JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denounced the Palestinian Authority (PA) for encouraging terrorism with its infamous ‘Slay-to-Pay’ program, after a Palestinian killed two Israelis on Friday.
Palestinian terrorists killed 19-year-old Aviv Maor from Kibbutz Ein Harod and Mordechai Shimshon, 68, from Beit She’an in northern Israel on Friday.
The Palestinian Authority’s Pay-for-Slay policy gained widespread public attention when Taylor Force, a West Point graduate who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, was brutally stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist on March 8, 2016, while on a tour of Israel. President Donald Trump signed the Taylor Force Act in October 2018, after a strong campaign by Force’s parents, Robbi and Stuart Force.
TRUMP ADMIN WEIGHS TERRORISM SANCTIONS AGAINST UN PALESTINIAN AID AGENCY OVER HAMAS MOVES
Israeli security forces inspect the site where a vehicle was used by the attacker in a suspected terrorist attack in which a car was rammed and stabbed, killing two people in Afula, northern Israel. Israel December 26, 2025. (Gil Eliyahu/Reuters)
Ahead of Friday’s terrorist attacks, Sa’ar warned the international community about alleged deception by the Palestinian leadership. He wrote on End ‘Pay-for-Slay’ now!”
Abbas is the 90-year-old chain-smoking president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank (the region is known in Israel by the biblical names Judea and Samaria).
Taylor Force was a West Point graduate who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and received his MBA from Vanderbilt University. His bright future was brutally cut short on March 8, 2016, when Taylor walked with his Vanderbilt friends along the Mediterranean Sea promenade in Tel Aviv, Israel. A Palestinian terrorist attacked the group with a knife and Taylor was stabbed to death. (Courtesy of the Force Family)
He continued: “They are making noises as if they are changing their policies.” But he called it a “façade” with no change in policy.
Michael said that “Pay-for-Slay will continue in a different way. Donors and the international community [who finance the PA] will find it more difficult to control.”
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Counter-terrorism expert Michael, who is also a fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, said the PA “defines terrorists as social welfare. They continue to support incitement against Israel. They remain dysfunctional.”
According to a December 19 report in the Times of Israel, a PA-affiliated organization – the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (also known as Tamkeen) – disputed the Israeli government’s claim that “Pay-for Slay” is still intact.
Tamkeen noted in its statement that it “confirms that the payment system linked to the number of years in prison has been completely and permanently abolished and is no longer in effect in any way.” It added that “Claims regarding its continuation fall under the category of deliberate misinformation and falsification of facts.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets with then-President Joe Biden in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Friday, July 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
He sharply criticized Western European leaders for recognizing an independent Palestinian state in 2025 without ensuring the state would not be a sponsor of terrorism. “Western leaders, the British Prime Minister, the French President and the Spanish Prime Minister are rushing to recognize a Palestinian state, and they don’t care what happens under the Palestinian Authority in the territories.” He said their recognition “is an incentive to continue with ‘Pay for Slay’.”
Michael said the Trump administration is the only one “putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority.”
A Palestinian terrorist from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades is seen with a weapon during a military parade in the Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. (Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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He emphasized that if the US-designated terrorist group Hamas in Gaza is not dismantled and disarmed, “this will be a new achievement of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.”
