by David M. Weinberg
Civil Administration data, presented last year to the Knesset's subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, showed that 6,500 Palestinians were living in some 1,220 illegally built homes in the area, and the number undoubtedly has grown since then – thanks to the EU.
You
see, boycotts of Israeli products from Judea and Samaria no longer
satisfy Brussels. Ramping up its confrontation with Israel, the European
Union has gone into the business of establishing "settlements" for the
Bedouin and Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, tower-and-stockade style.
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.
The IDF defines the area in question as 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, presented last
year to the Knesset's subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, showed that
6,500 Palestinians were living in some 1,220 illegally built homes in
the area, and the number undoubtedly has grown since then – thanks to
the EU.
The imperious EU has poured perhaps 100
million € 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
inspectors of the IDF's Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories (COGAT). Then, they 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 graduated from passive diplomatic and financial
assistance to subversive participation in the Palestinian Authority's
illegal construction ventures. The explicit EU intent is to erode
Israeli control of Area C and east Jerusalem while promoting Palestinian
territorial continuity leading to runaway Palestinian statehood.
In June and August, the EU fiercely warned
COGAT that Israel's policy of demolishing illegal and unauthorized
Palestinian construction is harming ties between Israel and the
28-member EU countries.
According to Le Monde, eight EU member
states this week took the further, unprecedented move of penning a
letter to the Israeli Foreign Ministry demanding that Jerusalem
reimburse (!) EU countries for the dismantling of infrastructures in the
West Bank such as solar panels and mobile homes that were slated to
serve innocent "local Arab schools."
Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden – members of the so-called "West Bank
Protection Consortium," a body that coordinates "humanitarian
assistance" to Bedouin and Palestinian squatters in Area C – are now
demanding that Israel pay them compensation of more than 30,000 € each.
Such mind-boggling chutzpah! First the EU
builds illegal settlements in defiance of Israel, then it demands that
Israel pay for these offenses when Israel acts against them. How much
more contemptuous can you get than that?
The European position is that under the
Geneva Convention Israel is responsible for dealing with the everyday
needs of the Palestinian population in Area C, and since it is "not
doing so," the European states are stepping in with humanitarian aid.
But it's clear to anybody with a brain that European activity in Area C
is not "humanitarian assistance" but political activity that brazenly
seeks to create facts on the ground – to strengthen the Palestinians'
hold on Area C.
In doing so, the EU has thrown key
cornerstones of peace diplomacy out the window. "Not prejudging the
outcome of negotiations," and "direct negotiations between the parties
without coercion" – are principles that no longer hold sway, at least as
far as EU pampering of the Palestinians is concerned. Instead,
collusion with Palestinians and defiance of Israel is in vogue.
The EU superciliously ignores the fact that
the Palestinian Authority has rejected Israeli offers three times
(2000, 2001, and 2008) which would have given it statehood, including
possession of almost all the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem. It also
fled from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's talks in 2014, and has
sought to grab international recognition of its "statehood"
unilaterally, while demonizing and criminalizing Israel in international
courts.
Then the Palestinians revel in useless
peace confabs, like the conference that Paris convened last summer,
because this diverts attention from their intransigence and heightens
Israel's diplomatic isolation without actually brokering a peace
negotiation that the PA doesn't want.
But none of this bothers the EU. It's just
happy to push Israel toward essentially unilateral withdrawals – without
any expectations of real moderation from the Palestinians.
Israel shouldn't pay the EU one red cent in "compensation" for its confiscated, cheeky solar panels.
In-your-face EU diplomacy should be met
with in-your-face Israeli diplomacy. Perhaps Israel should demand
compensation from Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,
Spain and Sweden for the Jews persecuted, the Jewish property
confiscated, and the synagogues destroyed in their territories over the
past 2,000 years.
And if our government idiotically dares to
settle with the EU, and shells out a single shekel, I am going to
withhold paying my taxes in protest.
David M. Weinberg (www.davidmweinberg.com) is vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/mind-blowing-eu-chutzpah/
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