The Simon Wiesenthal Centre was officially notified this week that a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is to become European Union (EU) public record.
The letter is dated November 19, 2020, and was sent by the Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels.
The decision marks a first in the decades of the Centre’s correspondence with the European leadership on the subjects of anti-Semitism and terrorism.
The specific letter concerned the example of three EU member-states funding Palestinian Authority NGOs. The Centre's exposure was supported by evidence that was a possible source of embarrassment for France, Spain and Ireland, as for the EU in its entirety.
Since the first wave of terrorist attacks against Jewish targets in the 1980s, the Centre has called on the international community to "follow the money" in order to unveil the financial sources, routes and schemes supporting terrorism.
On 20 July this year, the European Commission drafted its new "Rules to Counter Money-Laundering and Financing of Terrorism."
Since the worldwide advent of the Internet in the 1990s, the Wiesenthal Centre has exposed growing hate, anti-Semitism and terrorism online. On April 29, the EU passed a new "Regulation Addressing the Dissemination of Terrorist Content Online."
These are what could be called examples of "good work in progress," but a lot remains to be addressed for truth, justice and peace to be achieved.
"Since the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the mid-1990s, the Centre has insisted that international institutions and their member-states that provide financing to the PA require the recipients of their support to be held accountable for ensuring that the funding contribute to human development, instead of being spent to support suicide terrorist families, to import and produce rockets, or to inculcate hate in the minds of children," the Centre said in a statement.
"We strongly hope that the new EU Rules will be effective in this sense."
"We thank the EU for 'undisclosing' to the general public our letter on the financing of terrorism," Samuels said. "Now, the 'Rules, Regulations and Definitions' must be taken seriously. The Centre will continue to monitor and advise the European institutions to effectively contain and counter terrorism and hate."