EU Still Trying to Fund Palestinian Terror-linked NGOs

by Khaled Abu Toameh • July 1, 2020 at 5:00 am

It is easy to understand why Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now furious with the European Union. Recently, the EU and its member countries have had the audacity to demand that EU taxpayer money not end up in the hands of terrorists or terrorist organizations.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, Western donors are not entitled to demand that their taxpayer money not go to EU-designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
There are signs, however, that the EU is about to surrender to Palestinian pressure and threats.
This opaque language means that even if a Palestinian NGO applying for EU grants is an affiliate of terrorist groups, or employs individuals from those groups, the EU will, after all, provide it with taxpayer funding --whether designated for emergency responses to COVID-19 or for regular programs, according to NGO Monitor....

(Image source: iStock)

For many years, Palestinians have received unconditional funding from Western donors.

Here is how it worked: Palestinian organizations would submit an application for funding, and the donors would automatically sign the check or approve the wire transfer of millions of dollars or euros to the Palestinians' bank accounts.

In a nutshell, the Palestinian attitude regarding Western funding has always been along the following lines: "You Westerners owe us this money because you contributed to the establishment of Israel after World War II. Thus, you have no right to set any conditions for the funding. Just give us the money and shut up. Any refusal to comply with our demands will result in our rage, and possibly terrorism and other forms of violence, not only against Israel, but also against you [non-Muslim] 'infidels' in the West."

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The Future of Israel's Borders: International Law and Islamic Law. Part II

by Denis MacEoin • July 1, 2020 at 4:00 am

This is where the plan for extending Israeli law over more territory becomes simpler to resolve both legally and morally. However many times the Palestinian Arabs have been offered a state, they have chosen to turn it down, rejecting generous peace offers. They have preferred to use terrorism and three wars launched from Gaza in pursuit of their fantasy of destroying Israel. By 2017, they had rejected no fewer than seven peace offers, and this year Mahmoud Abbas turned down the new US-Israeli peace plan.
Fortunately, if Israel were to extend Israeli law to more land, the move could present a great opportunity to end the conflict. The decisive end by Israel to a Palestinian fantasy that should never have been humoured in the first place might finally enable Palestinian leaders finally to start their citizens on a constructive -- rather than a destructive -- path.

However many times the Palestinian Arabs have been offered a state, they have chosen to turn it down, rejecting generous peace offers. They have preferred to use terrorism and three wars launched from Gaza in pursuit of their fantasy of destroying Israel. Pictured: Palestinian members of the Fatah faction march in Al-Ain, near Nablus, to protest Israel's annexation plans. (Photo by Jaffar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)

In part one, we identified several ways in which international bodies, states, and individuals interpret the US-Israeli plan for Israel to extend Israeli law in the ancient Jewish homeland of Judaea and Samaria. There is widespread, and misguided, agreement that such a move would be illegal under international law, which regards occupation and "annexation of territory" in a negative sense.

However, as we have seen, much of this interpretation is based on confusion about the history of the region, the origins of the state of Israel, and the ongoing Palestinian rejection of a state for their own people. It is also a contradiction between Western-inspired international law and earlier Islamic law.

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