Former US Pres. Bill Clinton
Former US Pres. Bill ClintonFlash 90

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton decided to donate the $500,000 he was paid for his speech on Monday evening back to the Peres Academic Center at which he spoke.

The money for the speech was slated to have gone to the Clinton Foundation, but according to Professor Ron Shapira, president of the Peres Academic Center, Clinton decided to donate the money to the Center so that it can be dedicated to scholarships for students of the institution.

The large sum of money that Clinton was paid for Monday’s speech caused an uproar when it was discovered that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) was supposed to take part in funding this speech together with the Peres Academic Center.

The JNF’s participation in the funding of the speech was met with anger both in Israel as well as by JNF donors abroad. The JNF, which hoped to improve the organization's image abroad by bringing Clinton to speak about it in Israel, later announced that it was withdrawing its sponsorship of the event.

During his speech on Monday, the former President lectured Israel on the need to give in to PA demands that it withdraw from the lands liberated in the Six Day War.

“It doesn't matter how many settlers you put in the West Bank, the Palestinians are having more babies,” and will eventually outnumber the Jews in all of the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River,” said Clinton.

Israel's only hope, he said, was the “two state solution,” with Israel withdrawing from all of Judea and Samaria, and from much of Jerusalem, and the setting up of a PA state. “I think you have a fundamental question to answer,” he said – whether Israel wanted to be a democratic, secular state of all its citizens, Jewish and Arab, or a Jewish state. The latter, he said, would require land surrenders.