EU SUSPENDS FUNDING TO PA IN WAKE OF TERROR VICTIM SUIT

For Immediate Release

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Adv. June 10, 2002

EUROPEAN UNION SUSPENDS FUNDING TO PA IN WAKE OF TERROR VICTIM'S LAW SUIT

The European Parliment's budgetary committee has temporarily suspended its
financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of a law
suit filed by an Israeli terror victim. The N.I.S. 100 million civil action,
filed in Tel-Aviv recently, alleges that the PA has diverted the European
Union's "humanitarian aid" to the Palestinian terrorist groups which are
responsible for the wave of suicide bombings and shootings in Israel. While
denying this contention, the European Union has now announced that it will
not transfer any additional funds to the PA until it receives the results of
an investigative report into how PA leader Yassir Arafat had utilized their
money.

Steven Blumberg, the law suit's plaintiff, was grievously injured in a
terror attack on August 5th 2001. Palestinian police officers from the town
of Kalkilya opened fire on the Blumberg family's car with automatic weapons.
His wife, Techiya, was killed in the attack and his teenage daughter Tehila
was also seriously wounded. Blumberg remains paralyzed until today. The
Blumberg suit alleges that funds given by the European Union paid the
salaries of the PA police force which, since the beginning of the current
Intifada in October 2000, has become a full-fledged terrorist group. It is
additionally claimed that the European Union had been repeatedly warned by
successive Israeli governments that Arafat was utilizing the donated aid to
finance his terrorist organizations and paying for the attacks on Israeli
civilians.

Until this week, the European Union had been donating $10 million to the
Palestinians each month. A total of $1.5 billion has been contributed by
member states since 1994. The money is meant to pay the salaries of the
PA's municipal workers, including
teachers, health officials and police officers. Documents captured by Israel
in its recent incursion into Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, however,
evidence that the funds were being passed along to terrorist groups such as
the Fatah Tanzim. European states donate the foreign aid to the PA in order
to maintain political influence and goodwill in amongst Arab states.

According to the Blumberg's lawyer, Nitsana Darashan-Leitner, "The EU's
decision to suspend funding to the PA is important because it will prevent
some future terror attacks against Israeli civilians. However, the EU has
recklessly given Arafat funding for his terrorist organizations for over
eight years and the terrorist infrastructure still must be dismantled by
force. For the Blumberg family the EU's sudden realization that it is the
source of funding for the suicide bombings comes far too late.
Irresponsibly, the EU still insists that it should provide funds to the PA
police which everyone but the Europeans, now recognizes is nothing more than
a front for the Tanzim terrorist organization."

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