{"id":5328,"date":"2020-03-09T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T11:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/?p=5328"},"modified":"2020-07-10T11:36:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T11:36:41","slug":"bennett-orders-paving-of-sovereignty-road-allowing-uninhibited-e1-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/?p=5328","title":{"rendered":"Bennett orders paving of \u2018sovereignty road\u2019 allowing uninhibited E1 construction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jacob Magid<\/a>\uea17<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 March 2020, 1:22 pm <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
TOPSHOT – This picture taken on January 28, 2020 from the town of Eizariya in the occupied West Bank shows a view of the settlement of Maale Adumim, Israel’s largest in the occupied territories. (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA \/ AFP) (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Monday that he had ordered his office to advance planning of a highway for Palestinian motorists that will remove them from the controversial E1 area \u2014 a section of the West Bank between Jerusalem and Ma\u2019aleh Adumim \u2014 where Israel is moving forward with construction for settlers in steps toward annexation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bennett\u2019s office said that the road for Palestinians, dubbed the \u201csovereignty road,\u201d will connect the villages north of the Ma\u2019ale Adumim settlement \u2014 A\u2019zaim, Anata, Hizme and a-Ram \u2014 to one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt allows Palestinian vehicles to move without crossing inside the Ma\u2019aleh Adumim bloc, near Jewish communities,\u201d the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that it would ease traffic in the area by separating Jewish and Palestinian travelers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the political level, the road will\u2026 enable construction for Jewish settling in the E1 area,\u201d the statement continued, saying it effectively would ensure Jerusalem\u2019s connection to Ma\u2019ale Adumim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The road for Palestinians north of the Ma\u2019ale Adumim settlement that Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced on March 9, 2020, would be advance. (Peace Now) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The highway project, which has been frozen for nearly a decade, will now be passed along to the Civil Administration\u2019s High Planning Subcommittee, the Defense Ministry body responsible for authorizing West Bank construction, where it will receive additional approvals necessary for the paving to begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an accompanying statement, Bennett said the new highway \u201cwill improve the quality of life for residents in the area, avoid unnecessary friction [for Israelis] with the Palestinian population and most importantly \u2014 allow for continued [settlement] construction.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re applying sovereignty [to the West Bank] in deeds, not in words,\u201d Bennett concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Peace Now settlement watchdog pointed out that in removing Palestinian travelers from E1, where Israel is seeking to entrench settler presence, the Defense Ministry is enabling the advancing of the West Bank security barrier\u2019s construction around Ma\u2019ale Adumim and E1, which has long been stalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The left-wing group said in a statement that \u201cthe planned road would allow Israel to cut the West Bank in half\u2026 and shut down the possibility of developing a viable Palestinian state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 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 transportation, only to expand the settlements,\u201d Peace Now said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Prime
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the 17th annual Jerusalem Conference of the B\u2019sheva group, on February 25, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The announcement from Bennett came two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the promotion of a plan for some 3,500 homes in E1 that had long been frozen due to objections from governments around the world supportive of a two-state solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project would bisect the western West Bank, substantially curbing the possibility for development in the center of a future Palestinian state if one were to be created. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project Netanyahu referred to actually comprises two plans north of Ma\u2019ale Adumim totaling 3,426 homes that were prepared by the government of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 and advanced through an early planning stage called \u201cdeposit\u201d in 2004 by the Civil Administration, the Defense Ministry body responsible for authorizing settlement construction. Then prime minister Ariel Sharon dropped the plans upon the request of US president George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, Netanyahu green-lit the resurrection of the plan and it was once again approved for \u201cdeposit.\u201d The Haaretz daily reported at the time that France and the UK considered recalling their ambassadors from Israel in response to the approval. The project has since been frozen due to what Netanyahu acknowledged was pressure from European governments and the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Netanyahu announced that he had lifted restrictions<\/a> on the construction of the controversial Givat Hamatos neighborhood in East Jerusalem, saying that 3,000 homes would be built for Jewish residents there, in addition to another 2,200 housing units for Jews in the nearby Har Homa neighborhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jacob Magid\uea17 9 March 2020, 1:22 pm TOPSHOT – This picture taken on January 28, 2020 from the town of Eizariya in the occupied West Bank shows a view of the settlement of Maale Adumim, Israel’s largest in the occupied territories. (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA \/ AFP) (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA\/AFP via Getty Images) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5332,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5328\/revisions\/5332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}