The British Taxpayers’ Alliance pressure group has joined the Israeli campaign against European Union funding for the Palestinian Authority’s education system, which they claim includes incitement against Israel.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance Chief Executive, Matthew Elliot, visited Israel this week and held meetings with officials at the Foreign Ministry to co-ordinate the campaign it is running, with additional European organisations, against the lack of transparency in the PA’s use of EU financial support.
Two years ago, the Alliance published a report highlighting how British aid to the PA, supplied by the Department for International Development (DFID), financed educational programmes which exhort children to become Jihadists and praise suicide bombers.
In a more recent report, the Alliance continued to highlight similar content in the Palestinian curriculum. It said that in 2008, DFID aid to the Palestinian territories reached £64 million. In addition Britain contributed €52 million out of the €420 million of aid given to the Palestinians by the EU.
In a meeting on Monday with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Mr Sinclair said that “it is vitally important that the international donor community faces up to its responsibilities in the Palestinian territories. Serious pressure must be put on the PA and Hamas to end hate education and incitement.”
Mr Ayalon said that “we are grateful for European aid and without aid from the US and Europe there would be no chance of peace, but since the Oslo agreements were signed, the Palestinians have received more aid per capita than the people of Europe in the Marshall Plan after the Second World War and they have nothing to show for it. The money has either gone to terror or just isn’t here.”