Exposing the truth: Itamar Marcus on the Palestinian Authority's rewards for terror and the cycle of violence

Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch Itamar Marcus spoke with Christian journalist Paul Calvert regarding the prisoners being released in exchange for Israeli hostages, and the way mass murderers are rewarded.

Despite being dressed up in suits since the Oslo Accords of 1993, arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has not been without scrutiny. Since 1996, the Israeli charity Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has been closely following “everything that happens” in the new-look Palestinian Authority (PA), said Marcus. 

Marcus, a devout American-Israeli, remains committed to praying the biblical psalms and peace promises for the Jewish nation, while also working tirelessly to expose malicious intentions.

“We look at the statements and activities of the Palestinian leaders,” he explained. “We look at what’s happening in the schools, both what they’re learning, what they’re teaching, and the activities of the children in the schools". 

“And what we’ve learned is this is the real Palestinian Authority.”

“They go to the European Union or to London or to Washington, and they present one face, [but] that’s not really who they are,” Marcus told Calvert. “What they really are is the world of hate and terror. And that’s what they teach their children, and that’s what they teach their people.”

“A face for the media, but then a [different] face for real life?” Calvert asked.

“Absolutely, [people are] being deceived,” Marcus replied.

Marcus has also co-authored the book ‘Deception: Betraying the Peace Process.’

When the PMW began following the PA’s activity, just three years after the signing of the Oslo Accords – a U.S.-brokered agreement between Israel and the PLO – Marcus and his team saw, “from the first moment,” that there were different messages for different audiences.

“To the world they were telling: ‘We want peace with Israel, a two-state solution,’” he said. “To their own people, from the first day, they were glorifying terror, honoring terror, and telling their people that the end of this process is Palestine replacing Israel; there will be no Israel."

“This is the Palestinian Authority, not just Hamas. This is the Palestinian Authority.”

Regarding the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas – during which Israeli and international hostages are being released, recently the bodies of baby Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas – Marcus described some of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being released.

“Some of the prisoners are people who are serving 35 life sentences in jail,” he explained. “We’re talking about people who were involved in organizing mass murder, suicide bombings, altogether over 300 of them are actually murderers, or people who planned murder, [who are] going to be walking the streets again.”

Marcus said it's “not just immoral and unethical to release murderers,” but also a betrayal of the families of the victims. “But even worse than that,” he said, “it’s a betrayal of the people who are going to be killed in the future.”

Calling it “coercion in an extortion deal,” Marcus said that every time Israel has released terrorists, the Jewish state has paid with more innocent blood. 

“October 7 was a direct result of Israel giving in to extortion of the Gilad Shalit [deal],” he explained, speaking of the soldier who was kidnapped in 2006 (when Hamas terrorists breached the Gaza border, via a tunnel) and released in 2011, for a whopping 1,024 terrorists. 

“Not only did they kill many Israelis in the years afterward, but they’re the ones who planned and actually did the October 7 massacre. So we lost thousands of people because of that exchange. And then we released 1,024. Now we’re going to be releasing thousands…"

“And that’s the tragedy of what’s happening now. This is extortion. We need to get our hostages freed. They deserve to be freed. They deserve to have a life. But we know that the terrorists that we’re releasing are going to probably kill many, many more.”

Citing a recent report from Israel’s Shin Bet chief that 82% of the 1,024 prisoners released in the Shalit deal have returned to some form of terrorist activity, Calvert asked how concerning this is for Israelis in their daily lives.

“Everyone’s concerned about it,” Marcus replied. “Everybody knows that the terrorists come back. [The late Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar, who orchestrated October 7, was released in the Gilad Shalit deal. He had a life sentence. He was never supposed to see the light of day. We let him out and look what he did: He put together this band of monsters in the Gaza Strip who committed the October 7 atrocities.”

“Everything was planned,” Marcus added. “The rapes were planned even.”

The PMW team was given access to documents that were found on the terrorists who were captured in Gaza.

“They had pages of phrases, of expressions, that they were taught how to say in Hebrew,” said Marcus. “They were taught ‘Raise your hands.’ They were taught, ‘Lie down.’ One of the phrases they were taught was, “Spread your legs.”

Once the terrorists are released by Israel, they face no accountability when they return home. On the contrary, they are treated “absolutely like heroes,” Marcus said. “They’re picked up on their shoulders and [carried in] the streets. And not just by Hamas, by the Palestinian population, by the PA.”

