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| Taylor Force was murdered by an Arab assailant while he jogged on Tel Aviv's foreshore on March 8, 2016. He was 29 and a student at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. He is pictured here with his sister Kirsten [Image Source] |
The Taylor Force Act is a legislative bill co-sponsored in the United States Senate in 2016 by U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Dan Coats (R-Indiana), and Roy Blunt (R-Missouri). The legislation proposes to stop American economic aid to the Palestinian Authority until the PA changes its laws to cease paying stipends funneled through the Palestinian Authority Martyr's Fund to individuals who commit acts of terrorism and to the families of deceased terrorists. [Wikipedia]Palestinian Media Watch - an Israel-based nongovernmental organization and media watchdog group founded in 1996 by Itamar Marcus documents cases of incitement in Palestinian media - yesterday released a transcript (translated from the original Arabic) of an Israeli Police interrogation of a Palestinian Arab terrorist, one Khaled Rajoub, caught after an unsuccessful attempt to murder Israelis.
In the course of Rajoub's interrogation on February 2, 2014, he gave the police a stunningly candid rationalization for his deeds: so that he would be killed by the Israelis and his wife and children would become entitled to monthly payments from the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme.
It's material that ought to get the widest publicity. But, things being what they are, probably will not.
The text extracted below is based on a longer PMW online version ["Interrogation of Palestinian terrorist proves: PA payments motivate terror", Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, July 10, 2017] and an earlier version of that same report here.
Had this Rajoub died in the course of carrying out an Arab-on-Israeli terror attack, the PA would have certified him as a "martyr" (in Arabic: shaheed). His family would have become entitled to a monthly allowance of 2,800 New Israeli Shekels per month based on NIS 1,400 base pay, NIS 400 for the wife (for her life) and NIS 200 for each of the five children (for their lives). It's a good, family-sized salary in their society's terms. It would have brought honour on the head of the dead-ender who made it possible by attacking Israelis.
As PMW has reported, it's not only “martyr” families who receive monthly payments; under PA law, every terrorist prisoner is granted a monthly PA salary while in jail, ranging from 1,400 shekels to NIS 12,000 a month based on the time spent in prison. For Khaled Rajoub, the PA's Rewards for Terror and its financial rewards were all the incentive he needed. The scheme works.
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I am a man with a family of seven, including me and my wife. I don't work. I have accumulated large debts and am unable to pay them off. I reached a point where, if my son wants a shekel, I have nothing to give him. Therefore I decided to die. It didn't matter how, by hanging, any way, [just] to die. I thought about it and said to myself that if I die by hanging, or any other way, I won't get anything out of it, so I decided to do something serious such as committing murder, something in which I will both kill and die and then my family will get money [meaning from what we call the Palestinian Authority's Rewards for Terror scheme] and will live comfortably. In other words, something will come out of my death. In the end I decided to kill Israeli soldiers. I got in a car and drove to Al-Fawwar, to the junction because there's always a military post there, and I said [to myself] that I'll run [the soldiers] over in my car and kill as many as I can and they'll shoot me and kill me. However, I didn't find a military post in Al-Fawwar. I continued to drive to a second post, to the gate of [the Israeli community of Beit] Hagai because I know there are always soldiers standing there... I did not find [any soldiers] there either. I had no other hope or way, so I broke through the gate of the settlement [meaning Beit Haggai]... I broke in with my car and smashed it and rammed into the second gate. But I couldn't smash it and the guards were behind the second gate. I tried to smash it in order to bring it down on them but it didn't come down and they didn't shoot me, but captured me instead. I was injured during the incident and they took me to a hospital..."
Interrogator: "Do you have a gun?"
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I've never carried [a gun]."
Interrogator: "Did you consider bringing a gun?"
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I have nothing to eat. How can I buy a gun?"
Interrogator: "Why did you decide to kill soldiers, and not someone else?"
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "The best is to kill soldiers. That way they have guns and they'll shoot me and kill me. But if I'm not able to kill soldiers, I'll try settlers, guards - in other words any Israeli target - the important thing is that I will die and they will kill me, so that my children will receive a [PA] allowance and live happily."
Interrogator: "What did you want to achieve by killing soldiers or settlers, or any Israeli target?"
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "So they'd shoot me and I'd die, and my children would receive an allowance."
Interrogator: "Are you still determined to do that?"
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "Of course, 100%. I'm telling you: if you'll set me free, I'll do it again as soon as possible. I'll bring another car, and I'll run over [soldiers] at the first military post I see. I'll kill as many as possible, and they'll shoot me, and I'll die. There is no other solution... I say to you again - I don't regret what I did, and if I have the opportunity, I'll do it again, and I'll kill soldiers or any Israeli I come across."(We're still trying to track down details of the circumstances of the terror attack.)
Interrogator: "If you have the opportunity to kill soldiers or an Israeli [civilian] in another way - shooting, stabbing, or any other way - will you do it?"
Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I don't know. Something like that requires checking. Why? Because someone like me, small and disabled in his leg - I barely walk - needs a thorough plan to kill in a different way. The easiest way for someone like me is to run over [someone] with a car."
For what it's worth, let the record show we're strongly in favour of the Taylor Force Act and urge the US Congress to bring it into law as soon as possible. Can there be any doubt, after you read open and candid admissions like Rajoub's, that defunding the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme will save lives - on the Palestinian Arab side as well as on ours?
Are Europe and the UK listening?
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