How the EU Is Undermining International Law in the West Bank

The 1995 agreement known as Oslo II divided the West Bank into three parts: Area A, to be administered directly by the Palestinian Authority (PA); Area B, to be administered jointly by the PA and Israel; and Area C, to be controlled directly by Israel pending further negotiations. In July, the European Union’s mission in eastern Jerusalem produced a document, recently leaked to the press, stating the EU’s commitment “to contribute to building a Palestinian State within 1967 borders,” and outlining a program to build Palestinian settlements in Area C even where not authorized to do so by Israeli law. Jenny Aharon writes:

The EU . . . insists that its positions are based on meticulous compliance with international law, its own laws and charter, and also the Oslo Accords. This claim is surely [belied] by the leaked document in which we can see an activist EU striving to help the Palestinians take over Area C, the very area that is designated to Israel’s control per the Oslo Accords preliminary agreement which the EU claims to uphold.

The claim [made by the EU] is that the construction is meant for humanitarian ends and is not politically motivated. Yet the EU construction takes place in locations that are highly sensitive, precisely for the purpose of creating new facts on the ground and preparing the area for a Palestinian takeover without any final peace agreement.

Oftentimes the political motivation [of EU-funded construction projects] is obvious, as it is conducted without permits and in such places where Israel has no choice but to demolish it—for example, a school adjacent to a dangerous highway or in places where there are no facilities and thus are not considered habitable environments. The political motivation becomes even more obvious as the document explicitly states the EU’s plan to curb Israel’s archeological activities in order to minimize the Jewish connection to the land.

Moreover, the EU does not seem to consider building in Area A and Area B where all they would need is a permit from the Palestinian Authority. Apparently, in those areas, there is no need for humanitarian aid at all.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: European Union, International Law, Oslo Accords, West Bank

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society