Marcus cited a recent TV interview with the mayor of Tulkarm, a Palestinian city, who said, ‘We’re going to give them a hero’s welcome.’ Another Palestinian leader said, ‘They are the great people; we’re going to honor them.’

“There has not been one Palestinian Authority leader or individual who’s been interviewed who said something negative about these terrorist murderers. Just the opposite.”

Marcus referred to the tendency around the world to differentiate between Hamas and Fatah and the PA, “which is Fatah,” he explained, “as if the Fatah and the PA are moderate and the Hamas is extreme.”

“The PA has completely been supportive of what happened on October 7. They’ve defended it. They’ve honored it. They’ve called it a day of joy and heroism. The only thing that they’re upset about October 7 is that they didn’t do it. They’re upset that Hamas got the credit. Hamas went all the way up in the polls. And that’s the only reason that the PA is upset with October 7.”

Due to the dilemma of freeing convicted murderers in exchange for hostages, the families of terror victims feel very torn, Marcus explained.

“On the one hand, they’re thrilled, like everyone is, to see the hostages come out and breathe again and be alive again. So many hostages were murdered there [that] to see some walk [out], there’s no one who isn’t celebrating that.”

“Many of them have spoken on interviews and said it’s an outrage that the government couldn’t get a better deal, and that the murderer of my [relative] is walking free… So they’re angry at the government, not for freeing the hostages, but for not getting a better deal.”

One of the most prominent ways in which the PA has, for decades, promoted terrorism, said Marcus, is by rewarding every terrorist who goes to jail, through its pay for slay policy.

“A terrorist could have murdered 50 or 60 people in suicide bombings, like, for example, Abdullah Barghouti,” he explained.

“He was a bomb builder for Hamas. His bombs killed 67 Israelis. He’s serving the longest sentence, 67 life sentences, and he’s already got over $300,000 in salary from the Palestinian Authority,” Marcus emphasized.

“He was a Hamas bombmaker, but the PA is still paying him a salary. The day he was arrested, he started getting a salary. The salary kept going up.”

The salary paid to terrorists in prison eventually reaches NIS 12,000, Marcus said, which is about $3,500 a month. By comparison, the average Palestinian salary is less than $1,000 a month, so the terrorists are paid far more than policemen or teachers even.

“So the PA today probably spends about $400 million a year to reward terror,” he estimated. “And countries around the world continue to fund the PA. It’s shocking. It’s outrageous. This is a terror supporting entity…”

Speaking of the current deal between Israel and Hamas, Marcus said that two or three of those due for release will leave jail with over NIS 2 million in their accounts, with a total of 316 convicted criminals coming out as Palestinian millionaires.

In addition to the ‘salary,’ the PA provides an ‘adjustment grant’ to individuals released from prison, which can be as high as $25,000. Furthermore, these individuals are exempt from paying taxes, receive free education for themselves and their children, enjoy free healthcare, and are also not required to pay the heavy vehicle tax.

“They are literally treated as royalty,” Marcus said. “And the entire Palestinian population pays for this out of their pockets.”

As well as a massive incentive to commit terrorist crimes against Israelis, Marcus explained that it’s also a “support,” and a “guarantee” that the person’s family will be looked after. In addition, he said that if they do perpetrate killings and go to prison, “they all believe they’re going to get out in a hostage deal,” and that on release, they will be very wealthy.

Because of this, Israel is faced with a vicious cycle, according to Marcus.

“The first time that we exchanged Israeli hostages for prisoners led directly to the Gilad Shalit deal, [which] led directly to other hostage taking and led directly to October 7. In other words, until we are going to break this cycle, it’s going to keep going.”

Marcus believes that had the desperate hostage families, night after night on the Israeli news, directed their anger at Qatar – a country “which could have forced Hamas” – instead of at the Israeli government, a better deal may have been possible.

Calvert asked about whether the families of suicide bombers also get remuneration.

“Absolutely,” Marcus replied. “Suicide bombers who killed dozens of Israelis, the day that they are killed, they get recognized by the Palestinian Authority as what they call a ‘holy martyr,’ someone who died for Allah. 

“This is important: They present killing Israelis as a religious Islamic mission.”

