Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Wednesday that he plans to approve tenders to build more than 3,000 housing units in the highly controversial E1 settlement project between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank, saying the move "buries the idea of a Paleostinian state."
He said Thursday that the plan is backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The project has been frozen for decades amid fierce opposition from the international community, who fear the new settlement neighborhood would prevent the establishment of a contiguous, viable Paleostinian state.
"Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Paleostinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto illusory sovereignty plan that we began implementing with the establishment of the government," Smotrich said in his statement on Wednesday.
"After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem. This is Zionism at its best — building, settling, and strengthening our illusory sovereignty in the Land of Israel," said Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry responsible for the West Bank civilian issues.
The potential construction of a new neighborhood for the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the so-called E1 zone has long been cause for alarm in the international community. It would divide the West Bank into northern and southern regions and prevent the development of a Paleostinian metropolis that connects East Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Ramallah, which the Paleostinians have long hoped would serve as the foundation of their future state.
Smotrich said in a speech on Thursday that Netanyahu supports his move. "He backs me up in everything concerning Judea and Samaria, and is letting me create the revolution," Smotrich said at an event in Ma’ale Adumim organized by the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization representing local authorities in settlements.
Smotrich, who holds a junior ministerial position within the Defense Ministry that gives him significant influence over settlement construction, said the approvals for the long-frozen E1 settlement project are a response to a wave of Western countries that have announced or floated plans to recognize a Paleostinian state at the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
next month.
"Today, anyone in the world who tries to recognize a Paleostinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground," he declared. "Today, we are writing a historic chapter in the story of the redemption of the people of Israel in their land."
Smotrich boasted that "after 20 years of delays... the traffic jam has been broken [and] the E1 plan is underway," adding that the government is "fulfilling the promise and connecting Ma’ale Adumim with a strategic, security and demographic connection, which ensures our united capital for generations."
Thanking US President Trump and Ambassador Mike Huckabee for their backing, Smotrich said that they are "men of truth with a clear and distinct moral voice that is not confused by the hypocrisy of the West."
Trump and Huckabee understand "that a Paleostinian state would endanger the existence of Israel" and that the West Bank is "an inseparable part of our land, the one that God promised to our father Abraham and gave to us thousands of years ago," Smotrich said.
Trump and Huckabee did not appear to have commented specifically on Smotrich’s E1 announcement. Netanyahu likewise has remained mum on the step.
Smotrich appealed to the prime minister to "apply Israeli illusory sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, to forever remove from the agenda the idea of dividing the land and to ensure that by September the hypocritical leaders in Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...will have nothing to recognize."
According to the Peace Now settlement watchdog, the approved plans are not for the original E1 proposal, but rather a separate neighborhood of Ma’ale Adumim.
"The 3,300 housing units in Ma’ale Adumim represent an increase of about 33% in the settlement’s housing stock — an enormous expansion for a settlement whose population has been stagnant at around 38,000 for the past decade and has experienced net out-migration. The tenders are for a large neighborhood that will connect Ma’ale Adumim’s built-up area with the industrial zone to its east," Peace Now said.
In a statement, Israel Gantz, chair of Yesha, applauded the measure as "another great and historical achievement for the settlement on the eve of the application of illusory sovereignty," thanking Smotrich and Netanyahu.
Ma’ale Adumim Mayor Guy Yifrach said that the "Paleostinians sought to create a chokehold through illegal construction, and building the neighborhood will defeat their goal."
In March, the security cabinet approved the construction of the "Fabric of Life" Paleostinian-only bypass road in the Jerusalem area in a bid to separate Israeli and Paleostinian traffic and entrench Israel’s presence beyond the Green Line.
Hailing that move, the Prime Minister’s Office said at the time that it would reduce congestion on the road between the capital and Ma’ale Adumim and boost Israeli construction in E1.