‘Pay for slay’: Debate erupts over key condition for Palestinian statehood

The Palestinian Authority insists it has complied with a key condition of Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood as Israel and the United States accuse it of rebranding a controversial prisoner payment scheme widely known as “pay for slay” to avoid international condemnation.

When announcing the decision to recognise Palestine in September last year, the Albanese government said it was based on commitments from the Palestinian Authority to “reform governance, terminate prisoner payments, institute schooling reform, demilitarise and hold general elections”.

The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank, has for decades provided monthly financial payments to Palestinians in Israeli prisons and the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in confrontations with Israel.

Israel, the United States, the European Union and Australia have opposed the payments on the grounds they could encourage terrorism and are a poor use of scarce resources.

The already tense relations between Israel and Australia worsened last week when the Israeli government accused Foreign Minister Penny Wong of using a “blatant lie” in a speech to the United Nations.

Wong said that 15,000 Palestinian children had been driven out of their homes this year by settler violence in the West Bank, a figure more than 10 times higher than the official United Nations estimate.

According to the UN, about 1000 Palestinian children were displaced in the first six months of this year because of settler violence.

“From where and from whom did Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong get this blatant lie?” Israel’s Foreign Ministry asked on social media.

Wong is believed to have mistakenly used a figure referring to a longer time frame and more causes of displacement.

Asked about the status of payments to prisoners and their families, Noura Saleh, the chargé d’affaires of Palestine’s general delegation to Australia, said the Palestinian Authority (PA) abolished the previous payment system following a decree last year by President Mahmoud Abbas, replacing it with a new social welfare system based on financial need.

“Under the previous system, eligibility and the level of payments could be linked to prisoner status, among other factors. This is no longer the case,” she said.

“Under the new system, there is no separate category of prisoner payments, and no payment is determined by the length of imprisonment or the nature of the sentence.”

An external audit of the new scheme commissioned by the PA found allowances were being allocated correctly and there were no signs of fraud or manipulation.

Israel’s foreign ministry, however, has branded the new program a “fraudulent exercise” in which funds continue to flow to convicted terrorists.

Israel’s embassy in Canberra said the PA is “still undertaking the ‘pay-for-slay’ program – spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year – but hiding the paper trail using circuitous banking routes and indirect networks designed to evade foreign oversight”.

“Recognition of Palestinian statehood in the absence of genuine reform strengthens the radicals, is perceived as a reward for terrorism, and sends a message that terrorism pays off,” the embassy said.

The US State Department said in a report to Congress in April: “Despite changing the mechanisms, the PA continued payments and benefits to Palestinian terrorists and their families … The PA continues to provide a system of compensation in support of terrorism through new mechanisms and under a different name.”

Wong raised the termination of prisoner payments with the PA’s Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian in a discussion earlier this month, telling her counterpart that Australia wanted to see progress on reform.

“Australia is working with partners to hold the Palestinian Authority to the commitments it has made to Australia and the international community, including on prisoner payments,” a spokesperson for Wong said.

“By supporting effective civilian governance and public administration, Australia is helping address the conditions that allow terrorism and extremism to take hold, while strengthening the institutions needed for long-term stability.”

Colin Rubenstein, the executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said: “The fact that pay-for-slay never ceased shows why front-loading concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for vague and disingenuous pledges is diplomatic folly.”

Mundhir Al-Hayek, a spokesman for Fatah, the political faction that controls the PA, reportedly said in August that the PA had not stopped paying salaries to prisoners and the families of those killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis.

Al-Hayek said creative methods, including the use of powers of attorney to route money to recipients in Gaza, had been used to continue the payments despite international pressure to abolish them.

The PA’s Finance Minister Estephan Salameh said in February: “We have not abandoned any Palestinian resident, whether they are prisoners or families of martyrs and wounded. This is a clear fundamental issue.”

A February report by Israeli non-government watchdog Palestinian Media Watch found that thousands of Palestinian ex-prisoners, including those convicted of terrorism, had been camouflaged as pensioners or civil servants so they can continue receiving regular payments.

“The PA is intentionally lying to the US, the EU, France and other countries while working continuously to find ways to secretly reward Palestinian terrorists,” the report argued.