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Monday, February 10, 2025
In major win for Trump, PA’s Abbas signs decree ending ‘pay-to-slay’ system
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has signed a decree canceling legislation that provided payments to Palestinian security prisoners based on the length of their sentence and to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out an attacks, a Palestinian official confirms to The Times of Israel.
The decree states that those families and all others requiring welfare assistance will be eligible for stipends based solely on financial need, the Palestinian official says, confirming a report on the Walla news site.
While the effort to reform the prisoner payment system has been in the works for over a year and largely finalized during the Biden administration, Ramallah decided to hold off on announcing the move, preferring to save it as a goodwill gesture for the incoming Trump administration.
During the transition, top PA officials briefed their counterparts in the incoming Trump administration regarding their plan, two sources familiar told The Times of Israel earlier today.
However, those sources believed that the announcement had been put on the back burner following Trump’s declaration last week that he plans to take over Gaza. The Gaza proposal sent shockwaves throughout the Arab world, which is now in the midst of a full-throttled campaign to oppose the Trump idea.
Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel during the presidential transition process that Ramallah has learned lessons from the way it dealt with Trump during his first term. Abbas severed ties with the US after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, less than a year after taking office. The US proceeded to broker the Abraham Accords, while the Palestinians were left out of the process.
As efforts to include Saudi Arabia in those accords intensified, Ramallah has worked to boost its ties with Riyadh, hoping that the latter will condition a deal with Israel on a credible and irreversible pathway to a future Palestinian state. Meanwhile, PA officials indicated to Trump aides that they would be prepared to use his 2020 peace plan as a basis for negotiations.
Today’s decree is Ramallah’s latest effort to improve ties with Washington and amounts to a major victory for Trump, who managed to secure a concession from the PA that repeated US administrations had worked to bring about.
The Times of Israel Community.