How £100m of your cash goes to fund terror

MILLIONS of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent promoting terrorism and encouraging young Palestinians to hate the West, it emerged yesterday.

Britain has sent nearly 100m to Palestinian territories Britain has sent nearly £100m to Palestinian territories

Money donated as aid has been used to print textbooks which teach children that "death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers" and that the Iraqi insurgency is a "brave resistance" against Britain and the US, according to a report by the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Last year, Britain sent nearly £100million to the Palestinian territories - more than double what it sent the year before - despite the Government being warned that January that aid money was being spent on promoting terror.

The report, which will be published on Wednesday, found school textbooks encouraging Palestinian children to become suicide bombers were being used in classrooms.

In one book, published by the Palestinian Authority, pupils are taught: "Your enemies seek life while you seek death."

State-owned TV channels and newspapers have also glorified suicide bombers, called for terrorism and urged Palestinians to pick up weapons.

Speaking about Ayat al-Akhras, 18, the youngest Palestinian female suicide bomber, a TV presenter on the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation said: "You and your cause deserve the greatest respect. In our opinion, Ayat is a hero."

On the same network, history professor Adnan Ayash spoke of "the Jewish disease, the Zionist disease, which is a cancerous disease".

The disclosure that taxpayers' money is being used to fund terrorism drew a furious response from across the political and social spectrum yesterday.

Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the Conservative delegation in the European Parliament, who is hosting the launch of the report, said that no more aid money should be sent to the Palestinian territories unless donations were monitored to ensure they were not used to radicalise young people.

"Money has been misspent in the area before and used to buy weapons. This time they may not be using it on bullets and guns, but they are using it to turn the minds of young people towards militancy.

"The indoctrination and propaganda found by the report is extremely militant in its nature and is the opposite of what we should be trying to achieve in the area."

Liberal Democrat spokesman on international development Michael Moore said: "No British aid should fund people who seek to undermine the British, other allies, or the Israeli state."

Former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Lord Janner said: "Children in schools should be taught about peace. I'm very sorry that this is not happening in these schools and British funders must investigate this."

Of the nearly £100million in British aid to the Palestinian territories last year, £63.6million came from the Government's Department for International Development.

Around £35million more was donated as part o f European Union aid.

The report makes a mockery o f claims last year that textbooks encouraging terrorism stopped being used in classrooms after the Annapolis peace conference of November 2007, in which both Palestinians and Israelis pledged to reach a peaceful two-state solution.

Last night Douglas Murray, political commentator and director of think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, said the Government "was absolutely to blame" and had been "spending money like a drunken sailor".

"The British Government had been warned about this before, yet it hasn't bothered checking where it has spent its money. It is madness and wasteful.

"It's not the job of the British taxpayer, during a recession, to send millions of pounds to advocate the murder of our troops in Iraq.

"Hate education has turned these schools into a breeding ground for a new generation who are being radicalised, taught to hate and having their minds poisoned."

A spokesman for the Department of International Development said it would look into the report's claims.

Comments Unavailable

Sorry, we are unable to accept comments about this article at the moment. However, you will find some great articles which you can comment on right now in our Comment section.

Would you like to receive news notifications from Daily Express?