Last update - 00:00 01/10/2007
Police to move W. Bank district HQ to contentious J'lem corridor
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
The Samaria and Judea (Shai) District Police will move its headquarters to the controversial E-1 area, which links Jerusalem with the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, by the end of this year, regardless of whether or not the United States approves, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter told Haaretz this weekend.
For years, Israel has sought to develop E-1 in order to strengthen its hold on Ma'aleh Adumim, which is one of the largest settlements in the territories, and one that all Israeli governments have said they want to keep under any future agreement with the Palestinians. The area's master plan therefore calls for constructing two new neighborhoods consisting of 3,500 houses in E-1. However, work on the houses was never initiated, and three years ago, Israel froze the plan completely due to international, and particularly American, opposition. Palestinians claim that Israeli territorial contiguity between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim would slice their future state in two.
They add that the plan would also isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the planned state; the international community backs their objections.
Israel opted to construct a police station in E-1, which is technically within Ma'aleh Adumim's municipal borders. The theory was that since a police station, like an army base, is a security structure that can easily be moved, this would not be viewed as creating "facts on the ground" that could prejudice a future agreement. Yet at the same time, it would demonstrate Israel's desire to retain this area.
"The building exists, and by the end of the year, policemen are supposed to move in," Dichter told Haaretz. "The Housing Ministry needs to finish the site's infrastructure, and the move into the building is currently being held up only by the infrastructure issue."
He added that the move would not be conditioned on American consent.
The Shai District Police, which is responsible for law enforcement in the West Bank, is currently headquartered in Jerusalem's Ras al Amud neighborhood. A few years ago, the new Jewish neighborhood of Ma'aleh Zeitim - which consists of a handful of houses financed by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz - was built adjacent to this station, and when the police quit the Ras al Amud building, the land on which it sits is expected to be used for the construction of additional houses. This land has been Jewish-owned since long before the state was founded, having been purchased from the Turks (who controlled the area until 1917) by the Jewish community of Bukhara.