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==Bab al Shams== |
==Bab al Shams== |
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"Bab al-Shams" (''Gate of the Sun'') was a Palestinian tent site in the [[West Bank]] that housed 250 Palestinian and foreign activists. The activists erected 50 tents in the [[E1 (Jerusalem)|E1 area]] where Israel has decided to build more than 4000 housing units. |
"Bab al-Shams" (''Gate of the Sun'') was a Palestinian tent site in the [[West Bank]] that housed 250 Palestinian and foreign activists. The activists erected 50 tents in the [[E1 (Jerusalem)|E1 area]] where Israel has decided to build more than 4000 housing units.<ref>[http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/defying-occupier-palestinians-establish-bab-al-shams-village-land-seized-jewish]</ref> It was created January 11, 2013.<ref>[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/201311312243144380.html]</ref> The site was forcibly evacuated on January 12, and a dozens of people were arrested.<ref>http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/201311312243144380.html; http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2013/01/20131132164455264.html; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21002450</ref> |
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==References== |
==References== |
Revision as of 14:55, 17 January 2013
E1, also named Mevaseret Adumim (Template:Lang-he-n) is an area of the West Bank[1] within the municipal boundary of the Israeli settlement[2][1] of Maale Adumim, located immediately adjacent to East Jerusalem. It covers an area of 12 square kilometres (4.6 sq mi), which although largely empty, is home to a number of Bedouin communities and their livestock as well as a large Israeli police headquarters.[2] The Palestinian outpost of Bab al Shams, established in 2013, also falls under this territory.
There are Israeli plans for construction in E1, frozen since at least 2009 under international pressure. All Israeli settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law.[2] Construction in E1 is controversial as it would effectively complete a crescent of Israeli settlements around East Jerusalem dividing it from the rest of the West Bank and its Palestinian population centres and create a continuous Jewish population between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim. It would also nearly bisect the West Bank jeopardizing the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state.[2][3][4]
Geography
Situated in the West Bank,[1] the E1 area is bordered by the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem to the west, Abu Dis to the southwest, Kedar to the south, Ma'ale Adumim to the east, and Almon to the north. The area is mountainous and covers almost 3,000 acres. The E1 area runs between the Eastern most edges of annexed [East Jerusalem] and nearby Ma'ale Adumim, a large Israeli settlement located East of the pre-1976 green line.[5] [2] E1 falls within Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli military and civilian control, and is administered by Ma'ale Adumim.[6]
History
During the government of Yitzhak Shamir in 1991 part of the area currently known as E-1 was transferred to the Maale Adumim local council. In January 1994, the Higher Planning Council of Judea and Samaria's Subcommittee for Settlement tabled a new plan that expanded the municipal plan for Maale Adumim and, in effect, constituted the basis for the future E-1 plan. Yitzhak Rabin expanded the borders of Ma'ale Adumim to include the area known as E1 and instructed Housing Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer to begin planning a neighborhood at the location. From then on, planning and authorization procedures for the E-1 neighborhood were promoted but were never totally completed, given the diplomatic constraints.[7] Since Yitzhak Rabin every Israeli prime minister has supported the plan to create Israeli urban contiguity between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem:
On March 13, 1996, Prime Minister Shimon Peres reaffirmed the government’s position that Israel will demand applying Israeli sovereignty over Ma’aleh Adumim in the framework of a permanent peace agreement. Dovish politician and co-author of the Geneva Initiative, Yossi Beilin, supported annexing Ma’aleh Adumim.[7]According to a document of understandings between former minister Yossi Beilin and Mahmoud Abbas from the mid-1990s, while some Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods were to be transferred to a future Palestinian state, Israel was to annex the Jewish communities around Jerusalem, such as Maale Adumim, Givat Zeev, Beitar, and Efrat.[citation needed] According to the Clinton outline for partitioning Jerusalem that arose in the talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at Camp David in 2000, Israel was to be compensated for partitioning the city by annexing Maale Adumim.[7]
During the 2008 Annapolis negotiations, then-prime minister Ehud Olmert and then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni demanded that Ma’aleh Adumim remain a part of Israel. And Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's declared that "the State of Israel will continue to build in Jerusalem and in all the places on the state’s strategic map" is a continuation of the political traditional that views control over E1 as a cardinal Israeli interest.[7]
Following the legal terms of the Oslo II Interim Agreement from September 28, 1995. The area E-1 was designated as Area C, where Israel retained the powers of zoning and planning. However, despite long-standing plans for the municipality of Ma'aleh Adumim to build 3000 new housing units on the E1 territory, Israel undertook unilateral limitations upon itself in this area in recent years.[8][9]
Since 2008, the headquarters of the Samaria and Judea district of the Israeli Police Department are situated in the E1.
