Arnold Roth has an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal Europe
Last December, I traveled to Brussels as a member of a small contingent of Israelis. Each of us had experienced the loss of a family member by terrorism in the past two years. My daughter, Malka Chana, 15, was killed by a Hamas terrorist cell. She was a high school student, a talented musician, a volunteer passionately dedicated to the care of disabled children. When her murderer exploded himself in a Jerusalem restaurant in August 2001, he massacred 15 innocent civilians, mainly children and teenagers. Hundreds were injured.Patten has a history of ignoring evidence that the PA abuses its foreign aid. But Roth cites last week's San Francisco Chronicle interview with Abu MazenChris Patten, the EU's Commissioner for External Relations, plays a central role in the provision of EU financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. I intended to ask him in that visit whether he was aware of evidence that EU money, channeled through his office to the PA and so necessary to improving Palestinian lives, was being diverted to fund terrorism. Did he believe a just peace could be achieved when teachers paid from EU grants to UNRWA (U.N. Relief and Works Agency) teach Palestinian children that Israel has no right to exist and that their martyrdom is a glorious part of the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East?
Unlike the other senior EU figures we approached, Mr. Patten declined to meet us.
Palestinian Authority officials' salaries are paid by the European Union, but Arafat or his cronies were skimming off up to 15 percent in income taxes and using it for their own causes, Abbas suggested. "Personally, I don't know where those funds go," he said. "When we wanted to cancel them, they said: 'You're harming the intifada.' "Go read the rest of Roth's op-ed
UPDATE: For those without a subscription to the WSJ, Roth's open letter to Christopher Patten, upon which the WSJ op-ed is based, is posted here
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 26, 2003 07:00 AMI'd love to read it but I'm not a WSJ online subscriber.
Posted by: Geoff M on September 26, 2003 05:49 AM"Oh my God!
Posted by: Florida on September 27, 2003 04:19 AMand given the rising antisemitism in europe by many groups, does the support this man has for arafat really come as '6 o'clock news'?
it should not.
there are many many europeans who are not as open minded as they could be.... and frankly, i think the u.s. has done more than enough to help the europeans out. enough is enough. they spit in our faces; why should we help them any more?
Patten is the one who commented that he wanted an investigation into Palestinian use of EU funds "like a hole in the head."
He said that the investigation could force them to reconsider the aid, which is a result he could not stand for.
He is the capo di tutti jew hater.
Posted by: J. Lichty on September 29, 2003 02:12 PM