Counter-Terrorism: The Palestinian Threat

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December 14, 2005: The Palestinian Authority is turning out to be a major source of support for Islamic terrorism, even though it says (in English) that it is not. Recently, the Palestinian Authority passed a law awarding pensions to the families of suicide bombers. The Palestinian Authority is also letting exiled (by Israel) Islamic terrorists back in, via the checkpoints they now control on the Gaza border with Egypt. The Palestinian Authority has long continued making monthly payments (totaling about $4 million) to men convicted of terrorist acts and held in Israeli prisons.

In the decade that Yasser Arafat ran the Palestinian Authority, he did practically nothing to build the infrastructure of the Palestinian territories he controlled, but instead invested heavily in creating several security and intelligence organizations, several of which evolved into Islamic terrorist organizations. Worse, Arafat put a lot of money into a propaganda (including mass media and school curriculum) that stressed anti-Semitism and the need to destroy Israel. This has created a generation of Palestinians who see the destruction of Israel as more important than making peace with Israel.

The Palestinian terrorist groups have also been accepting aid from Iran (via the Lebanese based Hizbollah), and Palestinians regularly show up in al Qaedas ranks. Since the Palestinian Authority is subsidized by many international organizations (UN, EU and even the United States), this pro-terrorist policy of theirs is becoming rather embarrassing, and deadly.