13-Oct-13: Massive scandal in Palestinian Arab financial affairs? No!

Giving a hand in Brussels, May 2001: Chris Patten, Arafat, Romano Prodi,
Nabil Shaath [Image Source]

Seven years ago, we wrote here:

Don't be offended. But if you're a European who cares about what's being done with the taxes you pay to your government, the Palestinians are playing you for a fool. Not just you alone, but also your government, your politicians and your public-sector watchdogs.

Seven years: so much misery, so little progress.

For those wondering who OLAF is and what it did and did not do to facilitate the unjust enrichment of a large cohort of corrupt Palestinian Arab insiders, and/or who know little (or maybe nothing) about the connection between European funding of Palestinian Arab terrorism and the politician who is today the chairman of the BBC Trust, please read what we wrote back then. (And for a more recent update: "9-Sep-13: Snouts and troughs")

Today (literally) it became very relevant all over again. Here is the report that sparked a minor burst of interest in how the Palestinian Arabs have played, and continue to this very minute to play, an elaborate shell game funded by European taxpayers and benefiting some of the most hideous people a person would ever want to meet.

£1.95bn EU aid lost in Palestine | Times, London | Bojan Pancevski, Brussels | Published: 13 October 2013 | BILLIONS of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption, according to a damning report by the European Court of Auditors, the Luxembourg-based watchdog. Brussels transferred more than £1.95bn to the occupied territories between 2008 and 2012 but had little control over how it was spent, the auditors say in an unpublished report seen by The Sunday Times. EU investigators who visited sites in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank noted “significant shortcomings” in the management of funds sent to Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU. A spokesman for the court declined to comment.

It infuriates us to see the passive language of that Times of London headline. Two billion pounds were lost? Is someone suggesting it got mislaid?

Of course not. This is a story of massive malfeasance, as the article itself suggests and as, we hope, the as-yet unavailable audit report will show. A pity that the headline writer saw fit to soft-pedal and obfuscate but that's actually the essence of the story behind the story.

If there is one aspect of this saga of corruption and dishonesty that is truly beyond our comprehension it's this: how can the members of the news media who cover the EU and the Middle East conflict have allowed this decade-plus financial scandal (one that everyone knows about and that few will discuss in public) to get so little media coverage?

How much of the conspiracy of silence is based on intimidation?