The Middle East peace process initiated with the Oslo Accords has attracted many supporters of which the European Union is pre-eminent, with a financial aid program from the EU and the European Investment Bank amounting to three billion dollars since 1994.

So said Jean Breteche, Representative of the European Union Commission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip who is in effect both Ambassador and administrative officer- coordinator for the E.U. to the Palestinian Authority (a so-called “developing nation” in the terminology of aid programs). What is not widely known is that the EU delegation has become deeply involved in funding Israeli political projects that work closely with the Palestinian Authority.

I spoke with Mr. Breteche at the European Commission headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah Israeli Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem where a number of other Representative Offices and Consulates are to be found, among them the Italian, Swedish and Swiss offices all of which act as liaisons to the nascent Palestinian Authority

Mr. Breteche defined the mandate of the E.U., to “instill humanitarian principles, respect for human rights, and the concepts of a viable democracy”. “The EU in Palestine”, as he designates what Israel considers to be the Palestinian Authority, he says “is working predominantly in two sectors, namely education and health…”. He notes that they yet have a long list of new projects, are by far the most active in supporting development in Gaza, and are now financing many N.G.O’s, including a variety of agencies that are sponsored under the ‘People to People’ program to improve communication between Israelis and Palestinians. Yet among those agencies one finds a list of political organizations that are bonafide grass roots left wing Israeli organizations.

For one, Mr Breteche confirmed that Peace Now has been and will continue to be funded by the EU, and stated that its program would help to create contact between groups of Israeli and Palestinian people. However Peace Now is hardly a social work organization or an institute for reconciliation. Peace Now is a long standing indigenous left wing Israeli organization which has strongly criticized the Oslo process and the Israeli government for not demanding the removal of Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. “Peace Now” takes a political position that Jewish communities beyond the Green Line are the single most important impediment to peace.

In its 1999 report to the European Commission, Peace Now acknowledged that it had used EU funds for a massive program to reach out to new immigrants to bring them to their political demonstrations, and to print up their fliers and pamphlets in several languages.Meanwhile, Peace Now has never addressed itself to the longstanding issues of human rights abuses or, anti-democratic tendencies that permeate the Palestinian Authority, which would most certainly have been within the purview of the EU’s agenda for human rights and democracy.

Meanwhile, EU Commission in Tel Aviv affirms that the Peace Now program “Israeli-Palestinian Peace Campaign” will continue to receives ongoing funds from the EU. The EU is also allocating another 400,000 EURO for MADA, the political organization that supports the Member of Knesset Roman Bronfman, the Russian Israeli legislator who broke from Sharansky’s faction shortly after the May 1999 election. A source at the EU wrote that the EU aims to find ways to encourage newly arrived Russian Jews to participate in the political activities of Israel’s peace movement. When the Peace Now demonstrations are publicized in European media, this in turn influences international public opinion including the EU constituency regarding the settlements, although nowhere in the Declaration of Principles is there made any mention anywhere of restriction of Israeli building beyond the green line.

‘Mr. Breteche also confirmed that the EU has been supporting the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions for the past few years. The record shows that the EU allocated 250,000 Euro (approximately U.S.$221550) to this group. which organizes press campaigns and public demonstrations against the practice of land expropriation and house demolitions by the Israeli Army,. When asked whether there have been any political reactions to the funding Mr. Breteche stated that there have not been. Jeff Halper, the director of the Committee Against House Demolitions, acknowledged the EU funding and noted that his organization operates under an umbrella of about fifteen other political organizations, among them Peace Now. Halper describes the EU as dedicated to “peace education of the Israeli public”. However, Halper has been known to grossly exaggerated Israeli policy in regard to home demolitions. claiming that Israel was set to destroy 6,000 homes in Jerusalem when the number was between 129 and 152. Speaking on March 22 to an interfaith forum, Halper claimed that the bypass roads in the West Bank were restricted to Jews only – a falsfified statement. On a recent lecture tour in the US, Halper described the Israeli government as a Nazi-like regime.

Breteche also confirmed that in the past year the EU had agreed to fund the program the “Four Mothers Movement to leave Lebanon in Peace”.

The program was to have provided a platform for Israeli and Lebanese women to develop further contacts and understandings after a potential Israeli withdrawal.

However, Breteche noted, since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, funding the “four mothers” organization was no longer considered by the EU to be necessary;

In fact, one wonders why the funding of this project was dropped after the IDF withdrawal, since the creation of a peaceful ambience in the border zone was certainly within the mandate of the EU and might have been strongly advantageous to an ultimate true peace.

Breteche confirmed that among other organizations to be funded by the EU Commission are the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), MEILER, Ir Shalem, and Macon Mifne.

The purpose of the CFR project is for ‘Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions’, a project run by Henry Siegman, a man who has made a career out of writing anti Israel op-eds for the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. Breteche referred to Seigman’s latest report to the EU which criticized the P.A, but was vague about whether.it would be ever be publicized.

Bretheche confirmed that the EU has also helping to finance the Tel Aviv based MEILER, The Middle East Center for Legal and Economic Research which surveys Palestinian refugee real estate holdings throughout Israel.

The project provides precise identification of pre-1948 Arab holdings throughout Israel, working with a supercomputer funded by the EU and situated at the Orient House, designed to help Arabs who live in refugee camps to establish their claims for compensation for property lost in 1948 from 531 Arab villages.

However, a visit to the Orient House clarified that this is also aiding Arabs in locating, reclaiming, and making actual plans to move back to these villages, even if they have been replaced by Israeli cities, farms and woodlands.

Breteche also noted the EU role in financing the full costs of legal services of “Ir Shalem”, in its program to stop Israeli government expansion in East Jerusalem, and to stop the Israeli eviction order of Palestinian Authority personnel from Orient House, which the Israeli authorities claimed had been functioning as an illegal P.A. “embassy” in Jerusalem.

Breteche confirmed that the EU financed the full cost of the litigation against Israeli building projects throughout East Jerusalem including Har Homa, Ras El Amud at the Mount of Olives, and against the purchase of former Jewish homes in the Moslem quarter of Jerusalem.

Another Israeli grass roots organization of some interest also funded by the EU is Macon Mifne, which defines its tasks as “education for peace and democracy of the Jewish settlers and their right wing supporters within Israel; Yet the founder and operator of Machon Mifne Zvia Greenfield, has made her name by appearing on regular T.V. and radio talk shows, while conducting haranguing, scurrilous attacks on the settlers as the cause of the current Israeli-Palestinian problems. Her capacity for “conflict resolution” and education of settlers seems lacking indeed.

The common thread of each of these native Israeli groups is that they all have been able to get a lion’s share of media attention, mostly outside Israel, with the generous help of the EU.

Dr. Daphne Burdman is a Psychiatric Research Analyst, Jerusalem, Israel

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