Fact Checker: Does the Palestinian Authority pay $350 million a year to ‘terrorists and their families’?

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Does the Palestinian Authority pay $350 million a year to ‘terrorists and their families’?

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would end U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it ends a practice that critics call “pay to slay.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has championed the legislation, telling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “[Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] pays about $350 million a year to terrorists and their families. Each year.”

The big problem is here definitional. Netanyahu refers to “terrorists and their families.” In the Palestinian Authority’s budget, one can find $350 million in annual payments to Palestinian prisoners, those injured and “martyrs.” But are all these people terrorists? We dug into the data and found there is strong evidence that not everyone receiving such payments could be easily labeled a terrorist or linked the terrorism.

Both the Israel government and the Palestinian Authority have data that could clear this up, but it appears to be in the interest of both sides to keep the picture fuzzy. Israel prefers to use broad numbers, labeling every Palestinian in custody as a terrorist, to avoid a spotlight on its detention practices. The Palestinians do not want to single out clear-cut cases of terrorism, no matter how horrific, when even their loved ones celebrate such acts as necessary resistance to occupation.

But however you look at it, Netanyahu’s cherry-picking goes too far. He earns Two Pinocchios.

No, Trump hasn’t appointed more women than any other president To mark Women’s History Month, administration officials and allies are claiming the number of women in the Trump administration can add to the president’s ever-growing list of historic achievements. But in true Trumpian form, these claims are grossly exaggerated. The president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, told Fox Business Network, “Yes, [Trump has] the most [women in his administration] of any president I believe, and, one of the, I think the first, to have a woman in charge of the campaign, so there you go.” The Washington Post appointment tracker shows that 22 percent of Trump’s Senate-confirmed nominees so far are women. He now has five women in his cabinet. Both numbers lag behind former presidents Clinton and Obama. Trump may also fall behind George W. Bush on female appointments. Plus, just because the boss is a woman doesn't mean a staff has significant female representation — the Washington Post appointment tracker shows only one Education appointee, Secretary Betsy DeVos, is female, while the nine other Senate nominees at Education are male. Under no metric has Trump appointed more women than any previous president. Lara Trump’s imagination earns her Four Pinocchios.

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