Peloni: The desperation to continue funding the terrorist organization known as the Palestinian Authoritity persists, and only willful blindness fuels the ability to do so while ignoring the slaughter which funds go towards the murder of innocents. The slaughter of innocent Jews is not an interest of the PA, it is their motivating ethos. End the funding for the PA, end their reign of terror, and simply end the the PA itself.
Simone Rodan-Benzaquen | May 1, 2026
French President Emmanuel Macron could not have been clearer.
Standing alongside Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas at a press conference following their meeting in Paris last November — “the first visit,” he pointed out, “by a Palestinian president since France recognized the State of Palestine on September 22, 2025” — Macron expressed confidence in the Palestinian leaders’ assurance that “pay to slay” stipends were no longer being disbursed to jailed Palestinian terrorists and their families.
“President Abbas confirmed to me the abolition of the prisoner payment system and the launch of an independent audit to verify this,” Macron declared. “I welcomed this development, which is essential to the credibility of the Palestinian Authority itself and in the eyes of all international partners.”
Macron had publicly tied recognition to a wider Palestinian reform agenda. In a July 24, 2025, letter to Abbas, the French president wrote that, “In light of the commitments you have made, France will proceed with the full recognition of Palestine.” Those commitments, set out in an Abbas letter of June 9 that Macron made public, included a pledge to revoke the law on payments to “families of prisoners and martyrs.” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the United Nations days later that this included ending the stipends. The French Foreign Ministry called the package “commitments for which we will hold it accountable.”
However, the U.S. State Department released a report on April 28 which suggests that the PA engaged in an elaborate deception.
“Pay to Slay” Alive and Well
According to the State Department’s report to Congress issued pursuant to the Taylor Force Act, which conditions U.S. assistance to the PA on ending these stipends, the PA paid roughly $156 million during 2025 to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and the families of those killed carrying out attacks.
The State Department concluded that the PA “continues to provide a system of compensation in support of terrorism through new mechanisms and under a different name,” identifying a newly created welfare agency, the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment, as one such vehicle. Beneficiaries included five Palestinians released by Israel in October 2025 in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, among them the bombmakers behind a 2003 suicide attack on an Israeli shopping mall that killed three people. The five had accumulated $1.55 million in unpaid stipends over the course of their imprisonment. They are slated to receive a combined $12,100 monthly going forward.
French and EU Aid Continues to Flow
The European Union, the PA’s largest external donor, has continued to disburse aid under its 2025-2027 program for the Palestinian Authority, valued at up to 1.6 billion Euros, of which 620 million is direct budget support. France has continued bilateral support on the same terms.
Both have done so even after the European Commission itself acknowledged in November 2025 that “a recent payment has been made to the families of prisoners, based on a previous scheme,” which it “profoundly regretted.” Yet neither Paris nor Brussels has acknowledged that the commitments they named have not been kept.
France and the EU Should Hold the PA Accountable
France should suspend bilateral assistance to the PA pending verifiable termination of all payment streams to terrorists and press for the same standard within the European Union. Brussels should freeze direct budget support and require independent third-party audit access to PA financial flows.
The alternative is to keep funding a Palestinian Authority that has not honored the commitments France itself publicly invoked. Macron called the reform “essential to the credibility of the Palestinian Authority.” It is now also a test of whether France’s own words mean anything.
Simon Rodan-Benzaquen is senior envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Simone and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on X @FDD. Follow Simone on X @srodan. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
The French will also find a way to circumvent the issue and continue its support of the pay to slay program. We wouldn’t expect anything else. Maybe Israel can find a way to levy income tax from them under some imaginate name..??