The European Parliament\'s budgetary committee has decided to delay its scheduled transfer of 18.7 million euros to the PA until it receives a report on how the aid is to be distributed. Although the delay is not likely to last past June 19, when the committee will hear a report, the move is considered symbolically significant in light of Israeli charges that EU money is being used to fund terrorism.
The EU, the PA\'s largest donor, provides some ten million euros a month to the PA, or about 1/10 of the annual PA budget. The EU accepts the Israeli position, outlined in a book compiled recently by Minister Danny Naveh, that the PA supports terrorism - but is not yet convinced that EU funds themselves are being used for this purpose.
Since 1994, the EU has distributed a total of $1.5 billion to the PA to pay the salaries of municipal workers such as teachers, health officials, and police. Documents captured by Israel during Operation Defensive Shield prove that PA funds were used to finance terror against Israel - either by paying the salaries of policemen/terrorists, or by freeing up other monies for terrorism \"expenses\" such as those personally approved by Arafat.
Last week\'s decision to hold up funding to the PA comes in the wake of a 100-million shekel civil action suit filed against the EU by Israeli terror victim Steven Blumberg. Blumberg was severely wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire at his family car near the PLO-controlled city of Kalkilye. His wife Techiya was killed, their teenager daughter Tzippy was also severely hurt, and Blumberg himself remains paralyzed as a result of the attack. The suit accuses the EU of paying the salaries of the PA security forces, whose members have carried out the majority of attacks against Israelis under the auspices of such groups Arafat’s Fatah-Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Brigades.
One of Blumberg’s attorney’s, Avi Leitner, explained to Arutz-7’s Josh Hasten that some EU funds were designated for the PA\'s Preventative Security Forces - \"but what the PA did was to recruit terrorist groups from Tunis, Lebanon, and Syria, give them guns, and call them a \'preventative security force.\' These groups are now terrorist militias working for Arafat. Given this situation, the EU should immediately have stopped sending the funds.\" Leitner noted that the U.S. Congress cut off all PA funding immediately upon learning of the PA terrorist activities.
Atty. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who filed the Blumberg suit, explained that the chief of PA police in Kalkilye, Samar Abu Hania, and PA police officer Farid Azouni are under Israeli arrest, charged with planning and carrying out the attack against the Blumbergs. \"Both Azouni and Abu Hania were salaried PA employees at the time of the killing,\" Darshan-Leitner said, \"and they have confessed their involvement in the crime. They have not yet been tried in a criminal trial, but we will make up for this in our civil suit by proving their involvement in the attack - and then by proving the EU\'s responsibility for paying their salaries.\"
The EU, the PA\'s largest donor, provides some ten million euros a month to the PA, or about 1/10 of the annual PA budget. The EU accepts the Israeli position, outlined in a book compiled recently by Minister Danny Naveh, that the PA supports terrorism - but is not yet convinced that EU funds themselves are being used for this purpose.
Since 1994, the EU has distributed a total of $1.5 billion to the PA to pay the salaries of municipal workers such as teachers, health officials, and police. Documents captured by Israel during Operation Defensive Shield prove that PA funds were used to finance terror against Israel - either by paying the salaries of policemen/terrorists, or by freeing up other monies for terrorism \"expenses\" such as those personally approved by Arafat.
Last week\'s decision to hold up funding to the PA comes in the wake of a 100-million shekel civil action suit filed against the EU by Israeli terror victim Steven Blumberg. Blumberg was severely wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire at his family car near the PLO-controlled city of Kalkilye. His wife Techiya was killed, their teenager daughter Tzippy was also severely hurt, and Blumberg himself remains paralyzed as a result of the attack. The suit accuses the EU of paying the salaries of the PA security forces, whose members have carried out the majority of attacks against Israelis under the auspices of such groups Arafat’s Fatah-Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Brigades.
One of Blumberg’s attorney’s, Avi Leitner, explained to Arutz-7’s Josh Hasten that some EU funds were designated for the PA\'s Preventative Security Forces - \"but what the PA did was to recruit terrorist groups from Tunis, Lebanon, and Syria, give them guns, and call them a \'preventative security force.\' These groups are now terrorist militias working for Arafat. Given this situation, the EU should immediately have stopped sending the funds.\" Leitner noted that the U.S. Congress cut off all PA funding immediately upon learning of the PA terrorist activities.
Atty. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who filed the Blumberg suit, explained that the chief of PA police in Kalkilye, Samar Abu Hania, and PA police officer Farid Azouni are under Israeli arrest, charged with planning and carrying out the attack against the Blumbergs. \"Both Azouni and Abu Hania were salaried PA employees at the time of the killing,\" Darshan-Leitner said, \"and they have confessed their involvement in the crime. They have not yet been tried in a criminal trial, but we will make up for this in our civil suit by proving their involvement in the attack - and then by proving the EU\'s responsibility for paying their salaries.\"