Analysis / A connection, but nothing more yet

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fully intends to create a territorial connection between Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem, but is not necessarily committed to the E-1 plan, which calls for building a new Jewish neighborhood along the connecting corridor, senior government sources said.

"There will be a territorial connection in the future, but we don't sanctify the E-1 plan," said one. "In any event, it will be years before this plan is approved, so the question is academic."

The E-1 plan, which the United States vehemently opposes, calls for building some 3,500 new apartments between Ma'aleh Adumim and the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem. To demonstrate a presence in the E-1 area in the meantime, Israel had planned to build a police station there, but American pressure caused this idea to be frozen.

Foreign diplomats, as well as the Palestinian Authority, have expressed fears that Sharon might take advantage of the disengagement from Gaza to build E-1 - among other reasons, to strengthen his standing in the Likud before the party's leadership primary. But the senior government sources indicated that Sharon has no such intention, as he does not want a confrontation with the international community right now.

Health Minister Danny Naveh, who opposes the disengagement, had in fact demanded that Israel approve E-1 simultaneously with the withdrawal from Gaza, but Sharon refused to even bring the issue to the cabinet for discussion.

Palestinians, as well as Israeli leftists, argue that the plan would destroy any chance of a peace agreement by separating East Jerusalem from the West Bank, thereby preventing East Jerusalem from becoming the capital of a Palestinian state. They also fear that a connection between Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem would effectively turn the northern and southern sections of the West Bank into two separate "cantons."

But Sharon, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post this week, rejected this latter claim. Ma'aleh Adumim will continue to grow and will be linked to Jerusalem, he said, but it is possible to find solutions that would enable such a link without severing the northern and southern West Bank.

In particular, Sharon plans to build a new road between Bethlehem and Ramallah that would pass east of the fence slated to be built around Ma'aleh Adumim. The U.S. has not yet responded officially to the fence's route.