By Jewish News Syndicate Staff
“We said there will be no Palestinian state — indeed there will be no Palestinian state. This place is ours,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rousing applause at the festive signing of an “umbrella agreement” between the government and Ma’ale Adumim at the Judean city’s Cultural Center on Thursday evening.
The umbrella agreement commits the government to finance the construction of two new neighborhoods and the expansion of a third in a city that hasn’t seen a new neighborhood built in 20 years.
In repudiating a Palestinian state, Netanyahu referred to the most strategically important part of the agreement—the building of a new neighborhood in E1 (“East 1”)—an area, once built, both Israel and the Palestinians agree threatens Arab geographic contiguity, making it far more difficult to establish a viable Palestinian state.
Various obstacles, chief among them international pressure, have left E1, a 12-square-kilometer (4.6 sq. mile) area in Judea, virtually untouched for decades, despite support for construction by every Israeli government starting from Yitzhak Rabin’s in 1994, which first proposed the idea.
It is little wonder then that Ma’ale Adumim, which this year celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding, turned the signing of the umbrella agreement into a celebratory event with music and dancing.
About 500 people, mostly locals, attended, waving Israeli flags and cheering on the prime minister, the city mayor, Guy Yifrach, Minister of Construction and Housing Haim Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, all of whom signed the agreement.
Other ministers who attended were Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman, Education Minister Yoav Kisch, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, and Ze’ev Elkin, a minister in the Finance Ministry.
The umbrella agreement provides for 7,000 new housing units, enough to house 30,000 residents. Ma’ale Adumim is currently home to 40,000.
“[T]his is about to realize the doubling of the city of Ma’ale Adumim. There will be 70,000 people here in five years. That will be a huge change,” Netanyahu told the audience.
The agreement provides 500 million shekels ($150 million) for infrastructure (this will include improvements to the entire city) and 700 million shekels ($210 million) for developing the two new neighborhoods — E1 (3,400 housing units) and Tzipor HaMidbar (“Bird of the Desert”) (3,500 units).