The European Union has come in for a lot of criticism due to its clueless stance on palestinian terror. But it seems even the EU can’t pretend that Hamas doesn’t want to destroy Israel, and they have threatened to stop funding the PA if Hamas members are elected and the terror group does not renounce violence. Will they follow through? I don’t know. But here’s what they say.
JERUSALEM (AP) – The European Union’s foreign policy chief warned Sunday that the EU could halt tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians if the militant Hamas group wins next month’s Palestinian elections and fails to renounce violence.
The threat by Javier Solana reflected growing international concern that Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and remains committed to Israel’s destruction, could win the Jan. 25 parliamentary vote.
[…] “All the political parties have the right to be part of the elections, but there is a certain code of conduct that has to be accepted by everybody,” Solana told reporters during a visit to Tel Aviv. “It’s very difficult that parties who do not condemn violence … can be partners for the future.”
Solana said a Palestinian government that includes a party that fails to renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist could not continue to receive EU funding. The Palestinians receive about $1 billion a year in international aid – about half the Palestinian Authority’s budget – and EU assistance is slated to reach $312 million in 2006.
“It would be very difficult for the help and the money that goes to the Palestinian Authority to continue to flow,” he said. “The taxpayers in the European Union, members of the parliament of the European Union, will not be in a position to sustain that type of political activity.”
Yes, it’s a very soft threat. Yes, the EU has shown us in the past that they don’t particularly care if the PA is rife with terrorists. Yes, they’ve ignored evidence from Israel proving that Arafat was sponsoring terrorism.
But I don’t recall them every stating out front like this that they won’t deal with a terrorist group if it refuses to renounce terror.
So I will watch, and wait, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Because when all is said and done, I am an optimist, and you know what they say: Cynics are simply disappointed optimists.
I would like very much to not have to turn cynical about this.
turn cynical? My initial reaction was that they omitted part of the statement, “It would be very difficult for the help and the money that goes to the Palestinian Authority to continue to flow, but we are up to the challenge…“
If people wanted to stop the killing the best immediate thing they could do is stop all money flows to the Palestinians. If the Palestinian Authority had to depend on its people earning a living instead of existing on the world’s handouts they’d not have time for terrorism.
My guess is that Hamas will field a “political wing” that will renounce violence (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) while the real Hamas continues its merry, murderous way thinly cloaked as a clandestine organization. This will satisify the EUnuchs, and all will go on as before. That will include ever more vicious denunciations of Israel for retaliations against the terrorism, when “everybody knows” that Hamas has “renounced terrorism”.
I’ll be very pleased to be proved wrong, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for it.
The EU was trying to establish diplomatic relations with Hamas and Hezbollah on the sly.
A few dead EU terror-facilitators at Rafah might wake them up a bit.
I feel badly for their families, being related to traitors to civilization.
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I think that Russ has the correct reading here. There is no principled basis to deal with FATAH but not HAMAS. Both believe in armed struggle to liberate the land from “the occupiers.” The only difference is that FATAH fights primarily under the banner of Arab nationalism and HAMAS fights under the banner of Islam.
The EU supports the “rights of the Palestinian people.” It, like the rest of the world (Israeli governments included) has abandoned the concept of “two Palestinian nations,” Arab and Jewish, recognized in the UN’s 1947 Partition Plan. The only “Palestinians” that the EU recognizes are the ones that seek to delegitimize the Palestinian Jews.
The optimist says that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist agrees.
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and the Presbyterians pay them regular visits in Beirut to discuss their proposed boycott of commerce with Israel.
Then we get this news:
Canada: Hizballah clones cellphones of corporation execs
Obviously one cannot accept that it is just confined to Canada not even with Presbyterian dhimmitude so maybe that’s why the NSA is spying on, gulp, Americans. Nah, it’s just part of the silly ,oops
holidayChristnukah season, when rednecks and evangelists try to frighten the good upstanding multiculti Dems and NYT and the Europeans threaten sanctions.I thought that those pilgrims who founded the North American states fled the European madness, but obviously not with complete success.
Shalom! I, too, hope you don’t turn cynical. With all due respect, though – imagine a man holding a hammer. Having struck himself on the kneecap with it several times, the man is now stretched out and bleeding, but he still clutches the hammer.
Is the man “cynical” if he believes that delivering further hammer blows will cause harm? Am I cynical, given the history, to believe that the EU will not truly ever support a Jewish state, or even truly and justly recognize its right to exist?
Yes, may the cynics like me be wrong; the world would surely benefit from the EU developing a moral backbone. May we all also be prepared in case the cynics are right.
Am Yisrael Chai!
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