Pay-For-Slay: One Example

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Dafna Meir was an Israeli, a wife, mother of six (two of the children were adopted), and a nurse at a hospital where she treated Arab and Jewish patients alike. She often worked with Dr. Abdel Nasser, her friend and colleague. She was murdered by a young Palestinian who, once imprisoned, began to receive his guaranteed monthly income under the PA’s “Pay-For-Slay” policy. A report on his treatment, and his recent good fortune in having his “salary “doubled as soon as he passed the five-year mark in prison, is here: “‘Salary’ of Terrorist Who Killed Israeli Mother Is Doubled,” Elder of Ziyon, Algemeiner, January 19, 2021:

Dafna Meir worked as a nurse in the neurosurgery department of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba. She was also a pre-marital counselor for brides. Dr. Ahmed Nasser, who worked alongside her at the hospital, described her as his “best friend” in the department, always helpful, encouraging everyone, treating all alike, whether Jewish or Arab. Dafna had been studying Arabic, telling Dr. Nasser that “we are neighbors and should speak the same language.”

She had four children and two foster children. “She was a happy woman, joyful, optimistic, driven, responsible, loving,” related a neighbor.

On January 17, 2016, Dafna was painting the front door to her home. Her eldest daughter, Renana, heard her scream. The girl ran to her aid, only to see a Palestinian terrorist stab her mother repeatedly. Dafna tried to fight off the assailant, protecting the three children who were home at the time. Renana screamed for help, and the terrorist fled.

Dafna was pronounced dead at the scene.

Her murderer was a 15-year-old boy named Morad Bader Abdullah Adais, who was caught the next day.

What had led to 15-year-old Morad to kill Dafna Meir, about whom he knew nothing, except that she was a Jew? Everything. Everything he had been told, had seen on Palestinian television, had read in his schoolbooks. Even as a small boy, he had been raised to hate and want to kill Jews. He had seen the children’s programs on Palestinian television, that show little children declaring their hatred of Jews, and their eagerness to kill them. Some of the children, holding knives, pantomime stabbing motions. Offstage, a grown-up encourages them. They sweetly sing songs praising that kind of murderous attack. They sing songs praising Palestinian “martyrs” who die while committing acts of murderous terrorism. That education in hatred and murder continued when Morad went to school, for the schoolbooks provided by both the PA and by UNRWA, are full of hate speech directed at the perfidious Jews, along with exhortations to attack and kill them. This all made a deep impression on Morad.

And young Morad also took in the praise lavished by the PA on Palestinian murderers of Jews. They are extolled by PA leaders; their images are plastered on walls In Palestinian cities and towns; streets and squares are named after them. They are praised as “heroes” and, if they had died while attacking Jews, their “martyrdom” is celebrated. Why wouldn’t a 15-year-old boy like Morad not want to attain such glory so young?

And finally, whether he died committing such an act, or lived to be sent to prison, the PA’s Pay-For-Slay program ensured that Murad, or his family if he had died during his attack, would be well provided for; the sums supplied in the Pay-For-Slay program are many times greater than what Murad could ever have hoped to receive as an average Palestinian wage earner. It’s a way to provide lavish support for one’s family. What 15-year-old, with few life prospects, would not wish to do that?

And the more severe the crime, and the longer the prison sentence;,the greater the amount provided to Morad. He has nothing to spend that money on in prison, so he turns it over to his family. Some of these prisoners are, through their Pay-For-Slay “salaries,” the chief breadwinners for their families. It’s one more reason why some Palestinians find the option of terrorism – kill Jews, be heaped with glory at home, and provide at the same time for your family. What a tempting prospect all that must be.

It is now five years later, and Adais is very happy — because his salary for being a murderer is doubling as of this week.

According to the Palestinian Authority’s sliding salary structure for terrorists and murderers, Adais will now go from being paid 2,000 shekels a month to 4,000.

The average Palestinian worker gets paid about 2,500 shekels a month, which means that the now 20-year-old Adais makes significantly more money than Palestinians who have to work for a living. To Palestinians, Morad Adais is a hero who deserves every penny of his lifetime award for repeatedly stabbing a mother who was guilty of the crime of being a Jew.

There are Palestinian families that, in light of their economic situation, actively encourage their children to become terrorists. They need the money. If Morad stays in prison for another fifteen years, he – that is, his family – will be receiving 10,000 shekels a month, or the equivalent of four average salaries of Palestinian wage-earners. If he remains for another twenty years, he will receive 12,000 shekels a month – almost five times what an average Palestinian worker will be making. Of course, that amount will go up, being adjusted for inflation. And there are extra sums added if the prisoner is married, has children, is from Jerusalem, or from Israel proper. Not bad take-home pay for someone who has no need to work to earn a living. He can spend his time in prison reading the Qur’an, or as some prisoners, such as Mahmoud Dahlan, have done, mastering Hebrew, or reading widely from what’s contained in the prison libraries, or finding profit and pleasure on prison computers (Israeli prisons are like those in Scandinavia, deeply solicitous of the prisoners’ demands and wellbeing), or working out. It’s not a bad life, in Israeli prisons – nothing like what faces prisoners in Arab countries — and would-be terrorists know it.

Before the Biden Administration even thinks of restoring any aid to the PA, it has to insist that the Pay-For-Slay program end. The so-called modification of benefits that the PA has proposed, which will redefine Pay-For-Slay as a social welfare program, and calculate payments on “need,” rather than on the severity of the sentence, misses the point: such a program still provides money to those who have tried to murder, or succeeded, in murdering Israelis. Neither they, nor their families, should receive anything from the PA. The entire program has to go. Will Joe Biden be ready to stand up against this rewards program for murderers, however it is repackaged by the PR people in Ramallah? This will be one of his first tests in dealing or, one hopes, refusing to deal, with the Palestinians.

First published in Jihad Watch.