For years, the international community has tried to maintain a distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is described as the openly terrorist force, while the PA is framed as the moderate and legitimate partner for peace. But that distinction becomes harder and harder to sustain when the PA claiming to seek coexistence continues to reward those who murder Jews, misleads Western governments about doing so, and promotes convicted terrorists into positions of influence.
A new report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon states that the U.S. Department of State formally determined the Palestinian Authority paid salaries to convicted terrorists released from Israeli prisons as part of the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire arrangement. That finding alone should have generated major international coverage. Instead, it has received strikingly little attention.
Sadly, it’s no surprise the Palestinian Authority is still running its “pay‑for‑slay” program, rewarding terrorists and their families for killing and maiming Jews.
What would be surprising is if the mainstream media actually reported it. https://t.co/PCxHZ2ViAC
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 21, 2026
These findings cover the period between August 2025 and January 2026. In other words, while presenting itself internationally as reforming, pragmatic, and worthy of diplomatic support, the Palestinian Authority was still rewarding terrorism. They are incentivizing their citizens to murder Jews, and are one of the clearest reasons peace has remained elusive.
Promises Made, Payments Continued
What makes this more egregious is that the PA had reportedly committed to ending the practice. The ceasefire framework brokered under President Trump included commitments from Mahmoud Abbas that reforms would be undertaken ending the “Pay for Slay” scheme. Yet the recent State Department report to Congress made it clear that Abbas and his government had not followed through in any meaningful way.
The story appears worse still. According to the report, the PA shifted these payments through a newly created welfare body, apparently to conceal them from Western governments. If true, this means the issue was not merely that the policy continued, but that efforts were made to disguise its continuation. That is not reform. It is deception through bureaucracy.
Furthermore, and this should be needless to say, but a leadership serious about peace ends incentives for terrorism because it understands the moral and political poison they create. However, a leadership interested in preserving foreign legitimacy while avoiding consequences changes the label, moves the money, and hopes nobody asks too many questions.
There is also a longer history of this duplicity. In February 2025, journalist Lahav Harkov reported that Abbas indicated payments to terrorists and their families would continue even if the Palestinian Authority were left with almost no money, despite public messaging that the policy was ending. In short, the message was clear long before the latest U.S. findings: reassurance for Western audiences, continuity for domestic audiences. The current report therefore looks less like a revelation than confirmation of an established pattern.
From Paying Terrorists to Promoting Them
Even financial incentives understate the problem. Evidence published by Palestinian Media Watch indicates that Fatah has signaled that terrorists imprisoned for more than twenty years may be elevated into leadership roles. Some are reportedly expected to take part in the upcoming Eighth Fatah Conference – a body central to shaping future Palestinian Authority policy.
That is not a marginal detail. It is a statement of values. A movement preparing its people for peace sidelines those tied to violence and elevates those associated with coexistence, institution-building, and civic responsibility. It does not treat long prison terms for terror offenses as credentials. When terrorists are not only paid but promoted, the message is unmistakable: violence is not just tolerated, but honored and politically rewarded.
This is where much mainstream commentary goes wrong. The focus remains on borders, negotiations, and diplomatic formulas. Those issues matter, but they are not the core obstacle. The deeper problem is a political culture in which violence against Jews is valorized. Financial rewards, social prestige, and pathways to leadership are not the cause of that culture, but its clearest expression.
The Scandal Barely Reported
Perhaps almost as revealing as the policy itself is how little this has been covered. If Israel were found to be paying civilians who murdered Palestinians, it would dominate front pages for weeks. There would be emergency debates, condemnations, and endless commentary about the impossibility of peace under such conditions. And rightly so.
But when the Palestinian Authority pays those who murdered Jews, reportedly conceals the payments, breaks reform commitments, and elevates convicted terrorists, the story is often buried or ignored entirely. That selective silence matters because it helps sustain false narratives about where the real obstacles to peace lie. Too many analysts speak endlessly about root causes while refusing to examine one of the clearest of them: a political culture in which anti-Jewish violence is rewarded rather than repudiated.
A report by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs also details Palestinian officials supporting campaigns of international pressure against Israel, backing BDS efforts, and working to undermine regional normalization through the Abraham Accords. This is not the posture of leadership preparing its public for coexistence. It is the posture of leadership still committed to defeating the Jewish state, only by different means.
Peace demands compromise, honesty, and the deliberate preparation of societies to live alongside one another. But where Jew-hate remains embedded, and the murder of Jews brings financial reward, public honor, and pathways to power, that preparation is absent. Until that changes, everything else is performance. The core obstacle is not territorial. It is a culture that still legitimizes and incentivizes violence against Jews.
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