EU relations with Israel sink to new low after aid row

JERUSALEM // As diplomatic incidents go, it was a slap in the face.

A woman working for the French consulate was thrown to the ground by Israeli soldiers as they blocked an aid convoy escorted by mainly European diplomats. The convoy was headed to a demolished Palestinian village in the West Bank.

To avoid a showdown over the incident, the Jerusalem-based diplomat, who struck at least one of the soldiers during the tussle, will leave her post next year.

But the run-in last month underscores the depths to which Europe’s relations with Israel have sunk over Jewish settlements and Israel’s bulldozing of European aid projects for Palestinians, according to diplomats and political observers.

“The frustration with Israel is very high,” said a diplomat posted to the Jerusalem consulate of an EU country.

“It’s difficult to deal normally with a country that consistently violates international law.”

That frustration was made public in July when the EU announced new guidelines that would bar its agencies from aiding or financing Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The measures, to come into effect next year, prompted blistering rebukes from Israeli officials. Since then, Israeli authorities have barred officials working for EU institutions from accessing the Gaza Strip.

The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner – in 2011, their trade totalled nearly US$40 billion (Dh147bn).

The measures are part of a build-up of exasperation that has been years in the making, rooted in the continued construction of settler dwellings in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, said Daniel Levy, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

He said officials in Europe had become increasingly critical of Israel because of fear that further entrenchment of its occupation could render a Palestinian state unfeasible. “They get a map and they see all these settlements and they think: so where exactly is this Palestinian state going to be?” said Mr Levy.

Settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bars occupying powers from moving their citizens on to war-won land, such as the Palestinian territories that Israel captured in the 1967 regional war. More than 500,000 Israeli settlers now live in those areas.

EU sends $600 million (Dh2.2 billion) to Palestinians in the territories each year. That sum, which does not include money also distributed individually by the bloc’s 28 member countries, in part goes to the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority.

The funds are also allocated to development and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and those in an area of the West Bank that falls under direct Israeli administration, known as Area C. The PA has no remit in Area C, Gaza or East Jerusalem.

The European Commission estimates that between 2001 and 2011, Israel destroyed roughly $66m of European-supported development and humanitarian projects in those territories. Much of that destruction occurred during the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, of 2000 and Israel’s three-week war on the Gaza Strip that began in December 2008.

Over the years, Israel has demolished thousands of buildings in what critics describe as a policy of driving Palestinians out of strategically important areas. In many of those cases, Israel flattened buildings for lacking permits – something that Palestinians and aid groups say are practically impossible to obtain.

Such legal issues appear to be the reason behind demolitions in recent years of European-funded projects such as cisterns, animal pens and homes.

According to figures from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs obtained by The National, Israeli forces demolished 54 projects in East Jerusalem and the West Bank that were funded by the EU or the union’s member states from the beginning of the year until June. Last year, it said 79 buildings were destroyed.

Itay Epshtein, a former director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, an non-governmental organisation, said there appeared to have been an uptick in demolitions recently.

“Many of the demolitions I’ve responded to over the years were structures provided by the EU ranging from public buildings, infrastructure, water systems, water pumps, latrines, health clinics and schools.”

The demolitions violate international law, Mr Epshtein and Israeli and international human-rights groups say. But he said diplomats felt constrained by fear of fallout with Israel in responding more vociferously to the demolitions, which have left entire communities homeless.

Several European diplomats expressed concern over Israel’s reaction to the incident last month involving the French cultural attaché in Jerusalem, Marion Fesneau-Castaing.

The EU ambassador reportedly summoned the deputy general for European affairs at Israel’s foreign ministry for an explanation of the incident, during which Israeli troops confiscated about $15,000 of EU-funded tents and supplies.

Witnesses said the soldiers threw stun grenades at the group of European diplomats that escorted the aid to Makhul, a village whose residents were made homeless after Israeli bulldozers levelled it earlier in the month.

The troops also removed Ms Fesneau-Castaing from the aid truck before throwing her on the ground. She was also captured on video striking a soldier.

Israeli officials accused those in the aid convoy of provoking the violence. They said they were investigating whether the European officials involved had violated their diplomatic privilege.

Israeli media reported that after the incident, Israel and France reached an agreement that would terminate Ms Fesneau-Castaing’s posting and have her leave the country at the end year.

“What happened with the French woman gave us pause because of the way it went down,” said a diplomat from an EU member state. “How can you call delivering humanitarian aid a provocation?”

In a statement, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, an arm of Israel’s defence ministry, said an EU representative brought forward unspecified claims during a meeting.

At that meeting, Major General Eitan Dangot also discussed the EU’s “illegal activity” in the territories.

“We emphasize that Israel will continue to act in order to enforce the law in the West Bank, and will not allow any illegal activity, including construction without permits required by law,” the statement said.

It added that the EU aid confiscated at Makhul last month would be returned after payment of a fine and “as long as the union states that it would no longer be used for illegal causes”.

However, another European diplomat scoffed at the latter suggestion and said EU nations were discussing how to improve cooperation in protecting their aid projects against Israel measures.

hnaylor@thenational.ae