Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas issued a Monday decree ostensibly ending his embattled government's terrorist payment program, known as "pay for slay." But regional analysts are skeptical that Abbas's reform will stop the cash from flowing to so-called martyrs in Gaza and the West Bank.
Abbas, according to a statement published by PA state media, transferred the program from Ramallah's Social Development Ministry to the Palestinian National Institution for Economic Empowerment, an agency Abbas controls. The new structure will allow families of terrorists who received "pay for slay" payments to continue benefiting, but only if they qualify for "standards applied without discrimination to all families benefiting from protection and social welfare programs," Abbas's decree states. In other words, a family would qualify for the money based solely on financial need, rather than the number of years their relatives have been imprisoned in Israel for terrorism.
The change comes as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a case deciding whether American victims of Palestinian terrorism can sue the PA for damages due to the authority's support for terror attacks through "pay for slay." It also comes as Abbas angles to take control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas once the terror group's ceasefire deal with Israel is complete. The "pay for slay" program has long been a flashpoint between U.S. leaders and the Palestinian government, with PA officials telling Axios that they "hope Abbas' decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with Congress and lead to the resumption of U.S. financial aid to the Palestinian Authority."
Middle East experts, however, are skeptical that the changes will truly end "pay for slay."
Jonathan Schanzer, a veteran Middle East analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, questioned the timing of Abbas's announcement, noting that the PA head wants a "takeover of the Gaza Strip" and that ending "pay for slay" would be "crucial for any legitimacy to consider taking over" the territory. International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky, meanwhile, said Abbas's decree "fails to state that the PA will no longer pay, reward, or incentivize terror attacks against Israel."
"All that the PA are essentially doing," he told the Washington Free Beacon, "is rebranding the pay-for-slay payments under a different department and oversight mechanism run by Abbas himself."
"We would call on President Trump and the United States to see through this blatant ploy by the PA and continue demanding that they unequivocally revoke payments of any kind to Palestinian terrorists," Ostrovsky went on.
Former White House National Security Council member Richard Goldberg expressed similar concerns.
"Statements don't always match reality in Ramallah," he told the Free Beacon. "If this is just calling a terror payment by another name—in this case, a low-income subsidy—nothing has changed."
Abbas has long promised to end "pay for slay" without doing so. The Biden administration was reportedly on the cusp of securing a promise to end the program prior to October 7, but talks broke down once Hamas carried out its terror attack, which nearly three in four Palestinians supported in the following weeks. The payments for terrorists, then, help Abbas save face with Palestinian residents.
Congress passed a 2018 law, the Taylor Force Act, that froze U.S. aid to the Palestinian government until it ended the terrorist payment program, but the Biden administration repeatedly sidestepped it.
Elliott Abrams, the former U.S.-Iran envoy during President Donald Trump's first term in office, said Abbas should have reformed the PA's welfare system years ago but "refused and his statements about refusing are emphatic."
"The 'prisoners lobby' is powerful and will have full Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] support," Abrams said. "So I am suspicious that there will finally be a change."