WHEN PALESTINIAN suicide bomber Abdel-Basset Odeh, a member of the Hamas military wing known as the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, walked into the Park Hotel in Netanya on the first night of Passover last week and blew himself up along with 20 Israelis, he probably did his own family a service. The pattern in such deadly attacks has been for a network of relief organizations to provide the families of suicide bombers generous stipends, creating an incentive for young Palestinians to martyr themselves and murder Israeli civilians. The money for the martyrs’ families comes from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and sometimes even the United States, as last year’s investigation into the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation revealed. But another source of cash for these operations is charities in Western Europe. And unlike Washington, the European Union has so far been unwilling to freeze assets associated with individuals and organizations connected to leading terrorists operating against Israel. Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and until earlier this year an FBI specialist in tracking the financial assets of terrorists, said Europe remains a problem. “After Iran in the case of Hezbollah, and the Gulf States and Iran in the case of Hamas,” Levitt says, “the third largest market for financing these terrorist organizations is Western Europe and the United States. The United States is now engaged in a proactive effort to dry the well on its own soil. Unfortunately the Europeans are not doing enough.” Since January, American officials have filed dozens of formal diplomatic protests with the European Union and its member states seeking the inclusion of Hezbollah and the humanitarian wing of Hamas on the financial blacklist that is Europe’s equivalent of President Bush’s September 24 executive order barring individuals linked to terrorists from using the U.S. banking system. While the Bush administration has given the European Union high marks for issuing warrants, conducting raids, and freezing assets of individuals and groups linked to al Qaeda, an Atlantic rift is emerging over whether the West’s war on terrorism should extend to organizations that target Israelis. One senior U.S. counterterrorism official working on the issue with the Europeans put it this way: “The credibility of the E.U. effort against financing terrorism is being questioned because they have not taken action against obvious terrorist organizations.” In March, top U.S. counterterrorism experts from the Treasury and State Departments traveled to Brussels for a briefing on recent investigations of Europeans affiliated with Hamas and Hezbollah. According to U.S. and E.U. officials, they reached no resolution on whether European banks should be instructed to freeze the assets of the same entities American banks have targeted since October. When Secretary of State Colin Powell travels to Madrid in April for the E.U.-U.S. summit, he is likely to press his counterparts on this question. E.U. officials cite the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the reason for their inaction. “It is a delicate stage of ongoing peace talks,” says Wilfred Schneider, a spokesman for the European Commission’s delegation in Washington. “There are discussions, there are investigations going on related to a number of foreign terrorist organizations.” In addition, in order for the E.U. to freeze the assets of an individual linked to terrorism, all 15 members of the union must agree. And so far, the French in particular, according to E.U. and U.S. officials, have been reluctant to follow the American lead. The spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry would not say whether his country objected to freezing the assets of organizations and individuals in Europe linked to Hamas and Hezbollah. Stressing the confidentiality of all internal E.U. discussions, Bernard Valero told me, “We are discussing this with our European partners. We don’t have a frozen position, we must listen to everyone.” But Valero added, “The fight against terrorism is a complex process which has to be studied closely, in close cooperation with all the members of the international community.” And there’s the rub. Since the end of the Cold War, the Europeans have opened trade relationships with a number of countries that the United States has written off for their links to terror. Thus, France, Germany, and Italy sell high-powered computers, pharmaceuticals, and oil drilling equipment to Iran, the leading financial, military, and spiritual sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah. While U.S. officials were playing hardball with North Korea last year trying to engage the Hermit Kingdom in serious negotiations about getting out of the ballistic missile business, the E.U. was sending delegates to Pyongyang to discuss warming diplomatic ties. And some of the loudest protests against potential American military action in Iraq are coming from Europe. On the terror-financing front, more clashes are likely between Washington and Brussels. Despite the president’s recent criticism of Israel’s tactics in its own war against terror and his futile attempt to convince Ariel Sharon to allow Yasser Arafat to travel to Beirut for the Arab League summit, his administration is slowly tightening the noose around the chairman of the Palestinian Authority. On March 27, the State Department officially placed the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade on its list of foreign terrorist organizations, making it illegal for Americans to provide material support to another group that has been sending suicide bombers into bar mitzvah celebrations and shopping malls since January. But Al Aksa is, in fact, an offshoot of Tanzim, the militia affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s political party, Fatah. Thus, for the first time (though the administration has yet to say this), the United States has designated a group with direct ties to the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist entity. And many members of Congress are looking to designate Arafat’s personal bodyguards, Force 17, and the entire Fatah militia, as terrorists, too. The E.U. is one of the leading financial sponsors of the Palestinian Authority, and so far it has refused to implicate Arafat or his organization directly in terrorist operations against Israelis. For that matter, the E.U. has been unwilling to freeze the assets even of self-proclaimed suicide bombers–which makes it hard to take Bernard Valero’s words at face value when he says, “We are in complete solidarity with the United States in the field of counterterrorism.” Eli J. Lake is the State Department correspondent for United Press International.
