EU pledges €6 million more for activities in Area C including illegal buildings

Ma'an reports that the European Union and Denmark have provided about 6 million euros to implement 16 social and service infrastructure projects in Area C.

The funded projects include schools, roads, multi-purpose buildings, water distribution networks, water tanks, and repair of electrical networks.

With this contribution, the total value of the program for this year amounts to 15.2 million euros, funded by the European Union and its member states.

EU funds buildings in Area C that are illegal under existing international agreements during the Oslo process. It justifies this by pretending that those agreements don't apply anymore:

According to the Oslo agreements, Israel was to retain control over law enforcement, planning and construction for an interim period of 5 years ending in 1998. 

But if the EU considers the interim period agreements to not be valid anymore, that means that they should shun cooperating with the Palestinian Authority, whose existence was an integral part of the interim agreement and not meant to be permanent. Yet they work with the PA in deciding where to pour their Area C (and "East Jerusalem) money.

Furthermore, if the EU considers Area C to be occupied by Israel, then zoning and building activities there are the sole responsibility of the occupying power according to international law.

In short, the EU is violating international law no matter which way you look at it.

A recent example is that the EU funded a school, built by the PA, in the middle of the Nahal Macocha Nature Reserve on state land.

The EU justifies its illegal activities by saying things like "While Israel has overall security and administrative responsibility in Area C, under international law Israel also has the obligation to protect and facilitate development for the local population, and to grant unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance. " It also officially considers all of Area C to be "occupied Palestinian territory" even as it says, at the same time, that "unresolved final status issues must be decided through direct negotiations between both parties [which includes] he issues related to borders." 

Somehow, specific parts of the Oslo Accords that the EU doesn't like are considered temporary. Other parts are considered permanent. The armistice lines of 1949 that were never meant to be borders are considered permanent to the EU, and they are considered borders for a non-existent state which magically transitioned from "Jewish homeland" and "British mandate" through an illegal annexation by Jordan to "Palestinian" without anyone being able to point to any legal support for such a transfer of ownership.

No one is saying that the EU cannot petition Israel to allow more Palestinian building in Area C. But the Palestinians are knowingly moving people into the area all the time to assert rights that they don't have, and the EU is considering these squatters to be legal residents that they must support. They are quite aware of this fiction just as they are aware that the buildings they fund violate international law. Yet they claim that they are somehow allowed to do these illegal activities because of some sort of higher "humanitarian imperative" that goes beyond international law. 

There is no humanitarian imperative to set up schools for brand new slipshod and haphazard housing of squatters who just moved there from real homes in Areas A and B.

This is not how international law works. This is politics.

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