BRUSSELS—Europe must stop support terrorism in Palestine, says Elazar Stern, member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in an interview published by Belgian daily L’Echo.
Stern, who is a member of the centrist Yesh Atid party, conveyed the message to members of the European Parliament he met while in Brussels.
‘’Europeans do not realize that their own money goes indirectly to terrorists. They answer that they only finance schools and books. Education is important.But the European authorities should open the schoolbooks printed with their money and see what is written there: that the Jewish state doesn’t exist, that one needs to sacrifice his life. You find nothing on the Holocaust.’’
Stern has proposed a bill that would reduce the money that Israel collects for the Palestinians from customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports. ‘’The Palestinians have a budget of which 7.5 percent go to the families of terrorists. A total of one billion shekels per year,’’ says Elazar Stern. ‘’The more the terrorist action is efficient, the more you receive money. This money given to terrorists is much more than the average salary in Palestine.’’ ‘’This is an incitement to commit terrorist acts, to kill Israelis,’’ he stresses.
“If I asked the Belgians, right here in the street, what they thought about the fact that they are giving money to the family of someone who killed an Israeli? And that the amount doubles when they kill two? Do you think they would be ok with it? And yet, this is what is happening,” he says.
‘’I want Europe to stop supporting terrorism in Palestine. Europe must supervise the use of the money it gives to Palestine.’’