British terror victim to U.K: Are you funding my attackers?
By Art Moore | Jan 14, 2018
Kay Wilson, a British citizen living in Israel, and Kristine Luken, an American, were hiking west of Jerusalem when they were attacked by two members of a Palestinian Authority-based terror cell.
Luken was murdered in the Dec. 18, 2010, attack, and Wilson suffered severe wounds, having been stabbed 13 times, but survived.
Now, Wilson is asking the British Parliament to investigate whether funds the U.K. has provided to the Palestinian Authority are being used to promote terrorism and support jailed terrorists,
reports Israel’s Arutz Sheva.
The answer appears to be yes, as Arutz Sheva notes the Palestinian Authority spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year in stipends and other benefits to jailed terrorists and their families.
Israel’s Defense Ministry found that the PA spent a total of $358 million, or about 7 percent of the PA’s total annual budget, on terrorist stipends last year.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. contributes about $600 million annually to the PA, totaling more than $5.2 billion since 1994.
Recalling the attack outside of Beit Shemesh, Wilson said she “somehow managed to get up – with 13 punctures in my lungs and diaphragm, over 30 broken bones, a crushed sternum, dislocated shoulder.”
“I managed to walk over a mile bound and gagged and barefoot through the forest,” she said.
“That was without a doubt the longest walk of my life – and it was a lonely, lonely walk because I thought I was going to die.”
PA defends payments
Last year, Arutz Sheva noted, PA President Mahmoud Abbas defended payments to terrorists and their families.
“Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary of a Martyr or a prisoner, as I am the president of the entire Palestinian people, including the prisoners, the Martyrs, the injured, the expelled, and the uprooted,” Abbas said.
On his Jihad Watch site, author and Islam expert Robert Spencer said it’s clear that the British government is giving money to terrorists through the PA.
“If the Palestinian Authority is giving any money at all to jihad terrorists, and the U.K. is giving any money at all to the Palestinian Authority, then yes, the U.K. is funding the jihad terrorists who tried to murder Kay Wilson,” he wrote.
Kay said, in a letter to British Member of Parliament Stephen Twigg of the left-leaning Labour Party, said she had evidence the two terrorists responsible for the attack have received more than $12,000 each from the PA.
Twigg is chairman of Parliament’s international development committee.
The PA, Wilson pointed out in the letter, also was a beneficiary of Britain’s Department of International Development, which provides part of the nearly $700 million the PA receives in foreign aid each year.
Wilson argued that in the past, the Department of International Development “has suspended aid packages when evidence has emerged of taxpayers’ money being misspent or on the discovery of unacceptable behaviour and the committee has also been swift to investigate when a misuse of funds or malpractice has been highlighted.”
“However, despite the fact that your committee possesses wide-ranging powers to examine DFID’s work you have chosen to ignore the Palestinian Authority’s funding and incitement of terrorism,” she said.
Wilson said there is now “strong evidence that ministers have misled Parliament about how taxpayers’ money is distributed and there is incontestable evidence that the Palestinian Authority misuses aid funds, glorifies terror and prevents much needed development funds reaching those most in need.”
Arutz Sheva said Twigg confirmed receipt of the letter and pledged to “take its contents very seriously.”
However, a spokesman for Department for International Development denied Wilson’s claims, calling them misleading, the Daily Express newspaper of London reported.
“No U.K. aid is used for payments to Palestinian prisoners or their families,” the spokesman said.
Nevertheless, as
WND reported in April 2016, an investigation by Palestinian Media Watch found Palestinian Authority Ministry of Finance documents that showed the PA was secretly continuing to pay “salaries” to convicted terrorists, despite promising in 2014 to stop the payments.
The documents show a transfer of money from the PA to the Palestinian National Fund, the body that funds the Palestinian Liberation Organization, in the amount needed to pay the salaries.
http://www.wnd.com/2018/01/terror-victim-to-u-k-are-you-funding-my-attackers/
