On 8 October, another Spanish extreme-left MEP Miguel Urban hosted an event in the parliament featuring Ines Maestro, a former MEP with links to the PFLP. Maestro is currently under investigation in Spain for financing terrorism, specifically for transferring funds to Leila Khaled who was involved in two deadly hijackings.
BRUSSELS—Last July, a Spanish extreme-left Member of the European Parliament, Manuel Pineda, hosted in the parliament premises in Brussels – without any problem- two senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is on the EU terrorist list, despite a pledge by former European Parliament President Antonio Tajani that ‘’speakers with terrorist backgrounds or links to organisations on the European Union’s list of terrorist groups will not be allowed to speak at the European Parliament.’’
In September 2017, already, Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian terrorist and a senior member of the PFLP addressed a conference in the European Parliament where she justified the use of terrorism.
On 8 October, another Spanish extreme-left MEP Miguel Urban hosted an event in the parliament featuring Ines Maestro, a former MEP with links to the PFLP. Maestro is currently under investigation in Spain for financing terrorism, specifically for transferring funds to Leila Khaled who was involved in two deadly hijackings.
In the invitation to the event, Urban said: “In 2014, (…) Nines Maestro (…) with a bank account in her name, helped raising funds for Gaza hospitals sent to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestinian Authority. In 2017, two Zionist organizations from the United States and the Spanish State denounced Nines and other companions before the Spanish National Court, who opened cause for “collaboration with a terrorist organization.”
Following the organisation of this event, three cross-party MEPs, Austrian Lukas Mandl (EPP, center-right), Belgian Frederique Ries (Renew Europe,liberal) and Romanian Carmen Avram (S&D,center-left), sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, and called upon him to “take measures in order to prevent that the European Parliament supports and promotes such activities within its walls in the future.”
Lukas Mandl, who heads the AJC Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI) friendship caucus in the EU parliament, said: “You can’t stand by and watch the European Parliament become the venue for attempts to justify terror. Terror against Israel is terror against humanity. And for us in Europe, it’s terror against our friends. We thus strongly condemn the abuse of our Parliament for anti-Israel events. Israel is the only rule-of-law democracy in the Middle East, and its security forces ultimately also provide protection and security for EU citizens on a daily basis.”
Frederique Ries said: “It’s a disgrace that our democratic house is being abused for nefarious purposes. As Europeans, we support a negotiated two-state solution. Associating oneself with terrorists like the PFLP is not only immoral but also a disservice to what ought to be our common goal: promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
For Carmen Avram , ‘’an actions such as the one of Miguel Urban could damage the reputation and credibility of the entire house.’’ ‘’This must never happen again. We must stand united against terrorism and antisemitism in all its forms, in particular today in Europe just after the German synagogue attack,” she added.
