Europeans Fund Defense of Palestinian ‘Right’ to Terror Pay

While many Europeans oppose Palestinian terror salaries, European-funded organizations actually promote these stipends.  

A number of European governments have joined the US in demanding that the Palestinian Authority (PA) end its policy of paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners convicted of terror crimes.

The monthly stipends are incitement to terrorism, while the PA claims that they are “welfare” payments.

The UK froze some of its aid to the PA over this issue; Germany launched an investigation; Norway “demanded that the PA stop using its funds — which include donations by foreign countries — to support convicted terrorists and their families”; a Parliamentary motion in the Netherlands noted that “this funding can have a negative effect, in which criminality and terrorism are rewarded”; and the European Union (EU) emphasized that “allowances…for Palestinian prisoners, their families and ex-detainees” have “never been financed by the EU.”

In reality, a number of Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive European government funding under the banner of “human rights” assert that terrorists have a “right” to receive salaries and that suspending these payments is a violation of international law.

NGO officials also have not questioned the legitimacy of violent responses by the Palestinian street, and some of their statements can be interpreted as veiled threats of violence meant to prevent an end to payments, said NGO Monitor, an independent research institution that monitors other NGOs claiming to fight for human rights but which in fact assault Israel.

A Violation of Human Rights?

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) on July 25 organized a workshop on the “Consequences of Former Prisoners’ Salary Suspension on their Economic and Social Rights.”

PCHR director, Raji Sourani, stated that “the decision of suspending former prisoners’ salaries was shocking to the prisoners, their families and all Palestinians as it is illegal, immoral, and violates the Basic Law and the international human rights.”

In the 1980s, Sourani was convicted for his membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group.

General Director of Palestinian “human rights” organization Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, warned, “If their rights are eroded we are heading for a real crisis in Palestinian society and in due course toward an explosion.”

Similarly, Director General of Palestinian “civil rights” group Hurryyat, Helmi al-Aaraj, announced, “To lay a finger on the prisoners’ rights is to attack the Palestinian struggle.”

Another organization, Al-Dameer, stated that it “condemns and deplores the Ramallah government’s decision to cut the salaries of a number of released prisoners in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This policy was implemented unlawfully and arbitrarily in response to the Israeli and American demands to stop paying the salaries of prisoners.”

All these NGO’s are heavily funded by European countries.

“These NGO statements demonstrate the inconsistency between the label of ‘human rights’ organizations and their activities,” NGO Monitor concluded.

By: United with Israel Staff