Israeli leftists and activists shed no tears when they heard that eight European states are demanding that Israel pay them for destroying facilities they had donated to Palestinians in the West Bank. The member states of the West Bank Protection Consortium — Belgium, France, Spain, Sweden, Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland and Denmark — are demanding 30,000 euros for solar panels and caravans used as classrooms. In a letter of reprimand to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the group wrote that the destruction and/or seizure of humanitarian aid violates Israel’s commitments under international law and causes suffering to Palestinian residents. Israel has full control of Area C, but is shirking its basic responsibility toward tens of thousands of Palestinians hemmed in by Israeli settlement outposts in the Hebron Hills region and the Israeli army’s training areas in the Jordan Valley.

Israel openly does all it can to force the Palestinians out of the region, preventing them from developing infrastructure and basic services. Europeans have stepped into this vacuum, taking on tasks that the Israeli rulers should be carrying out. The Europeans and their leftist Israeli allies are a thorn in the side of the Israeli government, and Area C has turned into a battleground. The victims of the fighting are tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and any hope of a diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One such battle erupted in January 2012. A leaked internal EU report accused Israel of nothing short of a “forced transfer” of Area C’s Palestinian population by pushing ahead with construction of Jewish homes in an area designated E1 that lies between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement town of Maale Adumim. Israel fired back several days later, ordering a halt to the installation of German-funded solar panels and wind turbines by an Israeli-Palestinian organization called Comet-ME. The facilities had brought light to 1,500 homes in 16 destitute communities in the hills south of Hebron. The German government, which donated 400,000 euros for the project, was incensed and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle demanded that Israel rescind the work stoppage orders.

Six months ago, Israeli authorities seized solar panels donated by the Dutch government to residents of the Palestinian village of Jubbet al-Dhib. On Oct. 20, Haaretz reported that following Dutch pressure, Netanyahu ordered the panels re-installed. Europe can pat itself on the back for this small victory, but Netanyahu is the big winner. All he did was sacrifice a pawn for the sake of the far right's vision of a Greater Israel and to protect his own rule.