APN to US Jewish Groups: Tell Netanyahu to Reverse New Settlement Plans
Americans for Peace Now (APN) provides an update on the expansion of Israeli settlements and urges the European Union to take action to block settlement expansion. Plus reports from Peace Now on expansion road plans in E1
Americans for Peace Now (APN) is alarmed at the Israeli government’s advancement of three new settlement initiatives around East Jerusalem, which would deny contiguity to a future Palestinian state. These are plans that in the past were blocked by US administrations, both Republican and Democratic. Now — less than a week before Israel’s general elections, and as a joint Israeli-American committee starts discussing the status of West Bank settlements – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going ahead with the most consequential settlement plan in years.
APN calls on fellow American Jewish organizations to join its condemnation of these plans and to urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to reverse these plans and thus keep the door open for a future two-state solution.
The plans are for new settlement construction in three locations, to the north south and east of Jerusalem, which will cut East Jerusalem from its West Bank environs, and deny contiguity to a future Palestinian state.
In the north, there is a newly announced Jerusalem Municipality plan for a 9,000 housing-unit settlement at the site of the Qalandia (Atarot) Airport, which will be wedged between Palestinian neighborhoods and breaks the contiguity between East Jerusalem and Ramallah. See the details here
In the south, there is a new plan, announced earlier this week by Netanyahu’s government, for a 1,077 housing unit settlement project in Givat Hamatos, which would entrap the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa, and, along with the adjacent Har Homa settlement, sever the territorial contiguity of the Jerusalem-Bethlehem metropolitan area. For more details see here
In the East, Prime Minister Netanyahu today announced that he gave a directive to advance plans for 3,500 units in the area known as E1, the narrow corridor that extends between East Jerusalem and the large settlement of Maale Adumim. E1 has been a red line for past US administrations, which vetoed past Israeli government plans to build there. This strip of land is the only land corridor connecting the northern and southern West Bank. Building in E1 would sever this territorial connection, torpedoing the possibility for a viable Palestinian state, if Israel insists on retaining the land. For more on this plan, see here
APN joins its Israeli sister organization, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) in calling these plans “a national disaster that must be stopped.” We call on Netanyahu to reverse these plans.
APN calls on fellow American Jewish organizations, including mainstream groups that claim to endorse the two-state solution, to join our call. For sake of future Israeli-Palestinian peace, Netanyahu must cancel these disastrous plans.
Update: E1 Plans Deposited Today
The Planning Administration of the Civil Administration deposited today, 26 February 2020, two plans thousands of settlement units in the highly sensitive E1 area.
Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reported to have given a directive to deposit plans for 3,500 units in E1.
E1 is the only land corridor connecting the northern and southern West Bank. Building in E1 would sever this territorial connection, torpedoing the possibility for a viable Palestinian state if Israel insists on retaining the land. Such a scenario is likely, considering that E1 would be a neighborhood of tens of thousands of residents connecting Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem.
The plans will be published in the coming few days in three newspapers in order to allow for public objections. After that, the next planning phase will be the approval of the plans for validation by the Higher Planning Council, and after that, the publication of the plans as valid. The whole depositing & objections process and the approval for validation could take several months. When the plan is valid, the government can then issue tenders (a call for proposals to buy the rights to build), after which the winning bidders can issue construction permits and start to work. Thus, if not stopped, works on the ground could start within 2 years.
Read more on the recent promotion of the E1 plans here.
Road to Allow E1 Construction is Being Promoted
Last Thursday, 20 February 2020, senior Defense Ministry officials met with planners who prepared for the office a detailed plan for a new road for Palestinians that would allow Israel to build the separation barrier around Ma’aleh Adumim, and annex the “Adumim bloc,” including the contentious E1 area. This means that the detailed plan for the road is already set, and the next step in promoting the plan will be the approval of the defense minister to bring the plan to the approval of the Higher Planning Council in the Civil Administration. After the planning approval, it will be possible to start work.
