European countries, through their funding of the Palestinian Authority (PA), have for years been inadvertently funding terrorism against Israel, and now European parliamentarians are challenging their respective governments’ policies and demanding oversight.
The latest person to demand a review of funds provided to the Palestinian Authority is British Member of Parliament Joan Ryan, who penned a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron in which she stated that British taxpayers’ money cannot be used to provide a “blank cheque” to the PA, and that she demands accountability on where the funds go to through an independent review of the funding.
Ryan, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, said she was “disturbed” that the PA was glorifying terrorists in its schools and that its official television station propagated anti-Semitism, UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported.
In the letter, Ryan said a cross-party inquiry could determine how the money was being put to use.
Between 2011 and 2015, the Department for International Development (DfID) sent £349 million to the Palestinian controlled-areas. Around £130m went directly to the PA in a bid to promote wealth-creation, reduce poverty and support its government institutions.
DfID is due to send a further £72m to the Palestinians in 2016 — with £25.5m to the PA — a 15 percent increase on last year.
Ryan demanded that future funding should be linked “to the immediate cessation of violence.”
“I do not believe that, for so long as it incites violence against Israel’s citizens, the PA is helping to further Britain’s policy of a two-state solution. Indeed, its actions are making such an outcome far less likely,” she wrote.
The PA had “named at least 25 schools as a well as dozens of sporting events and summer camps after terrorists,” she pointed out.
Cameron has yet to respond to her inquiry.
Writing for the Chronicle, Ryan maintained that the PA was integral to any two-state solution.
“I believe that we need to continue to support the PA, but this cannot be a blank cheque. We cannot continue to repeatedly raise our concerns with them about incitement, only to see them repeatedly ignored,” she explained.
Conservative peer Lord Hamilton, visiting Israel this week, said he would back an independent review of the funding.
He said Palestinian children were being taught to kill Israelis.
“If you give the PA DfID’s money… we are actually financing the radicalization of young people,” he said, according to the Chronicle. “If they get to Britain, they might decide to start killing people on the streets of Britain.”
By: United with Israel Staff
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