British taxpayers 'funding the Palestinian bombers'
By Benedict Brogan, Political Correspondent
(Filed: 18/01/2003)
Palestinian suicide bombers may be using money from the British taxpayer to fund their campaign of terror against Israeli civilians, Iain Duncan Smith claimed last night.
The Tory leader called on the European Union to investigate how its monthly donations to the Palestinian Authority are spent, amid fears that the cash is diverted to pay for terrorist attacks.
"It is very disturbing to contemplate the possibility that our taxpayers' money could be financing the bombs and explosives used to attack Israeli civilians," he said in a speech to a Jewish charity in London.
Mr Duncan Smith, who also criticised this week's Government-organised Middle East conference as "cosmetic grandstanding", said he wanted to see an inquiry by the European Parliament into the use of the £80 million a year the EU gives in aid to Yasser Arafat's authority.
He said there was evidence that the Palestinian Authority disguised the use made of the funds by exaggerating the number of its employees or by manipulating currency exchange rates.
Mr Duncan Smith described Israel as a country "in the frontline against the war on terror and a lighthouse of democratic values in a troubled region". Attacks on the country amounted in some cases to "thinly veiled anti-semitism".
Criticising the Government's approach to the Israel-Palestinian dispute, he questioned the decision to hold "pointless conferences" when suicide bombers were still murdering Israeli civilians.
Earlier this week Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, hosted a Middle East conference in London that was undermined by the Israeli government's refusal to allow Palestinian delegates permission to attend. Mr Duncan Smith said: "Labour ministers must realise that cosmetic grandstanding solutions and ill thought out conferences do more harm than good to a process, which requires, above all, even-handedness."
Addressing an audience of businessmen at a fundraising breakfast for Norwood, a leading Jewish child and family care organisation, he added: "Israel's fight against terror deserves support. It is no good the Foreign Office fiddling with pointless conferences, while suicide bombers are malignantly burning their way through Israel.
"We welcome any initiative that can promote a resumption of dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However, the Prime Minister and his conference, which ended this week, I believe, offer little hope."
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