This week, the governments of France, Germany, and the UK have told Israel to stop withholding money from the Palestinian Authority. Why? Because they are “fully satisfied that the PA has taken significant steps to counter the risks of terror financing.”
A joint statement was issued by the foreign ministers of these governments and they urged Israel to renew banking conditions or else it could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian economy and destabilise the region.
“We are fully satisfied that the Palestinian Authority has taken significant steps to counter the risks of terror financing, and that financial institutions within the West Bank maintain adequate controls to manage these risks,” the statement said.
“The issue of cross-border payments must not be leveraged to undermine the Palestinian Authorities, and Israel must pursue policies which promote internal and external financial stability.”
The focus of the statement appears to be on “cross-border payments”. In the past, money sent to the PA has been able to transfer to Hamas and other terror groups. The PA is now trying to restrict these payments from happening.
The only problem with all this, however, is that the Palestinian Authority themselves still fund terrorism within their own territories.
The Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund is operated by the PA to provide financial support to Palestinians and their families if they are killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel.
We like to refer to it as their ‘Pay for Slay’ scheme.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has in the past called the fund its most sacred act. He said that efforts to stop the martyr payments are “an aggression against the Palestinian people,” and he pledged that if the PA was to run out of money, they would use their last pennies to give to terrorists.
“If we are left with one penny, we will spend it on the families of the prisoners and martyrs,” Abbas pledged.
So why would these countries, including our own government, say they are “fully satisfied” that the PA is cracking down on “terror financing” when the PA themselves finances terror directly.
It seems that because the PA has now stopped money going to Hamas, that is enough to appease these weak Western governments. They are more than happy to turn a blind eye to the PA’s support for its own terrorists and are putting pressure on their closest ally in the Middle East instead of holding the Palestinian terrorists and their supporters to account.
Because of this foolish position, the British government is sending tens-of-millions of pounds every year to the PA, an organisation that has vowed never to stop funding terror, meaning that the British taxpayer is inadvertently funding terror because the government refuses to see the reality before its eyes.
There can be no peace in the Middle East until the terrorists put down their weapons and accept that the Jewish state is here to stay.
Unfortunately, Palestinian terror supporters will never be encouraged to give up their genocidal ambition to wipe out Israel as long as Western governments continue to fund them.
