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Europe's Illegal Land-Grab in Judea and Samaria

(Gatestone Institute) Karys Rhea - Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Tuesday Israel's commitment to foil "the Palestinian Authority's scheme to seize land across Judea and Samaria." Most of this vast, lawless land-grab has been energized and financed by the European Union (EU). Israel's complete jurisdiction over Area C of Judea and Samaria, which legally includes building permits, zoning, construction, law enforcement and planning, was recognized and agreed to by the Palestinian leadership and the world in the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s. Yet with direct subsidies and encouragement from the EU, the Palestinian Authority has engineered the unlawful Palestinian takeover of hundreds of thousands of dunams of this land. When the European Union saw that the Israeli leadership was ignoring the illegal construction, they became massively involved, encouraging the Palestinians to build as if there was no Oslo, financing the land-grab with structures labeled "European Union." Together with the PA, the EU developed multiple master plans to build infrastructure, roads, and schools that, when completed, would form an uninterrupted band of Arab territory effectively covering all of Area C. Since 2009, the Europeans have invested up to one billion euros in Area C Palestinian development. If you take a drive through Area C, you will see dozens of Palestinian squatter camps with an EU flag or logo displayed on their structures. The PA has paved over 1,200 miles of new roads, put up thousands of electricity poles, and used agricultural projects to take over Israeli state land. Some 3,500 illegal structures are erected every year in Area C. Today, there are 90,000 illegal structures on 23,000 acres of land. Palestinians have more than enough room to build in Areas A and B, with 63% of that land empty and suitable for construction, but they have the strategic goal of suffocating Israeli towns and villages. Some of the EU-supported construction projects are in nature reserves that were mandated as no-construction zones in the Wye River Memorandum, an agreement that concluded the Oslo Accords' division of the territory.
2025-04-03 00:00:00
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