'Devastating for peace': Israeli activists warn against East Jerusalem settlement plans

National park followed by thousands of homes would be detrimental to push for future Palestinian state, activists warn

Israeli plans for 3,500 houses in this area, known as E1, will be discussed at a meeting on Wednesday Thomas Helm / The National

On Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus, the sites most familiar in the decades-long fight for land in the city – Al Aqsa Mosque flanked by the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah – can be seen.

Turn, and below the desert hills of the occupied West Bank towards the Dead Sea is one of many more recent battlegrounds, a barren tract of scorched grass, criss-crossed by dirt tracks. A motorway runs to the right and a few hundred metres to the left there is a rubbish tip. On either side are two Palestinian neighbourhoods.

The area is not spectacular, but those who have been watching Israel’s gradual takeover of Palestinian land in the city say that it is a focus in one of the most dangerous eras of land grabs since Israel captured all of the city in 1967.

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This area of East Jerusalem is about to become an Israeli-controlled national park. Thomas Helm / The National

The area is about to become a national park, on the surface an odd designation for an unremarkable patch of ground. Eyebrows were raised when, in 2013, the plan was approved after years of effort by Palestinian residents in the neighbouring villages who tried to develop the land.

Israeli authorities have since then said the designation is for reasons such as preserving flora and fauna, protecting the view and creating a walking trail.

Aviv Tatarsky, a Jerusalem researcher at Israeli NGO Ir Amim, has a different assessment of why the designation was made – to prevent the expansion of Palestinian residential areas and instead create a “more Israeli space”.

“As a national park, you can’t develop it and certainly not as a neighbourhood. So, that aspiration has been blocked,” he said, standing at a viewing point over the land in the morning sun. There is a lack of homes for Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“The Nature and Parks Authority has the power to use this area as it sees fit. Basically, they can now make some sort of tourist area that will draw Israelis here,” he added.

“The bottom line is that instead of the two neighbourhoods developing a space with tens of thousands of Palestinians conducting their daily lives here, each neighbourhood will be separated from the other, making them small enclaves."

An Israeli soldier at the West Bank village of Umm Al Khair. Reuters

Although not an Israeli residential settlement, “it will still be controlled by Israeli authorities, which are able to attract the Israeli public, with all kinds of events, festivals, and thereby achieve, let’s say, Israeli dominance in the space".

It is an anxious battle, but one whose fortunes could be reversed, Mr Tatarsky said. A far harder battle is taking place a short drive away. It is also based on creating Palestinian enclaves, albeit on a far larger scale.

Between the Palestinian village of Al Zaim and the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, which is one of the biggest in the occupied West Bank, is an area that in a week could be at the heart of a major blow to the prospect of a Palestinian state.

A planning council is scheduled to meet on Wednesday and hear objections against plans for almost 3,500 housing units in the area, known as E1. It is one of the final steps before the project is approved.

Israeli NGO Peace Now, which monitors the development of settlements, calls E1 “particularly devastating for the prospects of peace and the future of a two-state solution, as it would cut the West Bank in two and prevent the development of the metropolitan area between Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem”.

Palestinians with aid packages in the Mawasi area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israel-Gaza war has emboldened violent settlers to carry out land grabs. AFP

It would surround East Jerusalem, making the prospect of the area becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state impossible, activists said. E1 would expand the separation barrier that cuts the city off from the occupied West Bank, undermining sovereignty, freedom of movement and the economy of a future state.

There would be less space for Palestinians to build, in an area where there is a shortage of homes and classrooms.

The idea for E1 dates to the 1990s and reflects the long-term desire on the part of Israel to expand settlements despite international objections. A more specific purpose of E1 is to connect Ma’ale Adumim, currently separated from the outskirts of East Jerusalem, with the city.

Significant international opposition, including from Israel’s key ally the US, proved effective in blocking it, even as settlement expansion continued elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. It appears now that Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, who advanced the plan in 2012, and his far-right coalition, composed of many settlers such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, could be on the brink of overcoming this obstruction.

“If we’re speaking about future Palestinian state, contiguity is crucial. E1 is not just any big area. It’s an area that breaks up the West Bank into two disconnected enclaves,” Mr Tatarsky said.

“Today, we’re in a very different story, because Israel has no challenges to its sovereignty, no serious pressure for a Palestinian state or ending this apartheid. Until today, Israel couldn’t achieve it because geopolitically it meant no Palestinian state. Today, it looks like Israel feels it can go ahead with it."

Israeli Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich. Reuters

Since October 7, 2023, the wider settlement project has been in the ascendant, not just E1, as the world focuses on Gaza. Record numbers have been displaced by Israeli settlers who have access to more arms and enjoy greater impunity than before from the government and authorities.

Peace Now summarises the moment as one in which "the Netanyahu-Smotrich government is exploiting the war in Gaza and the current internal and international power dynamics, to establish facts on the ground that would eliminate any prospect for peace and a two-state reality".

In the past few weeks, a glimmer of hope has emerged for Palestinians. Israeli ally France said it will recognise a Palestinian state and the UK said it would do so by September, if certain conditions are not met.

Two of those British conditions appear incompatible with E1. The first is that Israel must commit to a peace process that leads to a Palestinian state. The second is that Israel must not annex the occupied West Bank, a goal of many Israeli settlers that becomes easier if the territorial viability of a Palestinian state no longer exists.

Declarations in favour of a symbolic Palestinian state, while powerful, are not yet accompanied with action to make one a reality, activists say. These declarations are made as Israel allows settlers to tear through shepherding communities, declare national parks and, most critically of all, promote E1.

In a week, the world will know if Israel is one step closer to this blow.