In a letter addressed to Federica Mogherini (picture), the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice President of the EU Commission and political leader of the European External Action Service (EEAS), on Friday, ECI reminded EEAS that the European Union is a union of values. “The EU cannot turn its head when a young girl is brutally stabbed to death in her own bed and the murderer is then declared a “martyr” by the Palestinian Authority, which is receiving hundreds of millions in aid from the European Union. The EU must stop funding the incitement and glorification of violence by the Palestinian Authority if the EU wants to be part of the solution to the conflict in the Middle East. By continuously turning a blind eye to a culture of violence and hatred, the EU will remain part of the problem,” stated ECI’s Founding Director Tomas Sandell.
The letter further states that the EU cannot apply two sets of values ? one at home and another set of values for an administration that it supports financially and politically. Palestinian Authority’s President, Mahmoud Abbas, received a standing ovation in the European Parliament in Brussels last week, while the European leaders once more failed to make him accountable for the Palestinian Authority’s institutionalised and systematic glorification of terrorism, which includes payments to convicted terrorists and the naming of streets and schools after them, which also promotes radicalization.
ECI has repeatedly protested against these practices and earlier this year in May, together with the International Legal Forum and the French NGO ‘Tous Avec Nous’, met with the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic service, to present a report which lists examples of institutionalised incitement and radicalisation by the Palestinian Authority, both from official PA channels and from the current PA curriculum in schools which demonises Jews and describes them as “invading snakes”.
The official EEAS position, as explained to us in the meeting, is that the glorification of martyrdom by the PA, the payment of convicted terrorists and the glorification of violence in school textbooks do not amount to “systematic” institutionalised incitement or radicalisation.
Just four days ago, an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah Central Committee member, Sultan Abu Al-Einein, encouraged Palestinians: “every place you find an Israeli, cut off his head”. This type of rhetoric is repeated constantly by the official Fatah political party, by WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, as well as by PBC, the PA’s official TV channel, in many of its children’s programmes. This incitement is responsible for the escalation of violence and the death of many innocent people, including the 13 year old girl Hallel Yaffa Ariel yesterday.
“There is a growing concern in the EU Member States about the PA’s misuse of EU taxpayers’ money to incite hatred and radicalisation, which can no longer be ignored,” stated ECI’s Legal Counsel, Andrew Tucker, who added that “incitement to violence and terror by leaders of states or recognized peoples contravenes fundamental principles of international law, as reflected in the UN Charter, and the European Union must ensure that those principles are upheld”.
ECI is committed to continuing to raise the issue of incitement in national Parliaments across Europe as well as in the European Union in Brussels.