Norway’s Foreign Minister Borge Brende has urged a Palestinian youth center built with Norwegian funding to return this money after it learned that the center was named after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who took part one of the worst terrorist attacks in Israel in 1978 that killed 37 civilians, including many children.

"The glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms. Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way... We have asked for the logo of the Norwegian representation office to be removed from the building immediately, and for the funding that has been allocated to the centre to be repaid," the Norwegian foreign ministry said.

'The glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms. Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way. We will not accept the use of Norwegian aid funding for such purposes,'’said Borge Brende.

The Foreign Minister added that before Norway funds new projects, new procedures must be in place to prevent this from happening again:

"'We will not enter into any new agreements with either the Palestinian Election Commission or UN Women in Palestinian areas until satisfactory procedures are in place to ensure that nothing of this nature happens again,' said [Foreign Minister] Mr Brende."

The UN, which has also funded the center, also dissociated itself from it, rejecting the choice of name as "wrong and unacceptable":

UN Assistant Secretary General for Development and Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine, Robert Piper declared: "The United Nations support for this center ended last year. The inauguration of the center took place a few weeks ago, well after the UN association with it concluded. The name chosen by the community center is wrong and unacceptable. The UN Women logo should not be associated with it and it will be removed immediately."

The swift actions by Norway and the UN followed the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) exposure of the many examples of Palestinian Authority (PA) misuse of foreign funding.

In March, the German Olympic Sports Federation canceled a funding agreement worth €400,000 with the Palestinian Football Association, in response to PMW's report exposing that Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Palestinian Football Association, was an active promoter of terror.

In response to PMW exposing that the PA pays salaries to terrorist prisoners and families of so-called Martyrs, the United States Congress is considering the proposed Taylor Force Act, which would cut off all funding to the PA if it continues rewarding terror. The Israeli Parliament is likewise considering the proposal to deduct from tax money that Israel collects for the PA, the amount that it pays to prisoners and families of terrorist Martyrs.

According to PMW, there has been a drop of 70% in funding to the PA (hundreds of millions of dollars) since the watchdog group first exposed in 2011 that the PA pays salaries to terrorists. The PA itself attributed this in part to the international campaign led by PMW criticizing the PA's payments of salaries to terrorists.

EJP