Shai Maimon, who was wounded in a shooting attack in which his friend Malachi Rosenfeld was murdered, came to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday to attend a hearing on a bill that would withhold Israeli fund transfers to the Palestinian Authority.
Since the establishment of the PA following the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel has collected taxes from PA residents working in pre-1967 Israel, transferring the funds every month to the PA. Critics of the policy have cited the PA's funding for jailed terrorists and called on the State of Israel to halt its monthly transfers to the PA.
PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has defended the policy of providing stipends to jailed terrorists and the families of terrorists killed during terror attacks.
On Monday, the committee discussed security officials' request to introduce a clause granting the government the option of bypassing the law and transferring the funds, even if the Palestinian Authority continues paying salaries to terrorists.
Maimon objected to this proposal saying, "If the government decides to suspend the law and transfer the funds, it doesn't encourage terrorism or give it a prize, it decrees that more Israelis will die."
Maimon spoke about his personal case in which the verdict stated the terrorist purchased the weapons used to carry out the attack from the Palestinian Prisoners' Office.
"For 30 years we've been transferring money to terror, and only in 2018 we begin to deal with this issue; does that make sense?" wondered Maimon.
He referred to the words of one of the speakers who counselled trusting the decision-makers. "We trust them, but how far can our trust go? To continue to do so means another dead Israeli. Money that goes to the Palestinian Authority goes to terror. This issue mustn't be confused. It's not a prize or a gift."