Israeli Hard-Liners Push To Annex a Settlement
MA’ALE ADUMIM, West Bank — The first babies of Ma’ale Adumim, a hilly city on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, are now middle- aged. A cemetery finally opened last year, and 40 residents are buried there, most dead of natural causes after long and peaceful lives.
That is to say, there is nothing temporary about this place, one of the closest settlements to Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, which Israel seized from Jordan 50 years ago. “It’s part of Jerusalem,” said Sima Weiss, 58, who has lived here 30 years, raised three children and works 20 minutes away by bus in the holy city proper. “I don’t feel like a settler.”
The world has focused more critically recently on Israel’s settlements in occupied territory, after last month’s United Nations declaration — which the United States tacitly supported — that they are killing the dream of one state for Jews, one for Palestinians.
Many Israelis argue that Ma’ale Adumim — a city of 41,000 with filled schools, a largely secular civic pride and skittish stray cats — is a special case: Its closeness to Jerusalem has put it near the top of the list of settlements Israelis say they could swap for other land in a peace deal.
Right-wing politicians, emboldened by a more sympathetic President Donald J. Trump in Washington, want to annex it to Israel proper — the first formal annexation of a settlement. Supporters argue that in the long absence of negotiations, Israel cannot stand still.
“The incremental approach has not worked,” said Naftali Bennett, the education minister, and an annexation advocate. “We have to understand it’s a new reality. We have to go big, bold and fast.”
The Parliament seems poised to approve a law that would ultimately legalize settlement homes built illegally on private Palestinian land. Critics call this yet another form of creeping annexation.
Many Palestinians fear Ma’ale Adumim will be just the beginning of the annexation of settlements in the West Bank, home to roughly 400,000 Jews.
“We believe in two states for two nations, but if they took that” — Ma’ale Adumim — “there will be no longer two states,” said Yousef Mostafa Mkhemer, chairman of the Organization of Jerusalem Steadfastness, which focuses on issues like Muslim holy sites, refugee camps and Israeli settlements. “There will be one state called Israel.”
Many Palestinians and peace activists argue that the line has already been crossed.
“We are living in one state now,” said Ziad Abu Zayyad, a Palestinian lawyer and writer. Mr. Zayyad, a former Palestinian minister, said that unlike most Palestinians he supported Mr. Trump for president in the American election in part because he felt his apparently greater sympathy for Israel would begin to provide a clarity to a long-stuck conflict.
“He could be a big devil,” he said. “He could be something good. My point is he will make a change, for the good or for the bad.”
After eight years of little build-
Politics and a building drive increase tension.
ing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just allotted 100 new building units to Ma’ale Adumim, part of 2,500 new proposed housing units around the West Bank settlements, and another 560 in East Jerusalem.
Eid Abu Khamis, the leader of some 8,000 Bedouins in the area, says harassment by Israel has increased recently. More of their makeshift housing has been torn down and land for their goats and sheep — they sell meat, yogurt and cheese to survive — declared off-limits.
Most of the Bedouins live in the E1 area, which is technically a part of Ma’ale Adumim and is slated for some 3,700 new housing units. The Obama administration staunchly opposed any development in E1 as a possible point of no return for a viable Palestinian state.
“If the Bedouin are kicked out of this land where we have lived for 30 years, it will be the end of negotiations with the State of Israel,” Mr. Khamis said.