Vandals painted the entrance to the office of the European Union Delegation to Israel with a message alluding to the German government’s alleged financial support for pro-terror Palestinian organizations.
By World Israel News Staff
On Sunday, employees of the European Union Delegation to Israel discovered that the lobby of their offices had been hit with red graffiti bearing a blunt message for the E.U., and Germany specifically.
Next to the door, a message in English read, “German money kill[s] Jews.”
On the glass door to the office, the perpetrators wrote in large block letters, “E.U. get out.”
The E.U.’s Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret posted a photo of the graffiti to Twitter, referring to “threatening slogans on the walls.”
Giaufret added, “No one of my colleagues was in the office as we are closed on Sunday. This incident is deplorable and has to be condemned. We will continue to do our job.”
The image was reposted by Spokesperson for E.U. Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Maja Kocijančič, who tweeted, “Deplorable act of vandalism on @EUinIsrael. We expect swift results of investigation as already announced by @IsraelMFA.”
The message’s mention of Germany may have been a reference to data in a May report in the German publication Bild based on “leaked documents containing funding contracts and internal reports” related to the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ).
These documents, “reveal[edl that German taxpayer money is channeled to groups with ties to terror groups, that spread anti-Semitism, and that promote BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel” announced NGO Monitor in a statement following the Bild report.
In 2018, GIZ staff was investigated for anti-Semitic activity, including social media posts by staff working in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. These posts also justified Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and endorsed the BDS movement, which seeks Israel’s destruction.
A portion of the anti-Semitic content was disseminated by GIZ officials who direct German funding to Palestinian organizations.
The E.U. for its part has been slammed in Israel for supporting illegal Arab construction in Judea and Samaria.
Specifically, the Israeli advocacy group Regavim accused the E.U. in 2019 of funding “whole new villages” for Palestinians in Area C of Judea and Samaria, which are under full Israeli control under the terms of the Oslo Accords.
“None of these places are random,” says Naomi Linder Khan, head of the international division of Regavim, which monitors and pursues legal action in the Israeli court system against illegal construction undertaken by Palestinians or Bedouins.
“They’re strategic choices,” she told World Israel News in June, adding that the strategy involves “taking settlement blocs and cutting them off.”
Linder Kahn noted that by building these areas, the Palestinian Authority (PA), with EU backing, undermines the two-state solution it purports to advocate.
“A joint project of the Palestinian Authority and the European Union is taking over a strategic area in the center of Gush Etzion, ‘restoring’ a historic village that never existed,” Regavim explained on its Facebook page.
“The signs posted on the refurbished buildings, proudly bearing the European Union emblem, explain that the site is an ancient village – ‘Shoshkhalah’ – despite the fact that aerial photos paint a completely different picture,” says the NGO.
“Over the course of the last two years,” says Yishai Hemo, Regavim Field Coordinator for Judea and Samaria, “activists from the Arab town Al Khader, backed by Palestinian Authority and European Union funding, occupied the ruins of two ancient…primitive stone structures used by passing shepherds or farmers as shelter from the elements during the changing seasons that dot the landscape in the Jerusalem and Sataf areas.
“They renovated these abandoned structures and turned them into homes, and from that point, in very short order, totally new structures have been added in the surrounding area,” explains Hemo.