Last week, Denmark announced it has frozen $8 million in funding to 24 Palestinian and pro-Palestinian NGOs, amid concerns that the funds were being used to promote terrorism.
Denmark asked for $500,000 earmarked for the NGO, Women’s Affairs Technical Committee to be returned, after it emerged that the organisation recently named a youth centre after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist who killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children.
On Friday, Denmark’s Ambassador to Israel Jesper Vahr tweeted that Denmark “demands money back”.
Last month, Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende strongly condemned the naming of the youth centre after Mughrabi, stating that “Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way”, and that “we will not accept the use of Norwegian aid funding for such purposes”.
He added that “the glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms”.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu thanked Denmark and Norway for withdrawing aid to the NGO, after raising his concerns about the organisation earlier in May.
Palestinian Media Watch found that the centre, near Nablus, bore the logos of the Palestinian Authority (PA), as well as United Nations (UN) Women and the Norwegian Representative Office to the PA.
A UN spokesperson said that the international body had “disassociated itself from the center once it learned the offensive name chosen for it and will take measures to ensure that such incidents do not take place in the future”.
Dalal Mughrabi led the most deadly terror attack in Israel’s history in 1978 when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel’s Coastal Highway, killing 38 civilians, 13 of them children, and wounding over 70. An American photojournalist was killed in the attack.
There are at least three Palestinian schools named after the terrorist, including the Dalal Mughrabi High School for Girls in Gaza and the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School for Girls near Hebron in the West Bank.
Official PA television footage in April 2014 showed a teenage student at a school named after Mughrabi stating that her ambition in life is to follow her lead: “My life’s ambition is to reach the level that the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached”.
The glorification of terrorists in the Palestinian Authority is widespread, with as many as 25 Palestinian schools named after them, sending a clear message to Palestinian children that murderers who target Israeli civilians should be honoured.
