Six months ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority authorized the purchase of 100 documents from what was originally, and misleadingly, termed the “Afghan Genizah.” Twenty-nine manuscripts from the same collection, obtained three years ago, are currently in the custody of Israel’s national library. Nir Hasson writes (free registration required):

Scholars now know that the source of the manuscripts is not a genizah—[a place for storing discarded manuscripts] like the one found in Cairo—but rather the archive of a Jewish family of traders who lived on the Silk Road in Afghanistan in the 11th century. The head of the family is named in the manuscripts as Abu Nassar ben Daniel, and the family apparently lived in the central-Afghan city of Bamyan. (The city made headlines eleven years ago when the Taliban blew up two huge statues of Buddha there.) The collection of manuscripts came to light a few years later, after the fall of the Taliban. Rumor has it that the collection was found in a cave or deep rock crevice somewhere in Afghanistan, where it had been secreted by its owners about 1,000 ago.

The manuscripts were written in a wide variety of languages—Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian; the last two languages are, respectively, Arabic and Persian written in Hebrew letters. Legal and commercial manuscripts can be found in the collection along with sacred writings and personal letters.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.