Meir Deutsch stands with several dozen tourists alongside a highway about ten miles east of Jerusalem and counts to six as he looks at a ramshackle Bedouin encampment on the side of a nearby hill.
“Look, you can see six homes and one, two, three bathrooms, all with the sticker of the European Union flag,” he points out. “These homes are totally donated by the European Union. Your relatives living in England, France, and Germany are giving money to build these illegal structures.”
Deutsch, an activist with Regavim, an NGO that aims to “protect national lands and properties and prevent foreign elements from taking over the country’s territorial resources,” has brought these tourists, most of them retirees living in Israel, to see what it claims is an EU-financed attempt by the Palestinian Authority to take over Area “C” — the 60 percent of the West Bank that is designated by the 1993 Oslo Accords to be under both Israeli administrative and security control.
Area “A,” which consists of West Bank cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus and Jenin are under sole Palestinian control (administrative and security), while many of the villages are in Area “B” — under Palestinian administrative control while Israel is responsible for security. The largest designated zone is Area “C,” where 350,000 Israelis live on land acquired in the 1967 war.
Regavim says that in the past two years, the EU has placed more than 500 structures in Area C, mostly mobile homes and bathrooms, in this area east of Jerusalem. The EU says it has no political aims, and is responding to humanitarian needs of the Bedouin who live in this area, many of them eking out a living by grazing sheep and goats.
“This area is part of the occupied Palestinian territories,” EU Representative John Gatt-Rutter told The Media Line. “The Palestinians don’t have access to develop anything there, whether it is economic or purely social. As one of the largest donors and supporters of the Palestinian Authority, we believe they should be given the opportunity to develop their economy in Area C, as in the rest of the West Bank.”
The EU position, like most of the international community, is that the entire West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, should become the future Palestinian state. Some Israeli hardliners, like Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, have called for Israel to annex Area C, a move that would likely spark international outrage.
Most of the structures have stickers with the EU flag of yellow stars on a royal blue background, clearly identifying them. Regavim says they were placed without coordination with the Israeli government, and are therefore illegal.
Gatt-Rutter retorts that Israel, considered to be an occupying power by most of the international community, should be the one providing basic services for the Palestinians who live in this area.
“International law says Israel should provide these services,” he said. “But in the absence of this, we and the international community are forced to come in and provide these services.”
“I have nothing against the EU helping whoever they like to help,” Ari Briggs, Regavim’s director of international development told The Media Line. “But as they do everywhere else in the world, they shouldn’t have a double standard. They should work with Israel for sending out that humanitarian aid.”
He also quotes a leaked EU report on Area C in which the EU writes it is trying to reassert Palestinian control there, a report that EU officials do not deny but would not comment on as it was not supposed to be made public.
Israeli officials say the EU’s building is part of an ongoing dialogue with its officials.
“We are happy to work with the EU on all sorts of projects,” a senior Israeli official told The Media Line on condition of anonymity. “But there has been an attempt by the PA and unfortunately the Europeans have been collaborating with this to ignore Israel and to unilaterally create all sorts of facts on the ground in Area C. It has to be coordinated with us because we have jurisdiction.”
Most of the structures Regavim is referring to lie near an area called “E-1,” near the large Jewish community of Ma’aleh Adumim. Palestinians say that building in E-1 could effectively split the West Bank in half, making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. Israel has built a police station in the area, but has held off on plans for building Jewish homes there.