Op-Ed: Funded by the EU, Palestinians Abuse the Environment and Erase Jewish History
This is Part 4 of a 10-part series exposing the underreported joint European and Palestinian program to bypass international law and establish a de facto Palestinian state on Israeli land.
Neither the Palestinians nor the Europeans have any interest in lasting peace with Israel, which presumes an atmosphere of cooperation and direct negotiations. Some even consider the illegal takeover of land by the Palestinian Authority a bigger national security threat to Israel than Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and even Iran.
“Unfortunately, many other high-ranking officers from the Israeli defense establishment don’t understand,” says Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, founder of the Israeli organization HaBithonistim.
“We are not treating this situation as a state of emergency, even though it’s crystal clear that the Palestinian Authority is an enemy, and a dangerous one at that, even apart from its funding of terror and inciting hatred in education.”
James Carver, a former member of the European Parliament and of the European Union Committee on Foreign Affairs, is one of the few parliamentarians who agrees.
In 2016, he called out the EU for its obsessive meddling in Israeli affairs in a Times of Israel article: “The EU professes to support a lasting Middle East peace settlement, yet I’ve highlighted both EU funding of the [Palestine Liberation Organization], which pays salaries to murderers, as well as how EU funding of illegal Palestinian buildings in Area C, is in breach of the Oslo accords, thus acting as an obstacle to peace and expunging any pretense of the EU being an honest broker.”
Carver spoke out about this issue when he was a parliamentarian in 2014. In diluting Israeli sovereignty, argued Carver, the EU is only creating further conflict, because those who genuinely support a two-state solution would never actively work to undermine either of those states.
Especially troubled by the fact that Europeans are building in nature reserves, he asserts, “It’s very hypocritical that the European Union claimed to be environmental champions but seemed to be quite happy to illegally put up buildings with their logo and develop settlements in nature reserves. Can you imagine the audacity of the European Union to believe they can violate legal facts? They’ve got skin as thick as a rhinoceros. They genuinely believe they can carry on with this, carte blanche.”
Indeed, there is massive, ongoing European-supported construction in nature reserves that were internationally mandated as no-construction zones in the Wye Plantation Accords, an agreement that concluded the Oslo division of territory.
Regavim, an Israeli NGO and public movement dedicated to the protection of Israel’s national lands and resources, has been mapping illegal Palestinian construction and land seizures for over a decade using archival material, land deeds and official documents, historic photographs, up-to-date aerial and drone photography, and GIS maps.
Its legal department often petitions the courts to compel the Israeli authorities to act against instances of environmental abuse by Palestinians. For example, illegal construction often produces illegal junkyards, which ignore regulations and requirements.
In many instances, Regavim has also petitioned against illegal construction on archaeological sites, a method by which the PA achieves two goals simultaneously: taking over territory and erasing the physical remains that attest to the Jewish historical connection to the land.
Israel previously carved out nature reserves around some archaeological sites in order to protect them. These are the most sought-after work sites as far as the PA is concerned, and the Europeans are full-fledged partners in this crime against history, the environment and international law.
In fact, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been known to partner with the PA, and it actually plowed over the royal city of Shomron (Sebastia), which was the seat of the Israelite kingdom and one of the largest, most important archaeological sites in the area.
Part 5 can be read here.
Part 3 can be read here.
Part 2 can be read here.
Part 1 can be read here.
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