This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A new law has been adopted by a possibly unprecedented 94 out of 120 members of the Israeli Knesset that strips citizenship from terrorists.

It is the Palestinian Media Watch that explains the organization initiated the plan, writing the original proposal before it moved into the lawmaking body.

It provides that it cancels the “citizenship or residency” of any terrorist who gets a payment for the commission of an act of terror.

The qualifications are a conviction of a terror offense, a sentence to prison time, and seeking or receiving payment.

Avi Dichter, the nation’s minister of agriculture and rural development, said, “The problem was a very serious problem: Israeli [Arabs] who engage in terror, including those who murdered Israelis, receive a status of Palestinian Authority employee the day they enter prison in Israel, from the day of their arrest until the end of their lives.

“Whether in prison or outside of prison, they are PA employees because they are terrorists. Here I owe a word of praise to the Palestinian Media Watch institute and to the one responsible for legal matters there [PMW Director of Legal Strategies] Maurice Hirsch, who truly invested day and night to gather the information that truly shines a light on a phenomenon that we have been living alongside, living alongside it for years, and allowing it to pass.”

In fact, the Palestinian Authority pays salaries or benefits to terrorists who survive their criminal activities, or to the families of those who die committing terrorism.

The cost is in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and the international community, which funds much of the PA budget, has been trying to get those payments eliminated for multiple years.

Explained PMW, “The underlying rationale of the law is that the PA sees all the imprisoned terrorists – including the Israeli Arab terrorists to whom they pay a special addition – as Palestinians, as soldiers and as the ‘fighting sector’ of Palestinian society. The terrorists also see themselves as Palestinian soldiers. When an Israeli citizen or resident carries out an act of terror, acting as a soldier of a foreign and hostile entity, and then receives a payment from that foreign entity as a reward for his participation in terror, that person is fundamentally breaching his duty of loyalty to the state of Israel, and is, by his own actions, demonstrating that he should no longer be considered to be an ‘Israeli.'”

The law actually is not unique, as other nations and even international law recognize that a terrorist does not continue to be a part of the institution he or she attacks.

“International law recognizes the right of countries to strip persons of their nationality in certain circumstances. The issue that arises is whether that person holds, or is entitled to, an alternative status. Accordingly, Article 8(1) of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961 provides that as a general rule, countries should not deprive a person of their citizenship in a manner that would render him stateless,” PMW reported.

But an exception is that “a country may strip someone of their citizenship, even if that decision leaves the person stateless, inter alia, if the person acted ‘inconsistently with his duty of loyalty’ to the country and ‘in disregard of an express prohibition by the Contracting State rendered or continued to render services to, or received or continued to receive emoluments from, another state.'”

PMW reported, “When an Israeli terrorist carries out an act of terror against Israel and Israelis on behalf of the Palestinians, he is clearly breaching his ‘duty of loyalty.’ When that terrorist then receives a payment – referred to in the convention as an ’emolument’ – from the PA as a reward for his acts of terror – receiving a payment of this nature is specifically prohibited by Israel’s Anti-Terror Law – Israel is certainly within its rights under the convention to strip that person of his citizenship or residency even if that person is left stateless.”

In fact, 134 nations around the globe already impose such penalties.

PMW reported, “The PA ‘Pay-for-Slay’ terror reward policy is widely recognized as a means to incite, promote incentivize and reward terror. Using this policy, the PA does its utmost to ensure that Israeli Arabs feel a greater affiliation with being ‘Palestinian’ than with being ‘Israeli.’ The additional payment that the PA pays specifically to Israeli terrorists provides not only an extra and added incentive to participate in terror by also as a bridge between the PA and the Israeli Arabs.”