(JNS) Melanie Phillips - Last week, Israel's Channel 13 revealed a document drafted by the European Commission which proposed helping the Palestinian Authority secretly take control of land in Area C of the disputed territories - which is supposed to be under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords. As Gush Etzion Council Head Shlomo Ne'eman has said: "Every week the State of Israel loses large areas, every day dozens of illegal homes are erected, roads are bulldozed and paved at significant points as part of an organized strategic plan. European governments are actively working to revise the borders of our country." As international law Professor Eugene Kontorovich has observed, the Palestinian Authority and the EU are rapidly annexing areas surrounding Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. "The proposed policies of the [new Israeli government] coalition in Area C are not about changing the status quo - they are the bare minimum to preserve it," he said. Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry, wrote for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that an EU directive to mobilize and activate "national and international stakeholders through ad-hoc influencing actions on land rights to challenge the Israeli planning and permit regime in Area C" was deliberately encouraging the Palestinians to defy and undermine Israel's authority there, which runs counter to the Oslo Accords. "The EU cannot maintain the status of 'witness' to the Oslo Accords while at the same time systematically undermining those Accords and encouraging the Palestinians to violate them," Baker wrote. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.
2022-12-26 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive