, from the tax and tariff money Israel collects for the PA.
The terrorists’ salaries are anchored in PA law, and the amount increases with every Israeli they kill, amounting to an estimated NIS 1.2 billion annually.
“Every day in which this law has not passed, Palestinian youth live in an atmosphere that motivates terrorism and makes terrorism look worthwhile to them,” Stern lamented.
Lahav Harkov 