Nabil gestures with his cigarette to make his point as hetalks about Israeli plans for settlement construction between his eastJerusalem neighbourhood and the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim."This project will kill any hope of a Palestinian state," he says ofthe controversial E1 settlement plan, unfrozen after years by Israel this weekafter the Palestinians were granted upgraded UN status.
Nabil, a Palestinian, lives in Al-Eizariya, an unlovelyplace perched on a hilltop on Jerusalem's eastern fringes. On its main street,rubbish burns in a skip, metal workshops jostle for space with low-budgetfurniture showrooms, and stray dogs eye passers-by. Named for Lazarus, whoaccording to Christian tradition was raised from the dead by Jesus near here,the suburb ends at an Israeli roadblock further down the hill, which guards theentrance to Maaleh Adumim, home to 36,100 Israelis. The settlement provides astark contrast to Al-Eizariya, featuring a shopping centre, restaurants andneat little houses that give it the air of a provincial town.
But between the settlement and nearby Jerusalem, a shortdrive along a purpose-built highway and where many of its residents work, is alargely barren patch of desert, where the contentious E1 project is slated torise. The plan has been in the works since the early 1990s, but was neverimplemented because of pressure from the international community, led by theUnited States. It is seen as particularly problematic as its implementationwould effectively cut the West Bank in half and make the creation of a viablePalestinian state almost impossible.
The project would put thousands of Israeli homes between thePalestinian towns and villages of the southern West Bank and the Palestinianneighbourhoods of east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six Daywar, and annexed shortly afterward, in a move never recognised by the rest ofthe world. Nabil, who makes a living selling electrical parts, says the projectwould destroy "any hope of a Palestinian state". It would leaveAl-Eizariya "cut off from the world," he says.
To urbanise E1 would be "fatal" to the viabilityof a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says Daniel Seidemann, director ofTerrestrial Jerusalem, an NGO that monitors Israeli settlements in eastJerusalem. "The West Bank will be divided into two and the two-statesolution will be impossible."
Apparently unmoved by an international outcry over hisdecision, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will notreconsider reviving the plan. And the move, which was announced ahead of a snapgeneral election to be held on January 22, has the support of the Maaleh Adumimsettlers.
"It is important to build," local resident Yairsays in the settlement's commercial centre. "Here we are in Israel. Thisland does not belong to Arabs." "We need to be connected toJerusalem," adds Esti, who works in a jewellery store in Maaleh Adumim.