The new road is defined as a “fabric of life” road for Palestinians, and is intended to facilitate the movement of Palestinian vehicles between the southern and northern West Bank, without passing inside the Adumim bloc (i.e. Ma’ale Adumim and surrounding settlements within the proposed West Bank barrier). As of today, the Palestinian movement from the southern to northern half of the West Bank involves traveling east of Bethlehem toward Abu Dis and al-Eizariya, eastward along the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement and then northward to Hizma and then to Ramallah. Because this is the only road that exists east of Jerusalem, Israel has not been able to build the planned separation barrier around the Adumim bloc to date, since the Palestinians have no road that would allow them to bypass the bloc that severs the West Bank in two.
Such a move to build this road should be understood in context of yesterday’s comments by Netanyahu that he had given the directive to promote major plans for building in E1. Today, the the two plans in question in E1 were deposited. It should also be taken in context of recent government actions to promote settlement construction in Givat Hamatos and Har Homa to sever the Bethlehem-Jerusalem continuum, and the early promotion of a plan to turn the decommissioned Atarot Airport into a new Jerusalem settlement that would work toward severing the Ramallah-Jerusalem continuum.
Peace Now: “This is bad news for Israel as it enables annexation toward rendering a two-state solution insoluble. The planned road would allow Israel to cut the West Bank in half, build up E1 and the West Bank barrier, and shut down the possibility of developing a viable Palestinian state.The only roads Israel paved for Palestinians in its 52 years of control over the Territories were designed to allow Israel to build settlements or barriers that block existing Palestinian routes. There is no desire here to improve Palestinian transport, only to expand the settlements.”
כביש-אלעזריה…
Israel’s Plan: Transportional Contiguity in Place of Territorial Contiguity
The new road is intended to allow Palestinians to pass under the route of the separation barrier, and to travel “inside” the Adumim Bloc along a wall without entering the “Israeli” side, as in a kind of tunnel. Once the road is paved, Israel can then claim that construction in E1, and the construction of the barrier around the Adumim bloc does not sever the West Bank because the Palestinians have an alternative transport route. This argument is preposterous. A thin line of road connecting separate territorial sections–transportational contiguity–does not meet the needs for territorial viability for the development and livelihoods of Palestinians in the critical Ramallah-Jerusalem-Bethlehem metropolitan area. Without actual territorial contiguity, an independent Palestinian state cannot be established and prosper, and therefore a two-state solution cannot be reached.
As explained in our brief years ago when this road was still just an idea, the road
“create only ‘transportational connectivity’- distinct communities with no real connection except via roads. Such a situation is different from ‘territorial contiguity,’ which implies a continuous area in which Palestinian life – commerce, economy, education, health services, political activity, etc. – can function and flow normally, and hopefully flourish, as required for Israel’s long-term security and regional stability. Moreover, such arrangements assume that Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution are possible without East Jerusalem being contiguous with and part of a Palestinian state – an assumption that no serous analyst would support.
It is possible that, within the context of a negotiated agreement, some of these challenges could be surmounted via mutually agreed-upon mechanisms, including innovative transportation schemes and land-sharing or land-swap agreements. However, unilateral acts by Israel that would impose this reality on the Palestinians are antithetical to the development of a stable, viable Palestinian state, undermining the legitimacy of moderate, pro-peace Palestinian leaders and empowering radicals.”
The two-state solution depends on the possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. The heart of the future Palestinian state geographically, economically, and culturally is in the metropolis between Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. One of the only potential development areas left for this metropolis are the areas east of Jerusalem, in the same area where Israel seeks to build the E1 settlement and create an Israeli territorial continuum from Jerusalem eastward that would effectively cut the West Bank in half.
Recall that about a year ago, the northern part of this fabric of life road (also known as “apartheid road”) was opened, and drew severe international criticism.
כביש-אלעזריה…
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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