Despite Bush rebuke, work goes on at West Bank settlement
AFP
Date: 04-12-05
MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (AFP) - Labourers were hard at work building a new neighborhood in a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem that has triggered a rare US rebuke for Israel.
In unusually sharp words for his close ally, President George W. Bush publicly reminded Prime Minister Ariel Sharon three times at their summit Monday that Israel was obliged to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied territories as part of its commitments the Middle East roadmap peace plan.
Bush's comments were prompted by the Israeli government's recent decision to approve plans for 3,500 new homes at Maaleh Adumim, which lies some five kilometres (three miles) east of the Holy City.
Maaleh Adumim is already home to some 28,000 people but Sharon's ultimate objective is to effectively link the settlement to Arab east Jerusalem, thus severing the link between the rest of the West Bank and the part of the city which the Palestinians want as the capital of their promised future state.
In a bid to downplay disagreements with the Bush administration, Sharon's camp has been emphasising that the implementation of the project to build the new 3,500 new homes is not even on the horizon.
But a tour of Maaleh Adumim, organized Tuesday by the anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now, showed that Israel is already clearly flouting the roadmap's call to freeze all settlement activity.
In an area known as E1 on the northwestern outskirts of Maaleh Adumim, a project to build another road alongside an exisiting highway from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea is well under way. Workmen have already cut the surface of around two kilometers of the road, and covered some 300 meters (yards) with tarmac.
"Yesterday, (Defence Minister) Shaul Mofaz told us that there were still four more administrative stages to go through before any construction work could begin," said Ran Cohen, a deputy for the left-wing Yahad party, said during the tour.
"This road is proof that construction has already begun."
Cohen said the expansion of Maale Adumim was clearly designed to cut the southern West Bank off from the north, thus imperilling the much-talked of territorial contiguity which all sides say is needed for a viable Palestinian state.
"The extension of Maaleh Adumim in the area between Jerusalem and the settlement will cut off the circulation between the north and south of the West Bank," he said.
According to Yuli Tamir, a deputy for the centre-left Labour which the second largest party in the governing coalition, such as extension risks upsetting a political consensus on the left and right within Israel to include Maaleh Adumim inside the borders of Israel in any final status agreement.
"By trying to swallow too much all at once, Sharon risks calling into question the future of everyone in Maaleh Adumim. It is irresponsible," said Tamir, whose party is the second largest in the governing coalition.
In the east of the settlement, work is also continuing on a new neighbourhood so-far known merely as 07 where builders were putting the finishing touches to a series of three to five-storey houses which are soon to be inhabited by buyers taking advantage of cheap prices so close to Jerusalem.
"These places are going for half the price that one would find in Jerusalem and it's only 10 minutes from the centre of town," said Cohen.
"Any project of this kind will only maintain the Palestinians' sense of distrust and undermine Abu Mazen (Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas) at the hands of his own people," he added.
"This will prevent the Palestiniens from thinking that there is an Israeli partner (in the peace process), encourages terrorism and bolster those who argue that there is no possibility of any agreement."
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