The E1 emergency
Hussein Ibish, December 4, 2012
You can't say Israel and United States didn't warn each other, or that they didn't see this coming.
The Americans anticipated a potential Israeli overreaction to the Palestinian United Nations status upgrade to "nonmember observer state." And there was one measure they particularly wanted to prevent: new Israeli settlement construction in the hypersensitive E1 corridor near Jerusalem.
So a few days before the UN vote, Washington specifically warned Israel not to "retaliate" by building in E1. What was Israel's immediate reaction to the vote? Why, to announce at least 3,000 new settler housing units, including, of course, in E1. And to add, for good measure, that any commitments to the United States not to build there were "no longer relevant."
Building in E1 is among the most damaging steps Israel could take to undermine a two-state solution. E1 threatens to almost cut the West Bank in half. It will completely split occupied East Jerusalem off from the rest of the territory.
All serious observers agree with Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann, who explains, "E-1 is a binary settlement," because "a Palestinian state must be territorially contiguous, with a link to Jerusalem. That is why this is the decisive battle over the feasibility of 'two states for two peoples.'"
That is precisely why every American administration has opposed the project since it was first announced in 1999: It's among the few decisive actions either side could take that could finally lead people around the world, especially Israelis and Palestinians, to finally abandon any hope for a two-state solution.
More than the withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, which Israel has also decided to do, or even annexing territory (which wouldn't be recognized internationally anyway), building in E1 is among the most aggressive and harmful measures Israel could take in response to the Palestinians' symbolic UN upgrade. E1 construction is anything but symbolic. It transforms the strategic reality very dramatically away from a two-state solution.
The reason so many European states shifted their votes at the UN last week in the Palestinian direction is that they have become increasingly concerned the Israeli government isn't interested in a genuine two-state solution. Israel's E1 construction announcement can only serve to heighten these fears. So does the election of an annexationist slate of leaders of the ruling Likud party....READ MORE
The Americans anticipated a potential Israeli overreaction to the Palestinian United Nations status upgrade to "nonmember observer state." And there was one measure they particularly wanted to prevent: new Israeli settlement construction in the hypersensitive E1 corridor near Jerusalem.
So a few days before the UN vote, Washington specifically warned Israel not to "retaliate" by building in E1. What was Israel's immediate reaction to the vote? Why, to announce at least 3,000 new settler housing units, including, of course, in E1. And to add, for good measure, that any commitments to the United States not to build there were "no longer relevant."
Building in E1 is among the most damaging steps Israel could take to undermine a two-state solution. E1 threatens to almost cut the West Bank in half. It will completely split occupied East Jerusalem off from the rest of the territory.
All serious observers agree with Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann, who explains, "E-1 is a binary settlement," because "a Palestinian state must be territorially contiguous, with a link to Jerusalem. That is why this is the decisive battle over the feasibility of 'two states for two peoples.'"
That is precisely why every American administration has opposed the project since it was first announced in 1999: It's among the few decisive actions either side could take that could finally lead people around the world, especially Israelis and Palestinians, to finally abandon any hope for a two-state solution.
More than the withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, which Israel has also decided to do, or even annexing territory (which wouldn't be recognized internationally anyway), building in E1 is among the most aggressive and harmful measures Israel could take in response to the Palestinians' symbolic UN upgrade. E1 construction is anything but symbolic. It transforms the strategic reality very dramatically away from a two-state solution.
The reason so many European states shifted their votes at the UN last week in the Palestinian direction is that they have become increasingly concerned the Israeli government isn't interested in a genuine two-state solution. Israel's E1 construction announcement can only serve to heighten these fears. So does the election of an annexationist slate of leaders of the ruling Likud party....READ MORE
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