New Israeli West Bank settlements dim prospects of Palestinian state
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Ned Temko Columnist
| London
The political battle to keep alive the possibility of a Palestinian state 鈥� and an eventual two-state peace with Israel 鈥� will be playing out early next week at the United Nations in New York.
But the practical prospects are playing out on a scrubby strip of land nearly 6,000 miles away, with a name that sounds more like a race car or a sci-fi robot.
It is known as E1, shorthand for 鈥淓ast 1,鈥� due to its position on the eastern edge of Jerusalem.
Why We Wrote This
On Monday, in New York, diplomats will debate the prospects for a Palestinian state. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli bulldozers are set to begin construction that will, the government hopes, make such prospects moot.
There, Israeli construction crews are due to begin work in the coming weeks on thousands of new homes. They will give Israel full control of a band of territory that cuts the West Bank in two.
The aim? To make the establishment of a geographically contiguous, viable Palestinian state all but impossible.
It鈥檚 not completely impossible. At least not yet.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is aware that geopolitics, not just bulldozers, will determine whether he can finally close the door on a Palestinian state.
That explains his anger about next Monday鈥檚 U.N. meeting, especially the decision by longtime Israeli allies, including Britain and Canada, formally to back the creation of a Palestinian state.
Mr. Netanyahu may yet go further on the political front. He could, for example, honor his commitment to the far-right members of his government and annex all or part of the West Bank 鈥� if he feels he鈥檇 have the approval, or at least acquiescence, of the United States.
Yet the bulldozers matter.
They are part of a plan to assert de facto Israeli control of the West Bank territory that would form the heart of a Palestinian state 鈥� a plan first conceived by Mr. Netanyahu鈥檚 Likud Party almost 50 years ago, when he was still working for a consulting firm in Boston.
It was drawn up by a man named Matityahu Drobles, a friend and ally of then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a bid to prevent the 鈥淧alestinian autonomy鈥� agreed to in Israel鈥檚 landmark 1979 peace treaty with Egypt from planting the roots of a Palestinian state.
Previous, left-of-center Israeli governments had already set up around 30 settlements in the occupied West Bank. But almost all were deliberately placed in sparsely populated areas, to leave open the possibility of an eventual land-for-peace deal with neighboring Jordan.
The Drobles plan, as the Monitor reported at the time, took a dramatically different approach.
It envisaged not just more settlements. It proposed placing them in clusters encircling the main Palestinian towns on the West Bank. In Mr. Drobles鈥� words, the Palestinians would 鈥渇ind it difficult to unite and create a continuous territorial entity if cut off by Jewish settlements.鈥�
He and Mr. Begin believed such 鈥渇acts on the ground鈥� would drive home their resolve to act on a core belief: that although Israel had captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, the area was part of Israel鈥檚 biblical birthright and must remain permanently part of Israel.
But even they would have been hard-pressed to imagine the scale of settlement expansion since then.
Then, there were around 15,000 Jewish settlers. Now, the figure has risen fiftyfold, to around 750,000, in nearly 150 recognized settlements and scores of smaller ones yet to receive formal government approval.
Then, the typical settlement was an isolated outpost.
Now, some of them are small cities, like Ma鈥檃le Adumim, to the east of Jerusalem.
Built on former Bedouin grazing land to sit atop the roads leading eastward into the Jordan Valley and south toward Bethlehem, it has become a fully fledged Jerusalem suburb, home to some 35,000 Jewish residents.
Which is where E1 comes in.
The homes, roads, and infrastructure there will fill in the remaining corridor of land between Ma鈥檃le Adumim and Jerusalem, breaking the link between the northern part of the West Bank, and Bethlehem and other towns to the south.
Last week, Mr. Netanyahu attended a ceremony in Ma鈥檃le Adumim to mark approval of the expansion. By the time all the building is done, he said, some 70,000 Israelis would live there.
But his main message was succinct, unequivocal, and political: 鈥淭here will be no Palestinian state.鈥�
As things now stand, it is easy to see why he sounds so confident.
True, France 鈥� in the vanguard of a group of Western countries 鈥� will join Saudi Arabia in New York on Monday to try to keep alive the possibility of an eventual Palestinian state. But in Israel, domestic voices supporting a 鈥渢wo-state solution鈥� have been all but silenced by Hamas鈥� October 2023 killings and kidnappings.
The decisive voice, however, will come from abroad.
The E1 expansion had been on the drawing board for years. It was deferred by successive Israeli governments, because Washington opposed the project.
Even Mr. Netanyahu has, in the past, changed his tune at Washington鈥檚 behest. In 2009, feeling pressure from then-President Barack Obama, he made a speech outlining a diplomatic vision including a Palestinian state.
Today, however, he is insistent that any support for Palestinian statehood would 鈥渞eward Hamas.鈥�
And he is hoping the current occupant of the White House will have his back.
