Europe's Unyielding Faith in Arafat

Die Zeit has now published Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff's latest story on Arafat's involvement in terrorism, and EU funding thereof. Die Zeit's article (in German) is here My translation of the full article into English is here

UPDATE (8/16 10amPDT) The posted translation is now of the longer, online only version of the article. Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff graciously reviewed my translation to ensure its accuracy.

This article updates a Die Zeit article from June called Arafat Bombs, Europe Pays, which I translated when it appeared. In the latest installment, Kleine-Brockhoff shares more detailed Israeli evidence, including official PA documents captured during operations in the West Bank earlier this year.

The headline for this story is With Unyielding Faith, as in the unyielding faith that Chris Patten and the EU seem to have in Arafat's goodness and peaceful intentions, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

The EU cries "no proof!" yet generously disregards the plethora of direct and circumstancial evidence. The EU is acting like the wife who assiduously overlooks the stranger's lipstick on her husband's collar and doesn't believe that she's been betrayed until there's a private detective with an incriminating videotape standing at the door.

In an online-only supplement, Die Zeit has posted a number of documents (in English)that are referenced in the main story. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, including some of the PA documents captured by the IDF last spring, and EU internal memoranda. There are a few hundred pages in total and I haven't looked at it all yet. But one of the most astonishing items that I've found so far is in their "Document 4", which is official EU responses to written questions posed by Die Zeit.

Die Zeit: The Israelis claim that the PA has exploited its budget for providing money to the Fatah by collecting a mandatory "Fatah membership fee" from the salaries of PA security personnel. Does the EU have evidence to the contrary? If yes, what is it?
EU: Fatah is the majority party in the democratically elected Palestinian Legislative Council, and has many party members including policemen. The a.m. meeting and report provided some documents showing that Fatah party members among the security services have between 5 (lower ranks) and 50 shekels (Generals) membership fee deducted from their salaries. This equals between 1 and 10 Euro per month. This system is not dissimilar to the mandatory deductions from salaries for trade union members' fees in some EU countries

So there you have it folks. The EU's official position is that the Fatah, which operates the Tanzim militia and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (think: suicide bombers) is morally equivalent to a labor union.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 16, 2002 10:00 AM