Goodbye boycott. For the first time since January 2006, the EU will donate money to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. The EU plans to transfer 4 million euros.
“EU Breaks Freeze on Funding PA,” by Hana Levi Julian for INN:
The European Union has agreed to transfer 4 million euros (approximately $5 million) to the coffers of the Palestinian Authority government, effectively ending a freeze by Western nations on funding the Hamas terrorist-led entity.
“The EU is resuming its support of the Palestinian Authority in a direct manner through the finance ministry,” announced PA Finance Minister Dr. Salem Fayyad at a news conference Monday.
The money is to be used for a project “to assist the Minister of Finance in ensuring the proper use of Palestinian taxpayers” money” and that expenditures are accounted for, said EU representative John Kjaer.
The Quartet, of which the European Union is a member as well as the United States, Russia and the United Nations, declared a freeze on funding to the PA until the Hamas-led government officially recognizes the State of Israel, renounces terrorism and fulfills past agreements.
The Quartet members had also said they would not acknowledge the Fatah-Hamas unity government until it fulfilled the conditions.
The freeze went into effect in January 2006, immediately after the Hamas terrorist organization, whose charter plainly states its intent to destroy the State of Israel, took control of the PA government in a landslide victory.
Needless to say, Hamas has not fulfilled any of those conditions. Yet the EU sees fit to “show them the money” anyway.
The financial move raises the status of the PA without formal acceptance. It is also likely to result in increased pressure on Israel to release $700 million in tax revenue collected for the PA but withheld following the Hamas victory, leading to an accelerated disintegration of Western resolve to boycott the terrorist organization.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently returned to pressuring Israel into releasing the funds, despite America’s ban against transferring money to Hamas.
In explaining her actions, she told The Associated Press, “I understand the Israelis’ concerns about what might happen to tax revenue, but we think that there are mechanisms that they could use in the ways that they have in the recent past to support important activities.”
Considering that Rice has pandered to Iran and financed Fatah and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, financing Hamas is totally understandable.
But is anyone still fighting the “war on terror”?
Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.