Israeli army, settlers sabotaged 59 Dutch aid projects in West Bank
Israeli settlers and soldiers have sabotaged 59 Dutch-funded aid projects on the West Bank since 2017, according to research by Investico, De Groene Amsterdammer, and Trouw. The acts of destruction have increased significantly since the outbreak of the war on October 7 last year. The Netherlands only requested compensation in a few cases and Israel has never granted it, the researchers found.
The researchers’ findings are based on documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including emails between officials, obtained through an appeal to the Open Government Act. They identified 59 projects that were (partly) funded by the Netherlands that have been sabotaged, destroyed, seized, or vandalized by Israelis since 2017.
One example mentioned is the destruction of a Dutch-funded water tank in the Palestinian village of Sha’ab al-Buttum. Israelis have also confiscated solar panels, pulled hundreds of olive trees and grape vines out of the ground, and destroyed agricultural land with bulldozers. The Israeli authorities have imposed stop work orders, resulting in several projects never being completed.
The exact amount of the damage done is challenging to determine. The Netherlands contributed at least 275,000 euros to the projects that were demolished, destroyed, seized, and sabotaged, the documents show. In many cases, other parties also contributed to the project. In most, but not all cases, the projects were damaged to the extent that they had to be restarted from scratch.
The Netherlands also paid tens of thousands of euros in legal costs in the few cases where the Dutch government responded to an incident. In the four cases where the legal costs are known, the Netherlands spent a total of 25,000 euros
The damage suffered by Palestinians is much higher. They lost income due to stop work orders or goods and agricultural land being confiscated, among other things. Sabotage often also left Palestinians with no electricity or internet for prolonged periods. There are also often hidden costs. In the case of the destroyed water tank, for example, the village not only lost the tank but also the precious rainwater that was stored in it.
In 2016, parliament adopted a motion to register this type of sabotage, make it public, and call the Israeli authorities to account. But the researchers found that this hardly happens in practice. According to the researchers, the Dutch government seems hesitant to take action and hold Israel responsible. In a third of the known cases, the Netherlands did not call the Israeli authorities to account or it is unclear whether the Netherlands ever followed up.
The researchers cited an email exchange between officials starting on 12 March 2018 with a notification that machines were confiscated under a Dutch project and a recently constructed road had been destroyed, reportedly by settlers. Initially, the officials wanted to know “how high/fast our approach” to the Israeli authorities should be. But later, the emails concluded that the Netherlands should let the matter rest and “pay no further attention to it.” The road could “quietly” be repaired by the local population to not “elicit renewed destruction.”
Israel is expanding its illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are settlers themselves and loudly advocate for the annexation of the West Bank.
