The British government has decided to review Palestinian financial aid after it was alleged some of the funds are paying the ‘salaries of terrorists’. This takes place at the time as the US has promised to give Israel the “largest military aid package in history,” RT reported.
Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) stated that it is reviewing its aid package to the Palestinian ‘territories’ as it considers “how best to support” a two-state solution in the region.
However, controversy was sparked by pro-Israel MPs in the British Parliament who criticized the DfID for ignoring allegations that UK aid money is falling into the wrong hands, reported RT.
Britain reviews aid to #Palestine days after #US pledges $40bn to Israel — RT UK https://t.co/HqomkeaVkf pic.twitter.com/E9ZrszdxEy
— al whit (@soitiz) June 10, 2016
Chairperson of the Labour Friends of Israel said that the DfID “is the department which was showing amazing nonchalance in the face of the serious allegations that the Palestinian Authority is deceiving international donors and, in fact, continuing to effectively pay salaries to convicted Palestinian terrorists.”
Eric Pickles, chair of Conservative Friends of Israel, said he has put pressure on the DfID to fund “more on projects that are committed to peace”.
The British aid review comes as the United States pledged to significantly increase its military assistance to Israel.
US National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, criticized Tel Aviv for its continued expansion into the Occupied Palestinian Territories and for attacks on the Arab population, yet simultaneously pledged the largest aid package in US history: “We are prepared to sign the single largest military assistance package with any country in history,” Rice said in an interview with US Jewish weekly, Forward.
She added that Israel receives “more than half the US’s entire foreign military assistance budget.”
The unfinished aid agreement is expected to provide Israel with almost $40 billion in military assistance beginning in 2019.
(RT, PC)
