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David Frankfurter brought his family to Ra'anana, Israel from their native Sydney, Australia in 1992. He is a business consultant, corporate executive and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East conflict.
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By David Frankfurter
August 31, 2004
One dark night, a man was searching frantically under a street light. A passerby stopped to help. "What are you looking for?" he asked. "I dropped a ring when I was further down the road," was the answer. "So why are you looking so far away from where you lost it?" was the obvious follow-on. "Because the light is over here!" answered the searcher.
The EU fraud squad, OLAF, reaches the conclusion, that "To date, there is no evidence that funds from the non-targeted EU Direct Budget Assistance to the Palestinian Authority have been used to finance illegal activities, including terrorism."
Mohammed Dahlan seems to feel that OLAF needs some direction , so today's report in the Jerusalem Post helps guide them away from the street lamp, back to the places evidence might be found.
"Former PA security minister Mohammed Dahlan on Thursday revealed that at least two of the Fatah militias, the Jenin Martyrs Brigades and the Abu Rish Brigades, were financed and armed by the PA leadership. In addition to their responsibility for the chaos in the Gaza Strip, the two groups have also been involved in attacks on the IDF and settlers."
"Dahlan told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat was aware of the fact that these groups were receiving money and weapons from the PA..."
"The Jenin Martyrs Brigades, whose members kidnapped Jabali, is financed and armed by the PA. The group's members are PA employees. As for the Abu Rish Brigades, they too are financed and armed by the PA because they are members of the National Security Forces. Arafat knows who is financing them."
Given that the EU provides a significant portion of the budgets that the PA uses to pay these terrorists, and given that the EC has said: "...If any evidence comes to light that the PA is knowingly employing members of terrorist organisations, the PA will need to act immediately to take these people off the payroll and bring them to justice."
So how will the EU to answer these new charges? Reading the many statements, reports, answers to MEP questions etc. of the European Commission one knows the standard answer. The reports of the EU Parliamentary Working Group on Budgetary Assistance to the Palestinian Authority put it well:
"Given the fungible nature of EU budgetary support, it is not possible to link any salary payment... to EU funding."
Don't let the fancy words confuse you. Making money fungible means that the EU deliberately transfers all overseas aid to the PA to a single general-purpose bank account, where it is mingled with funds from other sources. That way, the EU can deny funding terror. Simply stated, this is money-laundering. A criminal offence in most modern democracies - mainly because it has been known to be common practice amongst criminals and many subversive organizations for some decades.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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