Monday, November 28, 2005

Alms for the Poor

Eric Silver, an old friend, has a report published that charity cash for Palestinian poor was siphoned to suicide bombers.

Oh, really?

Read on:

Millions of pounds donated by British and other European charities to help the Palestinian poor were unwittingly diverted to fund terror and support the families of suicide bombers, Israeli prosecutors claimed yesterday.

Ahmed Salatna, 43, a Hamas activist from the West Bank town of Jenin, was remanded in custody by a military court charged with distributing €9m (£6.2m) for such purposes over the past nine years. The recipients are alleged to have included the family of a young man who blew himself up at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001, killing 15 people and wounding 107. Hamas and Islamic Jihad acknowledged responsibility.

The charge sheet names two British charities, Human Appeal International and Interpal. Human Appeal is a broadly based fundraising organisation, currently helping victims of the Pakistani earthquake. Interpal describes itself as "a non-political, non-profit-making charity that focuses solely on the provision of relief and development aid to the poor and needy of Palestine". No one was available for comment at its London office yesterday. Other charities mentioned were the French CBST, the Italian ABSPT and the Al-Aqsa Foundation, which operates in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

2 comments:

Milhouse said...

"Unwittingly"? I doubt that.

YMedad said...

By coincidence, I spoke with a British diplomat from the Consulate-General today (and that's another story entirely) and he informed me that British rules of evidence are stricter than Israel and the U.S., for example, no wiretapping allowed, and so they need from Israel much clearer and substantial proof of criminal activity to convict.

And who said they had wit?