The PA's billion dollar foreign aid fraud

The Palestinian Authority is deceiving Western donor countries, falsely claiming to have stopped paying salaries to terrorist prisoners, and reaping more than a billion dollars/year in return

Itamar Marcus..
Palestinian Media Watch..
27 April '16..

This special report by Palestinian Media Watch reveals a major fraud by the Palestinian Authority, through which it is reaping more than a billion dollars in foreign aid yearly.

In 2014, the PA announced that in order to continue receiving more than a billion dollars in financial support annually, it was acceding to US and European donor countries' demands that the PA stop paying salaries to terrorist prisoners. The PA claimed the money for prisoners salaries would no longer be paid by the PA but instead by the PLO.

Even though PMW warned at the time that this was a "ploy," the US and EU countries accepted the PA's assurance, and continue to give the PA over a billion dollars in financial aid every year.

This PMW special report cites numerous official PA sources and statements by officials, showing that the PA is violating the trust of the US and EU donor countries. According to all these sources, the PA Ministry of Finance continues to make the decisions and remains the source of the money for paying salaries to terrorist prisoners.

In addition, PMW has studied records of the PA Ministry of Finance that show money transfers the PA made to the PLO in the years 2012 - 2015. These transfers show a noteworthy money trail used to transfer money that is needed for terrorist salaries from the PA to the PLO. In 2015, after the PA had assured Western donors it was no longer paying the salaries, and after it had closed the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, it suddenly transferred more than double what it had transferred to the PLO in previous years. The additional amount transferred by the PA to the PLO in 2015 was almost identical to the budget the PA Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs used to have. This extra money the PLO received from the PA in 2015 matches the amount the PLO now needed to pay the salaries of terrorist prisoners.

The payments may be made by the PLO, but the money is still PA money.

Since it continues to fund salaries to terrorists, thereby clearly violating its promise to donors, the PA should be ineligible to receive Western donor money. However, through this deception the PA is still reaping over a billion dollars in foreign aid.

Click here to view the full report in PDF

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

.