The Palestinians promotion of terror continues—but Norway won’t pay for it. Illustrative banner of terrorists and Dome of the Rock. By Joshua Spurlock
The Israelis have long been pointing out to the world that the Palestinians keep honoring terrorists by naming facilities after them. And last week, when Norway found out their funding of a Palestinian women’s center had been named after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi—who participated in the murder of 37 Israelis, including 12 children—they not only expressed their dismay. They demanded their money back.
“We have asked for the logo of the Norwegian representation office to be removed from the building immediately, and for the funding that has been allocated to the center to be repaid,” Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende was quoted as saying in a report on the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. “We will not enter into any new agreements with either the Palestinian Election Commission or UN Women in Palestinian areas until satisfactory procedures are in place to ensure that nothing of this nature happens again.” Israel said other nations should do as Norway did.
“Norway has done the right thing. Standing strongly against the positive commemoration of terrorists is an essential part of the international effort to eradicate terrorism,” said a statement posted to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.
“Israel suggests that all members of the international community check where money invested in the [Palestinian Authority] ends up, and expects all other partners in this project to follow Norway’s example.”
The United Nations, another entity involved in the center, also insisted their logo be removed. The UN Women group was involved with the center, but noted they had “no role” in naming the center or any other activity since 2016. Furthermore, they noted that the UN Women logo used in the center’s inauguration buy pfizer viagra 100mg event “was used without any prior authorization from the United Nations,” according to an official statement from the UN Women website.
Said the statement, “UN Women strongly condemns all acts of terrorism and the glorification of such acts. UN Women dissociates itself from the center and all related activities and, at the request of UN Women, the logo has been removed.”
The UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Piper, was even stronger, posting a statement to his Twitter account stating that “the name chosen by the community center is wrong and unacceptable.”
The Norwegian report said that they had stopped funding the center before they learned of it being named after the terrorist, which happened at the inauguration ceremony earlier in May. Norway heard of the terrorist name last week, the same day that Palestinian Media Watch released a report on the center.
“The glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms. Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way. We will not accept the use of Norwegian aid funding for such purposes,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs Brende.
Ironically, the stern condemnation and demand of repayment by Norway came just two days after the Norwegian Representative Office to the Palestinian Authority tweeted that they were “pleased” about the new aid system launched by PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, the World Bank, and the United Nations.
Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, tweeted the aid coordination system was intended to “streamline international assistance” for the Palestinians.
Later that same week, the UN and Norway were already distancing themselves from one way in which the Palestinians were spending some of the international aid funds.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastudpate.com, May 28, 2017)