The EU has investigated whether money it gave the Palestinian authority was used to fund mass murder and hate-based education against the Jews. Surprise surprise, it has given itself a clean bill of health. As Ha'aretz reports:

'The EU is the biggest donor to the Palestinian Authority. Alleged misuse of the funds has also prompted a probe by the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF. The parliamentary inquiry looked at monies handed out from the end of 2000 to the end of 2002. The parliamentary committee met Palestinian officials during the course of its probe. It also looked at documents handed over by the Israeli army and intelligence, which both alleged that EU financial assistance was diverted to finance terrorism."There is no conclusive evidence, to date, that the EU non-targeted direct budgetary support was used to finance illegal activities, including the financing of terrorism," said the draft report adopted by the committee of inquiry.'

This farcical exoneration of itself raises, however, a set of extremely troubling questions about the integrity of the whole exercise, as the website EU Funding.org reports:

'The very manner in which the Working Group was set up raised serious questions. Some MEPs, referring to the lack of clear powers and authority, claimed there had been a 'whitewash' and that the Working Group would inevitably protect those EC officials and committees who had been responsible for the ongoing flow of funds to the Palestinian political leadership even in the face of mounting evidence of misuse. There were also concerns that, as constituted, the Working Group would be influenced by a perceived need to protect EC officials from the threat of civil litigation by European victims of Palestinian terror.'

But don't worry -- in the next breath the EU shows us the fine, principled moral reasoning which causes it to reach such conclusions. For having cleared itself of funding mass murder, it then condemns the victims of this mass murder for having the audacity to attempt to defend themselves:

'The European Parliament on Thursday compared injuries to Palestinians by Israeli military action to "acts of terror," and called for a suspension of the Israel-EU Association Agreement, should Israel persist with its policy of assassinations.'

So there you have it. In EU-land, the funding of terrorism is called humanitarian aid, while self-preservation against mass murder is called terrorism. Thus the continent of undying Jew-hatred refines the oldest hatred once again.