The Ma'aleh Adumim challenge

At a time when everyone bandies about the word "unity" like some hackneyed phrase, here is a public-opinion challenge for the new government, even at the price of a showdown with the United States: the building of thousands of housing units in the corridor between Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem and linking the two cities as part of the much-discussed "E1 plan." Every government - from Yitzhak Rabin's to Ehud Olmert's - has supported the plan but has not implemented it. Now the time has come to do so, before it's too late, perhaps impossible.

The outgoing defense minister, Ehud Barak, who asked us to consider "the moment of truth" during the election campaign, knows the lay of the land very well. He visited the area before the elections and thought that "without a willingness to build a contiguous link between Mount Scopus and Ma'aleh Adumim, Ma'aleh Adumim is in danger. If we do not immediately embark on diplomatic efforts, in establishing actual facts, we are liable to lose Ma'aleh Adumim."

Indeed, 14 years after the plan's initial stages were approved, the plan is now being frittered away. Bedouin tribes wander around and illegal Palestinian construction is gnawing at the land available for building. Even the corridor leading to Jerusalem - which holds a highway of supreme strategic importance for Israel, linking Jerusalem, Ma'aleh Adumim and the Jordan Valley - has become narrower. Instead of a 2-kilometer-wide opening, the corridor has shrunk to just 1 kilometer and is constantly shrinking further, particularly from the direction of Al-Zaim.

The Palestinians seek to prevent what they call "bisection of the West Bank," which will disrupt the creation of a contiguous sovereign and urban Palestinian landmass between the northern West Bank and the south. But Israel's interest in realizing the E1 plan, which the international community has ignored, is opposite: the creation of a contiguous bloc of land between West Jerusalem and the east (Ma'aleh Adumim on the way to the Dead Sea) as part of the security belt of settlements surrounding Jerusalem. The Palestinian construction belt that will surround East Jerusalem is liable to return the city's status as "a fringe city" and prevent it from developing eastward.

In Israel there is no disagreement over the need to link Ma'aleh Adumim with Jerusalem. For the last 15 years every government and the main political parties have supported the move, but they have been deterred from carrying it out. Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited there recently, explained the situation. "We want to create contiguity between greater Jerusalem from west to east," he said. "The Palestinians want to create a contiguous landmass of construction from north to south, and someone will prevail over the other. They will not compromise. They want to strangle Jerusalem from one side, and to separate it from Ma'aleh Adumim on the other side. We need to prevail over them and build E1."

Now Netanyahu has an opportunity to prove that his deeds are equal to his words. Olmert's promise to the United States not to build E1 for the time being should be put aside. The U.S. administration must be in tune with Israel's political upheaval, and there is no greater consensus than on Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim.

A similar dispute occurred in the late 1990s. Israel then insisted on building the Har Homa neighborhood in south Jerusalem because it believed that a lack of construction would sooner or later invite Palestinian activity that would place a wedge between the Jewish neighborhoods of Gilo and Armon Hanatziv. Har Homa, like all new neighborhoods in Jerusalem, was built despite U.S. opposition. Washington ultimately reconciled with Israel's position, even if it did not agree with it.