Erekat: West Bank E1 road start of annexation and apartheid

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat warned that Israeli plans for a new West Bank road between the E1 area and Jerusalem were the start of Israel's "annexation and apartheid plan."

He tweeted Tuesday about the road project, which Defense Minister Naftali Bennett advanced earlier this week, to help enable the construction project of 3,500 apartment units in an unbuilt area of the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement known as E1.

Bennett himself spoke of the project as the "sovereignty road." It would link the Palestinian village of az-Za'ayyem outside of Jerusalem with the neighboring villages and towns of Anata, Hizme and A-Ram.

The E1 bypass road would ensure easy Palestinian vehicular mobility, without entering the E1 area.

Palestinians have argued that the road, which separates Israeli and Palestinian vehicular traffic, does not mitigate the harm caused by the E1 project. Israel sees the project as essential to the preservation of a united Jerusalem. Ma'aleh Adumim holds that construction in the area is critical for the city's future.

Palestinians and the international community have argued that E1 makes their future state non-contiguous and therefore unviable.

On Tuesday, Erekat published a map of the project and warned that it would "ultimately prevent Palestinian access from the southern part of the West Bank towards Jericho and the Jordan Valley to the east.

He added that east Jerusalem"is one critical area for Palestinian natural growth and economic development. Israel's entire colonial project on the eastern gateway to Jerusalem will severely impact Palestinian aspirations for a socio-economically viable capital in Jerusalem."

Erekat and the PA hold that a two-state solution must be enacted at the pre-1967 lines, a move that would place east Jerusalem and all of the Ma'aleh Adumim bloc within the boundaries of a Palestinian state.

The Trump administration's peace plan recognizes that most of east Jerusalem, save for the Arab neighborhoods on the other side of the barrier, are part of the State of Israel. It has also said that Israel can annex all the West Bank settlements including Ma'aleh Adumim, and presumably therefore E1.

The left-wing group Peace Now and the Meretz Party have rejected that plan in favor of a two-state solution at the pre-1967 lines. On Tuesday, Peace Now and Meretz Party head Nitzan Horowitz visited the E1 area to speak against construction of the road.

The current government "has no mandate to act," Horowitz told The Jerusalem Post, calling it "an interim government."

"Defense Minister Bennett published a plan to build a road here that would actually disconnect the north and the south of the West Banks," Horowitz said. "This will be the end of the chance to have an agreement with the Palestinians on the two-state solution [at the pre-1967 lines.] This road that the temporary defense minister is about to build is illegal and destructive for peace. It should be prevented.

"It is part of a bigger plan to build in the E1 area and in [east Jerusalem's] Givat Hamatos [neighborhood]. The purpose behind it is to disconnect east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. In order for the two-state solution to come true – in order to have an agreement with the Palestinians – Jerusalem must be part of the solution," Horowitz said.