The European Parliament in Brussels held a special session on Wednesday to discuss the funding provided to the Palestinian Authority, much of which, Israel said, was used to finance monthly stipends convicted terrorists or their families.
The session began with a memorial service to honor Esther Horgen, a French-Israeli woman who was brutally murdered two years ago, near her home on the West Bank.
The ceremony was attended by Horgen's family and the head of the Samaria Regional Council of settlements Yossi Dagan and Israel's ambassador to the EU, Haim Regev.
Dagan called for an immediate halt of the E.U.’s financial support to the PA. “Your money, the taxes collected from hundreds of millions of EU's citizens, was used to encourage the murder of Jews in the State of Israel,” he said.
“The Palestinian Authority transfers half a billion shekels annually to terrorists in Israeli prisons. The more they had killed, the higher the reward, Dagan said. "The despicable terrorist Muhammad Mruh Kabha, who murdered Esther Horgan, receives from you, the European taxpayer, NIS 12,000 ($3,490) per month, six times the average salary in the PA. So I ask you. Does it not pay to kill Jews? Look into the eyes of these orphans. And promise them that you will do everything to stop the madness,” he said.
Horgen’s daughter Abigail plead with the parliament to stop the cycle of killing. and her sister, Odelya said her mother had taught her the that people are either motivated by love or by fear.
The latter, she said "would do nothing including murdering others. Don't fund these people - don't encourage them to resort to violence."
Binyamin Horgen, Esther's husband said he was aware that many in the EU parliament support the Palestinians. "But you must see reality for what it is. There are Israelis and Palestinians who work and live together, peacefully. However, some of the Palestinians do not. They are guided and supported by their leaders in the PA," he said.
European parliamentarians seemed shaken by the notion that they are funding terrorists' salaries.
"We want to express our solidarity with the people of Israel and we condemn in clear terms all forms of terrorism... I am shocked to hear that his murderer will receive, during his lifetime, some four million shekel, from the Palestinian Authority for committing this heinous crime," Dutch MEP, Bert-Jan Ruissen, said
" This is incredibly important, Tomáš Zdechovský, from the Czech Republic said. "We must not tolerate any terror."