“There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.”

Everyone remembers Golda Meir. The original Iron lady and the author of this striking and, entirely accurate, quote.

But how many of us remember Hallel Yaffe Ariel? It takes a while, doesn’t it? And then that horrible feeling appears in the pit of your stomach when the penny drops.

The thirteen-year-old was murdered while she was sleeping after 19-year-old Mohammad Tra’ayra jumped the settlement fence and entered her home in June last year.

Did you know that the Palestinian Authority paid for his family’s mourning tent? And that because he was shot and killed at the scene, his family is entitled to $350 a month from the PA’s Martyrs Fund?

Probably not. The Martyr’s fund is a monthly stipend paid to families of terrorists. On a sliding scale. For example, blow yourself up on a bus and take the passengers with you and your family is set for life, you will however get much less if you get jailed for maiming, injuring and stone throwing.

It has an annual budget of $125 Million.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quite rightly calls the payments “an incentive for murder.”

Israel already deducts the stipends from the money it pays to the PA in tax contributions. This week, in a move that infuriated Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, but was welcomed by most Israelis and the EIPA team, Israel’s foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman put the fund on Israel’s terror blacklist.

The decision to declare the fund a terrorist organisation stems from its continuing and ongoing activity in providing massive support for elements responsible for committing severe acts of terrorism against Israel,” Lieberman said.

“As of today, all necessary actions will be taken in Israel and overseas in order to seize and confiscate property and assets designated for, or belonging to, the fund,” he added.

The Palestinian National Fund’s main offices are in Jordan, and it was not immediately clear how the measures would be implemented.

The latest likely recipients of the fund will be the family of a sixteen year old girl who was shot and seriously injured for trying to ram her car into a bus top at the Gush Etzion crossing.

Another incited teen. Another senseless act and another name we will struggle to remember in a couple of months from now. That is why EIPA’s main campaign for 2017 is the conditioning EU aid to the Palestinian Authority on a rejection of violence and incitement to violence, and an end to the disgusting reward culture for bloody acts as demonstrated by the Martyr’s fund.

In other news this week, Iran gets worried that Russia is making eyes at the USA, and the largest tech deal in Israel’s history goes through as Intel pay $15.3 Billion for Mobileye car technology.

Thanks as always for your support. Until next time.