The European Parliament in session. Photo: www.sikhsiyasat.net.

Palestinians for Dignity (PFD), a West Bank youth group, protested the European Union’s recent upgrade of trade and diplomatic relations in more than 60 areas with Israel.

“Barring meaningful action [to reverse the upgrade] the Palestinian youth movement will organize to protest the latest manifestation of EU complicity and to challenge its presence and operations in Palestine…This latest move by the EU is nothing less than outrageous… this duplicitous behavior epitomizes the reasons why the Palestinian people have no faith in the EU,” PFD said in a statement published by the Ma’an news agency.

The youth group chastised the EU despite the fact that the European body is “the largest provider of economic assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA),” Shoshana Bryen noted in an op-ed for American Thinker, adding that the Palestinians protested “not for the benefit of the Palestinian people, but to demand that Israel be slapped.”

PFD’s critique of the EU, a critical source of funds for Palestinians, comes amid presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent comments crediting Israeli culture as the reason the country has more economic success than PA-controlled areas.