Pay to Slay, Martyrs Fund and Palestinian Authority’s Crisis of Credibility

On a winter evening in New York, amid the advertising glare of Times Square, a political message briefly interrupted the commercial rhythm of the world’s most visible intersection. A digital billboard accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of continuing a practice that has long drawn international condemnation: providing financial rewards to individuals convicted of terrorist violence and to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks.

The message was blunt, and intentionally so. It targeted what critics call the PA’s “pay-for-slay” system — a policy that, for more than two decades, has embedded financial incentives for violence into the Palestinian governing structure.

The origins of the program are not disputed. During the years of the Second Intifada, the PA formalized a system of stipends for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel for security offenses, as well as for the families of attackers killed during operations. Over time, this evolved into a structured and bureaucratized scheme administered through official PA bodies, with payments calibrated according to the severity of the offense. Longer prison sentences — typically associated with deadlier attacks — translated into higher monthly payments. In some cases, families of attackers received lifetime stipends.

This was not incidental welfare. It was a deliberate financial architecture that linked compensation to acts of violence.

For Israeli victims and their families, the policy represented more than a budgetary issue. It added an institutional insult to personal tragedy. The knowledge that perpetrators of mass-casualty attacks were being posthumously honored and financially supported by a governing authority hardened Israeli skepticism toward claims of Palestinian commitment to peace.

International opposition eventually moved beyond rhetoric. In 2018, the United States enacted the Taylor Force Act, cutting most direct economic assistance to the PA unless the stipend program was terminated. Other governments increased scrutiny and imposed conditionality of their own. Rather than signaling reform, senior Palestinian officials responded defiantly, publicly declaring that the payments would continue regardless of financial pressure.

Only recently has the PA claimed to reverse course. In 2025, President Mahmoud Abbas announced the dissolution of the Martyrs’ Fund and its replacement with a new welfare framework purportedly based on economic need rather than criminal conduct. The announcement was welcomed cautiously by some international actors eager for signs of moderation.

Yet scrutiny quickly revealed a familiar pattern. Independent monitoring groups and foreign officials reported that payments continued under different institutional labels, routed through alternative bureaucratic channels, and distributed to largely the same population. The names changed; the structure did not. The incentive logic remained intact.

This history explains why skepticism remains widespread. Ending pay-for-slay is not merely an administrative exercise. It requires dismantling a moral narrative in which violence is valorized and its perpetrators elevated to the status of national icons. As long as attackers are celebrated in public discourse and their families guaranteed financial reward, the claim that incentives have been removed rings hollow.

The Times Square billboard did not introduce new information. What it did was force a global audience to confront a contradiction that has long undermined diplomatic confidence in the PA: the insistence on international legitimacy alongside domestic policies that normalize violence.

Will the policy truly end? The record suggests caution. The PA faces deep legitimacy challenges, internal political pressure, and competition from more radical factions. Genuine reform would demand not only fiscal restructuring but a sustained shift in political culture — away from glorification of terror and toward accountability.

Until such a transformation occurs, symbolic declarations will continue to fall short. Rebranding a policy does not erase its consequences. And in the absence of verifiable change, criticism — whether voiced in legislative chambers or on billboards in Times Square — will persist.