Illegal Arab construction funded by the EU
Illegal Arab construction funded by the EURegavim

Following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's orders on Sunday night to suspend diplomatic contact with the European Union (EU), an NGO has called to destroy the illegal Arab settlements funded by the EU.

Netanyahu's orders were a response to the EU decision to label Jewish products from over the 1949 Armistice lines - Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The move is to be in affect until the Foreign Ministry completes a reassessment of ties with the EU vis-a-vis the political process with the Palestinian Arabs.

The Regavim movement for Jewish land rights called on Netanyahu to go a step further, and enforce building laws by demolishing the illegal Arab buildings in Judea and Samaria that are funded directly by the EU.

Regavim noted how in recent years it has documented massive illegal Arab construction funded by the EU in Area C of Judea and Samaria, a group of regions defined in the 1994 Oslo Accords as being under full Israeli control.

According to official documents, since 2009 the EU has built hundreds of residential structures mostly in the environs of Ma'ale Adumim to the east of Jerusalem.

The EU has been funding illegal projects to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros as part of its support to the Palestinian Authority (PA), despite the fact that such construction is illegal both according to Israeli and international law, and breaches international agreements such as the Oslo Accords - which the EU is itself a signatory to.

"On the one hand the European Union is labeling Israeli products in a way that recalls dark periods of history, and on the other it is building illegally on an incredible scale, while continuing to hold Israel and its laws in contempt," read a statement from Regavim.

"The hypocrisy is double here, and the time has come to stop it," it continued. "The legal authorities must conduct clear and direct enforcement against the phenomenon."

The EU labeling move has been strongly condemned by Israel, particularly as the EU has made no such move in roughly 200 other cases of territorial disputes worldwide, instead solely singling out the Jewish state.

Netanyahu's new order specifically targets EU institutions, although diplomatic contact with member states of the EU continues on an individual basis.