The PA Supports Terror in Word and Deed

Nov. 19 2014

Although Mahmoud Abbas condemned yesterday’s terrorist attack on worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, in the next breath he condemned “invasions of al-Aqsa mosque, the provocations of settlers, and the incitement of certain Israeli ministers.” Over the last weeks, he and his Fatah associates have praised perpetrators of terrorist attacks and published cartoons glorifying violence. Nor are they content to support terror merely with words, as Shoham Wexler writes:

The Palestinian Authority . . . is also active in protecting murderers and terrorists. Thus, for instance, the PA pays a salary to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. A prisoner serving a sentence of up to three years gets a monthly salary of 1,400 Israeli shekels. If he’s serving a period of 10-15 years, he receives a monthly “salary” of 6,000 shekels. The hardcore prisoners serving for 30 years and above get 12,000 shekels. In addition to the “salaries,” the PA prison-affairs ministry and the PLO prison-affairs authority provide grants of 2,000 shekels a month to released prisoners who can’t find work. Some of the prisoners also receive money from Hamas and organizations like the al-Nur prisoners’ association. So a terrorist can receive a monthly salary of thousands of shekels just for attacking Jews.

Before we Israelis throw up our hands and argue that there’s no way to fight a “grassroots war,” we need to remember that this was preceded by a massive incitement campaign and financial aid and security for anyone (or their families) who attacks Jews. This is a psychological and financial lifeline we can and should cut, and the sooner the better.

Read more at Mida

More about: Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian terror

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023