The Anti-Defamation League has condemned the decision by the European Union to boycott Israeli entities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, including areas in Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem. The decision, due to be implemented this Friday, bans all cooperation with any Israeli institution located in areas restored to the Jewish State following the 1967 Six Day War. The ADL said in its statement the EU decision gave the Palestinian Authority a “free pass” on preconditions to final status talks with Israel. ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman fired off a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday, stating, “President [Mahmoud] Abbas has blocked the [peace] process with his preconditions, so who does the EU pressure? Israel. Who gets a free pass? The Palestinians.” Foxman called on the EU to end its “long-standing habit of not holding the Palestinian Authority responsible for its actions and inactions that are unequivocally obstacles to peace,” and reminded Ashton that in fact, risks to peace were an issue long before the establishment of communities in the region. “Successive Israeli governments from the start of the peace process, including the current one, have maintained that construction beyond the ‘Green Line’ does not contradict the Israeli commitment to a negotiated resolution of all the core issues,” Foxman wrote. In the past, numerous communities constructed in disputed areas have been uprooted as a result of negotiated settlements with Arabs for the cause of peace. In 1979, the model Jewish city of Yamit, located in the northeast Sinai Peninsula, was destroyed and its residents forcibly expelled from their homes, in order to hand that region over to Egypt in exchange for the peace treaty signed between Cairo and Jerusalem. Also handed over were hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil wells, air bases, roads and other infrastructure. In 2005, 23 Jewish communities and nearly 10,000 Jews were unilaterally expelled from the Gush Katif region of Gaza and northern Samaria and all Israeli forces withdrawn in deference to the “peace process” by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. All greenhouses and other agricultural structures on the land were turned over to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza for the establishment of new businesses by the Arabs. Instead, the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization and its allies transformed the once-blossoming Jewish businesses and communities into training camps and sites from which to launch terror attacks against southern Israel. They destroyed all the expensive agricultural infrastructure and equipment that was left for the people of the region, and used whatever materials were left to make weapons and missiles to fire at Israeli civilians. Since that time, more than 12,000 short-to-medium range rockets and missiles have been fired from Gaza at southern Israel, and hundreds of Jewish men, women and children have died as a result. Three wars – including two mini-wars launched as counter-terrorist operations in the past five years to silence the constant rocket fire aimed at civilians – have been fought.
