Argument by obfiscation and misdirection: @BrooklingsInst publishes a nonsensical defense of paying Palestinian prisoners and "martyr" families

Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution wrote an article there that attempts to explain "Pay for Slay." All it really does it attempt to obfuscate the issue that a significant part of the Palestinian budget goes to pay prisoners and families of those killed while trying to kill Jews.

But, what obfuscation!

Let’s start with the facts. Whatever one says about the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas — including its governance shortcomings, divisions, and political paralysis — Palestinian policing and security coordination with Israel have been an essential and highly successful element of Israeli security for years. 

Irrelevant.

Abbas himself has consistently opposed violent resistance, including opposing the Palestinian embrace of the second intifada, the uprising that followed the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2000.

Hmm.

 

Pay for Slay shows how important the concept of violent, armed resistance is to Palestinian honor, even if it is not officially supported for tactical reasons today.

Punishment aside, one would have to assume that Palestinians are unlike other people in being able to ignore not only the personal risk of being killed or jailed, but also the emotional devastation and disruption that [home demolitions] would cause to the lives of their loved ones, simply for the promise of monetary stipends for the family.

It isn't that hard: knowing that they would not need a breadwinner if they get killed is a pretty clear incentive that overrides the chance of losing a home - temporarily, since the Palestinians build new homes for them quickly.

The context for the broad support among Palestinians for those imprisoned by Israel is that they see most of those jailed as victims and resisters of an illegal occupation. 

How does that justify the practice?

Thus, Palestinian attitudes toward the prisoner family payment system have to be understood through the lens of their lived experiences. Under occupation, Palestinians have few protections from violence carried out by Israeli settlers or soldiers. According to the Israeli group Yesh Din, between 2005 and 2019 over 90% of cases of crimes against Palestinians were closed without any indictments.

How does that justify the practice?

In this context — with universal mistrust of the Israeli occupation system  — there is strong public support among Palestinians for prisoners and their families. 

How does that justify the practice?

 The PA has also argued that if innocent families of those imprisoned or killed are left without support, more would be radicalized, increasing rather than decreasing the likelihood of violence.

An argument with no merit whatsoever, no studies to back it up. 

In the end, Telhami gives not one reason why the PA should pay terrorist families outside of it being a popular program. 

And its popularity is in fact the problem.

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