by David M. Weinberg
The brazen EU intervention in E1 has reached extreme heights of chutzpah.
The European Union is
on the rampage. Every Monday and Thursday it has taken to shelling out
threats to downgrade diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, unless
Israel does this or desists from doing that.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also acting foreign minister, should rebuff the escalating European intimidation.
This week the EU hit
Israel with a double whammy. First, it fiercely warned the Coordinator
of Government Activities in the Territories that Israel's policy of
demolishing illegal and unauthorized Palestinian construction is harming
ties between Israel and the 28-member EU.
This includes the wild
Bedouin building spurt that the EU has insolently funded in the
strategic E1 quadrant between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, in entirely
purposeful defiance of Israel.
And today in Paris, EU
foreign ministers led by France intend to promulgate "parameters" for a
solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which will again likely
move the international markers in directions favorable to the
Palestinians, while threatening Israel with deadlines for compliance.
The brazen EU intervention in E1 has reached extreme heights of chutzpah.
The IDF defines the
area in question a pivotal part of Israel's strategic depth, and
essential to "defensible borders" for Israel. It is also Area C under
the Oslo Accords, which means that Israel holds exclusive civilian and
military control.
Yet illegally
established Palestinian villages and Bedouin shantytowns have slowly
closed the corridor between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, where a major
highway runs, crawling to within several meters from it. These illegal
outposts steal electricity from the highway lights and water from
Israeli pipelines.
Civil Administration
data, recently presented to the Knesset's subcommittee on Judea and
Samaria, shows that 6,500 Palestinians currently live in some 1,220
illegally built homes in the area, and that this number is growing
weekly.
Enter the imperious EU.
Boycotts of Israeli products no longer satisfy the bullies of Brussels.
Ramping up their confrontation with Israel, they have gone into the
business of establishing "settlements" for the Bedouin and Palestinians
in this area, tower and stockade style.
The EU has poured
perhaps 100 million euros into EU-emblazoned prefabs, EU-signed roads,
and water and energy installations -- in E1, in Gush Etzion, near Tekoa,
in the South Hebron Hills, and even in the Negev.
Under the cover of
diplomatic immunity, the EU's settlement-building bosses audaciously
thumb their noses at COGAT inspectors, then scream bloody murder when
the IDF moves in, ever so minimally (far too meekly and infrequently, I
think) to knock back a few of the most provocatively and problematically
positioned EU illegal outposts.
Note that every Israeli
prime minister since Yitzhak Rabin has promised and intended to build
in the E1 quadrant as the eastern strategic anchor for Jerusalem and its
critical connection to the Jordan Valley, only to be stymied by
international protests.
In short, the EU's
support of the Palestinians has subversively graduated from passive
diplomatic and financial assistance to seditious participation in the
Palestinian Authority's illegal construction ventures. The explicit
intent is to erode Israeli control of Areas C and eastern Jerusalem
while promoting Palestinian territorial continuity.
The EU even has
extended its deep concern for Arab land rights, and outrageous
interference in Israeli planning matters, to the Negev and Galilee, as
detailed in the shocking 2014 book "Catch the Jew!" by German-Israeli
author Tuvia Tenenbom.
The writer captured
ugly scents of ardent anti-Semitism and furious opposition to any
Zionist presence in Palestine in his interviews of EU and European NGO
officials who are enabling the Palestinian, Bedouin and Israeli Arab
land wars against Israel.
The book is required
reading, in Hebrew or English. But brace yourself: It unveils a violent,
wicked world of official Israel bashers.
As for today's Paris peace conference: The old cornerstones of peace diplomacy are out the window.
"Not prejudging the
outcome of negotiations" and "direct negotiations between the parties
without coercion" are principles that no longer hold sway. Dictating
impatiently to Israel is in vogue.
that the Palestinians
rejected offers three times recently -- in 2000, 2001, and 2008 -- which
would have given them statehood, including possession of almost all of
the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem. They also fled from U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry's talks in 2014.
They are thrilled with
the Paris confab because it diverts attention from their intransigence
and heightens Israel's diplomatic isolation without actually brokering a
peace negotiation that they do not want.
But none of this
relevant experience bothers the EU. It's just happy to gang up on Israel
yet again, and push Israel towards essentially unilateral withdrawals
-- without any real expectations of moderation from the Palestinians.
Perhaps that is because
the EU has been the PA's bighearted sugar daddy; the deepest honeypot
the Palestinians could ever hope for. And as Shareholder No. 1 in the
PA, the EU is finding it hard to accept that there is little Palestinian
maturity or good governance to show for all that investment.
David M. Weinberg
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16301
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment