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What Is the U.S. Government Doing to Enforce the Taylor Force Act?

(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch - The bi-partisan U.S. Taylor Force Act (TFA), adopted in 2018, declared that "The Palestinian Authority's practice of paying salaries to terrorists serving in Israeli prisons, as well as to the families of deceased terrorists, is an incentive to commit acts of terror." As long as the PA continues to incentivize terror and reward the murder of Jews, there is no chance whatsoever to promote any constructive dialogue toward Israeli-Palestinian peace. In addition to conditioning most of U.S. aid on the PA abolishing its "Pay-for-Slay" terror reward policy, as a long-term diplomatic goal, the Act urged "the Department of State to use its bilateral and multilateral engagements with all governments and organizations committed to the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians to highlight the issue of Palestinian Authority payments for acts of terrorism and to urge such governments and organizations to join the United States in calling on the Palestinian Authority to cease such payments immediately." Very little has been done to achieve the diplomatic goal of ending the terror payments. It is apparent that the PA not only intends to continue paying its terror rewards but will pay rewards to the terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre as well. In 2018, following the adoption of the Taylor Force Act, Israel also adopted legislation that punishes the PA for its "Play-for-Slay" policy by deducting the sum the PA pays to terrorists from the tax revenues it collects for the PA. To date, the PA has lost over 3 billion shekels ($820 million), a sum equivalent to the PA payments to terrorists from 2018 through 2022. When Abbas urges Washington to release the "Palestinian clearance funds," he is referring to the sums withheld by Israel from the taxes as a direct result of the PA's "Play-for-Slay" policy. Moral clarity requires that Secretary Blinken unequivocally demand an immediate end to the PA's "Play-for-Slay" policy as a non-negotiable precondition to establishing any form of revitalized Palestinian entity. The writer, Director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center, served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate General Corps and was director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.
2024-02-12 00:00:00
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