EU Outraged That Israel Razed Illegal School It Funded

On May 7, Israel razed a school that had been illegally built by the Palestinians on land in Area C of the West Bank. In accordance with the 1995 Oslo II Accords, some may need to be reminded, the West Bank (a.k.a. Judea and Samaria) was divided into three administrative zones: Area A (18%), where the Palestinian Authority (PA) administers civil and security matters; Area B (22%), where the PA administers only civil matters; and Area C (60%) where Israel maintains full control.

In Area C, no building can be put up without the permission of Israel. When the Palestinians put up the Jab Zeeb school in 2017, that was paid for with funds from the EU, they did so without that permission. That is, the school was an illegal structure. The Palestinians were hoping that because the school was paid for by the EU, Israel would be most reluctant to enforce its own law and tear it down, for it would be taken by the EU as an affront. They were right, for a time, but in the end, after an Israeli court upheld Israel’s right to demolish the building, the demolition took place. The new, no-nonsense government in Jerusalem realized that if it let this illegal structure stand for fear of offending the EU, then there would be still more such illegal structures built in Area C, as the Palestinians are constantly trying to assert control over territory to which they have no claim under the Oslo II Accords, through this program of illegal building.

Because it had funded the school for 60 students, instead of being embarrassed that it had financed an illegal structure, the EU had the gall to has express its deep disapproval of Israel upholding its rights in Area C. More on the Israeli move, and on the EU’s angry response, can be found here: “Israel razes EU-funded Palestinian school near Bethlehem,” by Canaan Lidor, Times of Israel, May 7, 2023:

Israeli authorities on Sunday demolished a building that housed a European Union-funded Palestinian school near Bethlehem, prompting protests by the Palestinian Authority and European Union.

Israeli Civil Administration engineers razed the structure, which Palestinians constructed in 2017 without a permit in the Herodium national park in the West Bank….

The school was “constructed without a permit,” that is, illegally, hence Israel was fully within its rights to raze the structure built in Area C. Still worse, the school was built in the protected land of the Herodium National Park, where no new buildings, either by Israelis or Palestinians, are to be constructed. What would the American government do if Elon Musk, without asking the Federal government’s permission, were to build a Tesla plant in the middle of Yellowstone National Park?

An entirely separate reason for the demolition of the school was that it was “a safety hazard at risk of imminent collapse.” Schoolchildren attending it were in danger for their lives. To the Palestinians, it was more important to keep the structure standing and in use than to safeguard the lives of the children. Imagine, however, that the school had collapsed and children had died. The world would, of course, have blamed not the Palestinians but Israel, for not having made, or allowed the Palestinians to make, the necessary structural repairs.

Regavim, a nonprofit organization that says it is “dedicated to the protection of Israel’s national lands and resources,” and has conducted a five-year legal fight to bring about the demolition of the building, said in a statement that it was “one of 100 illegal schools throughout Area C of the West Bank that are used cynically to cement the Palestinian hold on open areas.”

The Palestinians, in complete violation of the Oslo II Accords, keep building everywhere they can in Area C. They put up buildings faster than the Israelis can go through the complicated legal procedures needed to obtain permission to raze an illegal structure. They keep trying to effectuate land grabs in Area C, by putting up the kind of structures that will make Israel seem heartless if it razes them, especially schools. And it is even better if the Palestinians can involve outside actors, like the EU, inveigling them to pay for, and thus have a stake in the continued existence of, illegal buildings in Area C.

On social networks, the Office of the EU Representative in the West Bank and Gaza Strip protested the demolition near the village of Jubbet Ad Dhib, which the EU said it had funded.

The EU thinks that because it funded the school, knowingly helping the Palestinians to violate Israeli law, it now has some sort of right to interfere with the workings of the Israeli court that approved the razing of the school. The EU assumes it has a right to ignore the Oslo II Accords, and what’s more, to overlook the fact that the school it funded was built in one of Israel’s precious nature reserves.

Shocked by the news about the demolition of the EU-funded Jab Zeeb school by the Israeli authorities. Over 60 Palestinian children will be affected by this,” an EU spokesperson wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.

“Shocked” is a word better applied to Israelis. It is they who should be “shocked” that the EU presumes to tell Israel what it can and cannot do in Area C of the West Bank, and among the things it “cannot” do, according to the EU, is to raze the illegal structures the Palestinians keep putting up in violation of the Oslo II Accords.

“Demolition is illegal under international law, and children’s right to education must be respected. Israel must stop all demolition and evacuation operations that will only further the suffering of the Palestinian population and escalate an already tense environment,” the statement read.

This is nonsense. The demolition of an illegal structure cannot itself be illegal. Or does the EU now wish to argue that the Palestinians have a right to build without an Israeli permit in the very territory where they were expressly forbidden from building without such a permit? The relevant “international law” is that of the Oslo II Accords, which clearly give Israel the sole right to decide what buildings will be erected in Area C. As for that supposedly touching mention of “the [Palestinian] children’s right to education” — well, Israel is not preventing the Palestinian Authority from building as many schools as it needs in Areas A and B. No one is being “deprived of an education.” And since the EU mentions its deep concern with Palestinian education, perhaps now would be a good time to ask how it is doing with insuring that the Palestinian textbooks are cleansed of their antisemitic filth, something the PA keeps promising the EU and other donors it will do, but somehow never does.

The Palestinian Education Ministry called the demolition “a heinous crime,” adding: “These practices fall within the framework of the occupying regime’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian educational sector, targeting students, teachers and educational institutions in complete disregard of international conventions and principles.”

Israel is not “targeting students, teachers, and educational institutions.” It intends to raze any structure that was built illegally in Area C — housing, sports arenas, shops.

Shlomo Ne’eman, head of the Yesha Council umbrella organization representing local authorities in West Bank settlements, said in a statement: “We welcome the enforcement but regret the absurd reality in which the court, through a petition of civil society organizations, needs to instruct the state and its enforcement mechanisms to fulfill their duties. This is a tiny part of our unwavering struggle for our national lands. Much work remains to be done.”

Israel should reply firmly to the EU’s criticism. To wit: the Jab Zeeb school was built in Area C of the West Bank, where all buildings require an Israeli government permit. No such permit was asked for, or given. Hence the school building was illegal, as the Palestinians, and the EU, knew perfectly well at the time they began the project. Israel had a perfect right to raze an illegal structure; it is the EU that should explain what gave it the right to ignore Israel’s complete control of Area C, as set out in the Oslo II Accords. Furthermore, still more outrageous on the EU’s part was that the site chosen for the school was inside the Herodium nature preserve, where there is to be no new building by anyone, Israeli or Palestinian. Finally, the school itself was in danger of imminent collapse, that could have injured or killed many of the Palestinian schoolchildren attending it. Israel had not just a right but a positive duty, quite apart from the illegality of the structure, to demolish it so as to prevent a disaster.