"The glorification of terrorist acts is completely unacceptable.." Borge Brende, Norwegian Foreign Minister
BREITBART NEWS NETWORK
Norway Demands Palestinian
Authority Return Funds for Center Named After Infamous Terrorist
Photo Credit: Abbas Momani, AFP/Getty |
TEL AVIV – Norway’s foreign
minister on Friday slammed the Palestinian Authority for using Norweigian
donations to build a women’s center in the West Bank named after a notorious
female terrorist responsible for the deaths of 38 Israelis.
“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,” Norwegian Foreign Minister
Borge Brende said in
a statement.
The women’s center in the West Bank
town of Burka was named after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the terrorists
behind the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre – arguably the most lethal
terror attack in Israel’s history. Mughrabi led several other Fatah terrorists
who hijacked a bus on Israel’s Coastal Road and killed 38 civilians, 13 of them
children, and wounded over 70. The newly opened center carries the logos
of UN Women and the Norwegian Representative Office to the Palestinian
Authority.
According to Israeli monitoring
group Palestinian Media Watch, which first highlighted the scandal, Reem Hajje,
a member of the local village council, noted that the center
“will focus especially on the history of the struggle of Martyr Dalal Mughrabi
and on presenting it to the youth groups, and that it constitutes the beginning
of the launch of enrichment activities regarding the history of the Palestinian
struggle.”
Norwegian Foreign Minister Brende
said he was not informed that the center would be named after Mughrabi and
demanded that all funds provided by Norway be returned and the plaque with the
country’s name taken down.
“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 be repaid,” he said,
adding that his country would no longer fund similar initiatives until it can
ensure the problem will not be repeated.
“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,” he said.
The UN also criticized the name of
the center, but said it had cut funding well before it was opened.
“The United Nations support for
this center ended last year,” said Robert Piper, UN Assistant Secretary General
for Development, in a statement from Jerusalem. “The inauguration of the center
took place a few weeks ago, well after the UN association with it concluded.
The name chosen by the community center is wrong and unacceptable. The UN Women
logo should not be associated with it and it will be removed immediately.”
While Piper did not specifically
mention terrorism, the Norwegian statement was more forthright in that regard.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman
Emmanuel Nahshon commended Norway’s move, saying the country “took the
right step — a tough line against memorializing terrorists is an integral part
of the international effort to eliminate terror. We recommend that the
international community take thorough steps to check where the money it invests
in the PA is going.”
Norway, alongside several other
European countries, provides millions of euros each year to Palestinian NGOs
that are often found to promote incitement to terror.
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