Patten attacks ‘false’ Arafat aid reports

Date: 25/07/02

By David Cronin

EXTERNAL Relations Commissioner Chris Patten has defended the EU's financial support for the Palestinian Authority (PA) following fresh allegations that it could be used for terror attacks against Israelis and anti-Jewish propaganda.

In a letter to The Jerusalem Post, Patten attacked two recent opinion pieces published by the newspaper, claiming both contained 'simple falsehoods' about EU Middle East policy.

An assertion that half of all EU foreign assistance is directed at Yasser Arafat's administration was branded 'laughably wrong' by Patten. 'The EU's foreign aid budget this year is around €6.1 billion. For the PA, we budgeted €232 million - well under a twentieth of the total,' he said.

He also attacked a suggestion by journalist Douglas Davis that 'at least some of that EU money must have found its way' to pay for weapons found on board the Karine A. Laden with 50 tonnes of arms, the vessel was seized in the Red Sea last January.

According to Patten, the columnist was resorting to 'pure supposition'. 'The government of Israel, like the EU, has looked hard for evidence of the claim - and failed to find it,' said the Commissioner.

Suggestions by Davis' colleague David Weinberg that Brussels has 'bankrolled' television programmes and schoolbooks that foment anti-Semitic hatred were also dismissed. Patten said it is not correct that the Commission has financed the rebuilding of TV antennae in the occupied territories destroyed earlier this year by Israeli troops; the EU's executive ended its support to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation in 1997, he stated.

On the textbook allegation, he said: 'The European Commission has never funded school textbooks. Our aid for education is limited to support for teachers' salaries and for school buildings.'

External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten has defended the EU's financial support for the Palestinian Authority following fresh allegations that it could be used for terror attacks against Israelis and anti-Jewish propaganda.