Germany urged to review funding to Palestine amid fallout from Holocaust remark

Calls are growing for Germany to review its financial contributions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) after its president, Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of “50 holocausts” against his people.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with his Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid on Thursday to address tensions caused by the Palestinian president’s controversial remarks in Berlin.

His claim — and the failure of Mr Scholz to counter him immediately — has prompted outrage across the political spectrum in Israel and in Germany.

On Thursday, senior German opposition figures suggested the time had come to look again at Berlin contributions to the Abbas administration.

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“I would not greet him any more as a statesman in the chancellery any more; he has gambled that away, and we have to examine the money he receives from Germany and Europe,” said Armin Laschet, a one-time contender for chancellor and now a foreign affairs spokesman of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Berlin supplies about €150 million annually to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), about one-tenth of the total funding, and in June pledged another €113 million.

Germany was also a major contributor to last year’s €317 million bilateral allocation from the EU to the Palestinian Authority.

On German public radio, Mr Laschet recalled long-term concerns — in Brussels, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe — about a lack of control over the distribution and use of the funds sent to the PA in Ramallah.

“We transfer money direct... and much has not arrived where it should: with people living in very precarious situations and total distress, particularly in Gaza,” Mr Laschet told Deutschlandfunk. “The Palestinian Authority needs to realise that it cannot accept millions from Germany and then allow such a performance. At the same time we must ensure that those in particular need of the funding do not suffer as a result.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen travelled to Ramallah in June to announce a restart of EU funding after a two-year suspension.

She said the funding was being released because “all difficulties are gone”, in particular anti-Israeli incitement in Palestinian schoolbooks.

Funding from European countries, including direct support for the PA budget, supports salaries of many civil servants including teachers, doctors, nurses and firefighters. In addition, it helps fund Palestinians seeking treatment in Israeli hospitals.

Critics of the funding say much of it disappears in corrupt payments to members of the PA’s inner circle. On Thursday Israeli forces raided the offices of seven Palestinian non-governmental groups, including in Ramallah, which it classifies as terrorist organisations.

In their telephone call on Thursday Mr Scholz and Mr Lapid agreed to hold a meeting in the near future in Berlin. A German government spokesman said the chancellor emphasised in the call that he strongly condemned any attempt to deny or relativise the Holocaust. The statements made by Mr Abbas in the chancellery were “intolerable and completely unacceptable for [Scholz] personally and for the entire federal government”.

The chancellor insisted that every federal government has the responsibility to keep alive the memory of the “rupture of civilisation” caused by the Shoah.