The EU and the World Bank continue to delude themselves into thinking that their financial aid to the Palestinian Authority...
The post Patrons of ‘Pay for Slay’: EU and World Bank Are Accessories to Terror Funding first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
The World Bank building in Washington D.C. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The EU and the World Bank continue to delude themselves into thinking that their financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not used to fund terrorism.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) suggests that the ethical test of eligibility for funding should not be about where the money goes, but about who the recipient is.
PMW has been reporting continually about the PA’s dire financial situation, caused exclusively by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ insistence that even if the PA has only one penny left, it will continue to pay prisoners and Martyrs. A commentator on PA TV recently explained just how the PA places itself in this predicament:
Financial commentator Thabet Abu Al-Rous: “Despite the Israeli restrictions, the Palestinian side and the Palestinian [PA] government will pay the money that the families of the prisoners and the Martyrs deserve …
The payments to the families of the prisoners and Martyrs total 52 million shekels every month. The PA is paying this obligation, while Israel is deducting this, so it is as if this amount was deducted from the PA twice.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, June 29, 2024]
52 million shekels is equivalent to about $14 million a month.
World Bank increases aid to Palestinian Authority dramatically
Fortunately for the PA, however, it can rely on the World Bank and EU to come to its rescue.
At the beginning of July, the World Bank announced that it would be granting the PA as much as $300 million, up from its usual annual grant of $70 million.
PA Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa: “The World Bank Board of Directors decided a few days ago to increase the annual grant that it provides to the State of Palestine from approximately $70 million to $300 million per year. This is an unprecedented sum in the history of Palestine’s relations with the World Bank.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV News, July 3, 2024]
New EU grant to the Palestinian Authority
On July 19, 2024, the EU announced that it would be granting the PA a total of 400 million euros after it announced in May that it had donated 25 million euros in a second tranche of assistance meant for the salaries and pensions of PA civil servants.
The government announced today that after months of efforts, the European Commission has approved an emergency financial assistance package totaling €400 million. This aid will be disbursed in grants and loans in three installments over the coming months for various purposes aimed at mitigating the financial and economic crisis.
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, July 19, 2024]
While the EU and the World Bank — in a classic case of self-deception — tell themselves and the world that they make sure that their funds do not go to terrorists, they are giving the PA the means to reward murderers. It makes not one bit of a difference whether these funds are being paid directly as terror salaries, or for the streets to be cleaned — thus freeing up other funds to be used as terror payments.
It is time for the EU and the World Bank to admit that the ethical test of eligibility for funding should not be about where the money goes, but about who the recipient is.
Any government or authority that rewards terrorists with hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a terror-funding entity, which should be ineligible to receive Western support. The PA is a prime example of such an authority that should be banned from receiving any kind of foreign funding.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
The post Patrons of ‘Pay for Slay’: EU and World Bank Are Accessories to Terror Funding first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
