Defense Ministry team to help implement bill targeting PA stipends for attackers

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announces the establishment of a new task force in his ministry, the “National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing,” in order to implement the law passed yesterday to offset Palestinian payments to the families of prisoners and attackers.

A statement announcing the new team says it will “track the financial activities of terror elements in Israel and worldwide” and, coordinating with other ministries and agencies, “direct the financial battle against terror elements in the international area.”

It says that at the end of every year, the team will report to the cabinet regarding the sums paid out by the Palestinian Authority to the families of attackers and prisoners. Based on those reports, the statement says, “the State of Israel will deduct and freeze from the taxes it collects for the Palestinian Authority a sum equal to the Authority’s payments to terrorists.”

The team will be headed up by Paul Landes, a lawyer and former official in the Prime Minister’s Office, where he did similar work.

“The fight against terrorism rests on two legs — security and finance. We are making an effort to root out terrorism using military means while at the same time drying out its sources of funding,” Liberman says in the statement.

“The financial bureau that I established will lead to a concerted effort, overt and covert, in Israel and the rest of the world, that will deliver a stinging blow to terrorists and their sponsors.”