PA uses the Palestine National Fund as a "financial weapon to punish the parties that oppose them"
Headline: “The Palestine National Fund – a financial weapon to punish the parties that oppose the PA”
“Palestinian political parties said that the fact that the PA leadership has stopped the transfer of money to which they are eligible from the Palestine National Fund (PNF) constitutes punishment of the voices that oppose the Fatah Movement’s policy…
Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] (PFLP) Political Bureau member Maryam Abu Daqqa said… in an exclusive statement to the [independent Palestinian] news website Masdar: ‘The PFLP has not received any budgeting from the PNF over the past two years, other than three months after which it was stopped on the pretext that there is suffocating financial distress, but the truth is that this is punishment for our standpoints.’ …
Abu Daqqa emphasized that the money that is paid from the PNF is the right of the PLO member parties, and noted that it is forbidden for any party to treat the PNF as its own…
Economic expert Osama Nawfal emphasized that the PNF is the financial arm of the PLO, and that it is the [PLO] member parties’ right to receive money from it…
Nawfal told the news website Masdar that unfortunately the PNF sits outside of Palestine, and it is unknown how much money is in it and what are the methods of its distribution. He added that it currently serves as a financial weapon to blackmail the PLO factions and cause them to recant their standpoints that oppose the policy of Fatah and its leader [PA Chairman] Mahmoud Abbas.
Nawfal added that the budgeting to all the PLO parties together constitutes only 10% of the money that is paid to Fatah each month.
Nawfal noted that they are using the monetary distress as an excuse to pressure the PLO factions so there will be no voices at all opposing President Abbas on the issue of the peace process, security coordination [with Israel], and internal reconciliation,while Fatah’s budgeting is being transferred and managed as usual.”
The Palestine National Fund (PNF) is a part of the PLO and manages the financial aid received by the organization, using it to provide funding. Among other things, Palestinian Media Watch has proved it funds the salaries of imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and the allowances for the families of Palestinians killed while committing acts of terror.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - a socialist Palestinian terror organization and one of the largest factions in the PLO. Founded by George Habash in 1967, PFLP has planned and carried out numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians since its founding and throughout the PA terror campaign (the second Intifada, 2000-2005). One of its most high profile attacks was the murder of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi on Oct. 17, 2001. PFLP has been designated as a terror organization by several states including the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the EU.Terrorist prisoner Ahmad Sa’adat has served as PFLP’s secretary-general since 2001; he is serving a 30-year sentence in an Israeli prison for heading the PFLP.