Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Ma’ale Adumim on Thursday to sign an agreement to accelerate growth of the Judean Desert city, Mayor Guy Yifrach said on Sunday.
Yifrach told Army Radio that the so-called umbrella agreement with the government was “one of the most significant and dramatic moves since the city’s founding,” emphasizing that Ma’ale Adumim will become “a strong, advanced and Zionist metropolitan city” in the coming years.
Typically, such deals are signed by the housing minister, but according to Army Radio, Netanyahu chose to personally endorse the agreement, which includes construction in a sensitive area known as E1.
An Israeli government body gave final approval last month for the housing project in E1 that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and far-left groups on the other side of the political spectrum, previously said would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
The plan involves the construction of about 3,400 homes in the area, located between Jerusalem and the built-up part of Ma’ale Adumim.
Once built up, E1 would connect the two cities into a larger metropolis, serving as a countermeasure to Palestinian Authority efforts to surround Jerusalem with its own Arab metropolis that includes Ramallah, the eastern parts of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. (Ramallah intends to wrest from Israel eastern areas of Jerusalem for its own future capital.)
Yifrach told JNS on Aug. 27 that following the planning committee’s approval, there is one more stage in which the government is involved—"marketing approval.” Jerusalem signs off on letting the city plan go out to contractors who bid on the right to build and market the homes.
He told JNS he believed this approval was only a month away and that, “within six months, we will already see tractors working in the field.”
‘Foreign dictates’
In an Aug. 22 statement, 25 foreign ministers from Europe and other nations condemned the E1 move, calling for its immediate reversal.
Jerusalem pushed back, with the Foreign Ministry issuing a statement the same day rejecting the joint statement as an attempt to “impose foreign dictates.” It also said it was “racist,” given that the foreign ministers placed no restrictions on Palestinian construction.
Israel is reportedly weighing a plan to extend sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria in response to the France- and Saudi-led plan to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations next week.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told Paris, London and others their moves could lead to annexing Judea and Samaria’s Area C, as well as legalizing outposts.
“Unilateral moves against Israel will be met with unilateral moves by Israel,” Sa’ar told his counterparts, per an Israel Hayom report in May.
Sources close to Dermer told the Ynet website on Sept. 3 that “there will be sovereignty in Judea and Samaria; the question is over which part.”
However, Netanyahu on Thursday canceled a Cabinet discussion on the sovereignty plan, Israel’s Channel 14 reported. An official said the delay was due to scheduling, but The Washington Post reported the discussion was dropped after the United Arab Emirates sent an “unusual message.”
Sovereignty “would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace,” Special Envoy of the Emirati Foreign Ministry Lana Nusseibeh said on Sept. 2. She said it would end “the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution.”
Meanwhile, a senior Saudi royal family member told Hebrew-language media on Saturday that an annexation of Judea and Samaria would “seal the fate” of the normalization talks between Riyadh and Jerusalem.
UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed last week visited Riyadh for talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Kan News reported. According to the Saudi source cited by the channel, the two leaders agreed that Israeli sovereignty would constitute a red line, raising the possibility that the UAE could quit the Abraham Accords.
