Belgium
Takes a Stand Against Palestinian Terrorist Glorification
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
November 15, 2017
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 For Palestinians,
Dalal Mughrabi is a legend, a heroine, celebrated for having killed 38
Israelis – including 13 children – in a 1978 massacre along Israel's Coastal Highway. But
when Belgium funded a school for Palestinian children in 2013, it didn't
expect it to be named in Mughrabi's honor. Hence when officials learned last month that the former 'Beit Awwa Basic
Girls School' in Hebron had been renamed to celebrate the Lebanese terrorist,
they immediately froze all funding to the Palestinian Authority's
educational projects. In response, the school, whose logo depicts a map
eliminating Israel, wrote on
its Facebook page: "The name of Dalal is engraved in our hearts and
will remain engraved in our minds."
Belgium planned to fund 10 more schools in the coming three years, the Algemeiner
reports. Those projects would have come in addition to the 20 schools the
country has already built in the Palestinian territories through a €71.6 million, four-year support package set
up in 2011.
Belgium's national contribution to the Palestinian Authority (PA) comes
on top of the EU's general support, which in 2016 came to €291.1 million.
Most of those funds are distributed through PEGASE, an EU initiative established in 2008 to provide
direct funding to the Authority, enabling it to pay out pensions, civil
servant salaries, and basic public services.
Belgium is not alone: in 2017, the UK pledged £25 million (about €28 million) to cover the
salaries of PA employees in the West Bank. And according to a Mail on Sunday report, several schools funded by
the UK are also named for terrorists. Other European contributions have
come from France (€8 million in 2016), and Germany (a whopping €160 million annually), among others. Almost all of
these payments are funneled through PEGASE, though Germany insists that
none of its funds are used for pensions, salaries, or for the ongoing
payments the PA makes to Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel and their
families – payments that reportedly total an estimated $140 million a year .
Yet some dispute those claims. "Following repeated queries by an
opposition lawmaker, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin last month also
acknowledged that funds for so-called 'martyrs' and Palestinian prisoners
sitting in Israeli jails for security-related offenses come not only from
the Palestine Liberation Organization but partially from the PA's own
budget," a 2016 Times of Israel report said. And the Mail on Sunday report
further "found that Britain funded the PLO until last year and that
the PA openly boasts of still funding salaries of convicted terrorists,
even in its own official statements."
EU funds, in other words, are not just helping to celebrate terrorists,
but to support and train them in schools named after "heroes"
like Mughrabi.
In this, America stands apart. But it is not entirely innocent. The U.S.
sent more than $700 million to the Palestinians in
2016. Still, while then-President Obama provided the PA about $221 million just before leaving
office in January – despite efforts by Congress to suspend the payment –
America's contributions to the Palestinians have decreased in recent years
and are subject to extensive vetting, according to a Congressional Research
Service (CRS) report.
Moreover, where EU payments are distributed through PEGASE, the U.S.
works through USAID, which since 2014 has primarily used the funds to pay
off Palestinian Authority creditors, rather than send it directly into PA
accounts.
Even stricter restrictions are likely to be put into force in the coming
year. The Taylor Force Act, proposed in late 2016 and which the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed in August, will "make future U.S.
assistance that directly benefits the PA contingent on it ending its
current policies concerning payments to convicted terrorists and families
of terrorists," according to Haaretz.
The Act requires that the Secretary of State regularly enforce PA
compliance by certifying it has "terminated payments for acts of
terrorism against American and Israeli citizens after being fairly tried
and who have been imprisoned for such acts of terrorism, including the
family members of the convicted individuals." In addition, "The
PA will also have to take 'credible steps' against incitement to violence
against Israelis and Americans," the Jerusalem Post reported. The Act, Haaretz predicts, could go
into effect as early as 2018.
Even with the Taylor Force Act, however, the U.S. is expected to
continue much of its financial assistance, including several million
dollars dedicated to humanitarian relief, infrastructure, and development
of private sector initiatives. And as with Belgium and the UK, America
continues to finance education and the building of schools, according to
the Times of Israel, primarily for Palestinian
refugees in Jordan and elsewhere, established through the UN Relief And Works Agency (UNRWA)
This, too, may be about to change. Until recently, the curriculum in
these schools was largely regulated by the Palestinian Authority, in
keeping with UNRWA standards of teaching "the curriculum of the host
country." Included in that curriculum: lessons demonizing Jews, encouraging
"martyrdom" through terrorism and the celebration of terrorists
like Dalal Mughrabi.
But revisions to the UNWRA programs introduced in April now
require that schools eliminate those incitements to violence and include
recognition of Israel. Congress has reportedly threatened to suspend school
funding if the changes, which affect the education of more than 300,000
Palestinian children, are not implemented.
Now, with Belgium's retreat from educational support, other countries
are likely to reexamine their funding of Palestinian schools. The UK halted $30 million in aid last month.
At first glance, this seems appropriate. But it also opens up new
dilemmas and questions about the future prospects for Middle East peace.
Educating Palestinian youth is increasingly important in the Internet age –
and in the ongoing battle for hearts and minds. Abandoning education
initiatives risks allowing Fatah, Hamas, and other terrorist or Islamist
groups to oversee the schooling of these children, and leaving them
vulnerable to the constant propaganda machines of other terror groups. The
West's best hope, then, would seem to mean continuing to provide our own
alternatives, with a curriculum of our own making. The question is how to
best proceed – and how effective we ultimately can be.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in
the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New
York and the Netherlands. Follow her at @radicalstates.
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