E1 settlement plan will doom Palestine. It must be stopped

The Netanyahu government’s decision to move ahead with the E1 project, which aims to connect settlements in the Maale Adumim bloc in the occupied West Bank with East Jerusalem, is a targeted assassination of peace. It is a sniper’s bullet to the heart of future coexistence. 

This comes as a thuggish response to the growing list of nations that have decided to recognise the state of Palestine. In the minds of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, developing E1 will deal a death blow to the idea of a Palestinian state.

E1 is one of the few areas on Jerusalem’s eastern periphery that is not covered in Jewish settlements. It is home to a towering Israeli police headquarters, along with a few humble Bedouin communities. Its development would drive a wedge through the heart of the occupied West Bank, separating north from south, while closing off the last relatively open route for Palestinians there to access East Jerusalem’s holy sites, tourism revenues, hospitals and transport systems.

International law, which recognises the 1967 Green Line as the border around Palestinian territory, would be ignored by Israel, as ever. 

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