Marcus recalled the “dozens and dozens of times, tragically, during various periods of PA terror,” that a suicide bomber entered a bus in Israel and murdered, for example, 15 civilians, ten civilians, many others with life-changing injuries. 

The PA immediately categorized those suicide bombers as doing a ‘holy work’ and therefore the families would be rewarded with NIS 1,400 (per month) for the rest of their lives. 

The PMW discovered in 2011 that all this funding for terror was coming directly from Western countries.

“Everybody was giving the money to the Palestinian Authority directly and from their general budget,” Marcus explained. “They were paying these salaries.”

Following this discovery, representatives of the PMW personally visited European parliaments, including those of the United Kingdom, Norway, and the Netherlands, as well as the U.S. Congress, to present the evidence.

“Most of them decided that they would stop giving money directly to the PA, but they would fund what they call ‘projects,’” Marcus recalled.

“So some would fund teachers, some would fund schools, some would fund building infrastructure. And here’s the great tragedy: what they knew. They knew that if they were paying the teachers, the PA then had money to pay the terrorists in jail.

“And that’s where the hypocrisy of the Western countries came in… If you’re paying the teachers and you know that they’re [the PA] giving $350, $400 million to terrorists, you’re actually funding those terrorists, even if you want to put your head in the ground and pretend you’re not doing it.”

Calvert asked whether the Oct. 7 massacre was a genocide.

“October 7 was October 7,” Marcus replied. “And I don’t think we have to categorize it.”

However, he continued, “If we read the Hamas writings and we listen to the PA, we know that genocide is on their agenda.”

Within the Hamas charter, he said, “There’s an Islamic tradition that says, ‘The hour of resurrection won’t come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.’ Extermination of the Jews: That’s a condition for redemption of humanity in this Islamic tradition, the Hadith.”

In the charter, Hamas introduced this phrase with the following: ‘Hamas is looking forward to implement Allah’s promise, however long it may take,’ Marcus explained. “And what’s the promise? The promise of the extermination of the Jews.” 

“So we know that Hamas believes in [this]. In fact, there was once on Hamas TV a big poster with the words, ‘Killing Jews is the worship of Allah,’ Marcus said. 

“Now, it’s not just Hamas – and this is the key,” he stressed.

“Five times in the last few months, an official Palestinian Authority-controlled, owned, PA TV, including twice in January 2025, preachers went on TV, prayed to Allah with the following words: ‘Allah, count the Jews one by one. Kill them one by one. Don’t leave even one.’

“That’s genocide. That’s extermination, that’s Hitler, that’s Nazism… and it’s being paid for by the West.”

Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, Marcus believes Israel was “in a little bit of a naive political outlook and military outlook.” He said they were confident in their ability to stop the terrorists before they reached their targets by analyzing their rhetoric and uncovering their plans.

“Today, that’s not the attitude,” he said. “Today the attitude is, ‘We’re not going to wait. When we know where they are, we’re going to go after them until they all realize that their terror is pointless and useless.’”

Marcus recalled the time pre-Oslo, “when we had very, very minimal and sporadic terror,” he said. “And that was because Israel was in all the Palestinian cities. And we're going to have to be back in those cities. Those cities are [now] hotbeds of terror.”

The Hamas massacre and subsequent war have affected the Marcus family on a personal level, he said, as his three sons, and his son-in-law, are all serving in the army reserves. 

None of his three sons are soldiers, he stressed. “One is computer programmer, one is psychologist, one is a lawyer, and all three have left their families. Altogether, I would say close to 300 days they have served in the army… And my son-in-law has served even more. He was drafted on October 7, literally by 7:30 in the morning… and he has not been discharged from the army."

“Imagine just normative people going about their work in their law firm and having patients, and all of a sudden, they’re given their M16s and have to fight. We have to protect our people. And they do it willingly.”

Marcus said his prayer for Israel today is one of those repeated very often in Jewish tradition. “[It is] from the Psalms, ‘God will give his people strength. And God will give his people peace.’"

“You don’t get peace by compromising with genocidal monsters like the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. You get peace when you’re strong and when they know you’re strong,” he said.

“So I’m praying for strength and for our leadership to have the strength to go and to not keep giving in to ridiculous ceasefires, but to go destroy them. And only through strength will we have peace.”

Click below to listen to the full interview.

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