In December 2012, in response to the United Nations approving the Palestinian bid for "non-member observer state" status, Israel announced the next day that it was resuming planning and zoning work in E1 area.[10][11] EU ministers expressed their "dismay"[12] and five European countries summoned Israeli ambassadors to protest.[13]
E1 Plan
The plan for the E1 area within the municipal boundary of Maale Adumim, sought to develop the area in order to link Maale Adumim and its 40,000 residents to Jerusalem.[7] It entails building about 3,500 housing units, the now-completed police headquarters of the Judea and Samaria district, as well as a industrial, tourism, commercial areas. Also a garbage dump and a large cemetery to be shared by Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.[14][citation needed]
The proposed construction of a further new road around the settlement of Kedar in 2009 was also seen as attempting to facilitate residential development in E1.[15]
Controversy
Construction in the area is a subject of controversy, with the Palestinians claiming that it would prevent sovereign Palestinian contiguity between the northern and southern areas of the West Bank and Increase travel time between Ramallah region north of Jerusalem to the Bethlehem region to the south. Which would make it difficult to reach agreement over permanent borders. The United States and EU has supported the Palestinian position and has sought to block Israeli construction at the site, pending a final peace agreement. Israeli governments have so far avoided construction in E1 due to international pressure.[16][17]
While Israel claim, E1 plans have been regarded as strategically important for Jerusalem's security by all of Israel's former Prime Ministers since Prime Minister Rabin appended E1 to Ma'ale Adumim.[18] According to Ma'ale Adumim Mayor Bennie Kashriel, Mvasseret Adumim is needed to allow continuous natural growth in Ma'ale Adumim, and is essential for Ma'ale Adumim's security. Without Mvasseret Adumim, Ma'ale Adumim is detached from Jerusalem — which is a 12 minute car ride away, and is vulnerable to anyone who seizes the E1 range.[19] The Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiators fear that Jewish settlement construction in E1 would separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank.
Palestinian Contiguity Road
To address Palestinian concerns, Israel has constructed a series of bypass roads that allow access from East Jerusalem to the West Bank. The total cost of construction was estimated in 2009 as amounting to ₪200,000,000 (approx. US$50,000,000) for the previous two years. The building of this infrastructure was interpreted as motivated by a desire to "claim" the E1 area ahead of constructing residential neighborhoods.[20]
Encroachments
Jahalin Bedouin claimed to have resided in the E1 area since the 1950s with the consent of the landowners from Abu Dis and al-Eizariya, whereas the Israel claimed that it was only around the year 1988 that groups of the Jahalin tribe began to settle there and on adjacent lands.[21]
Israeli efforts to remove the Jahalin Bedouin who live on the E1 lands have also been interpreted as preparing the ground for settlement construction. The European Union submitted a formal protest to the Israeli Foreign Ministry over evacuating Bedouin and tearing down Palestinians' houses in the E1 area in December 2011. Israel denied that such evacuations were a preparation for settlement construction.[22]
In February 2012, Israeli authorities abandoned plans to resettle the Jahalin Bedouin to the Abu Dis garbage dump, but confirmed their intention to concentrate them in one location, which would be contrary to their traditional nomadic lifestyle, based on animals grazing.[23]
Bab al Shams
"Bab al-Shams" (Gate of the Sun) was a Palestinian tent site in the West Bank that housed 250 Palestinian and foreign activists. The activists erected 50 tents in the E1 area where Israel has decided to build more than 4000 housing units.[24] It was created January 11, 2013.[25] The site was forcibly evacuated on January 12, and a dozens of people were arrested.[26]
References
- ^ a b c Steven, Erlanger (17/12/2012). "West Bank Land, Empty but Full of Meaning". New York Times. Retrieved 11/01/2013.
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(help) - ^ a b c d e Sherwood, Harriet (3/12/2012). "Israel's E1 plan: barren hills long targeted for settlement expansion". The Guardian. Retrieved 11/01/2013.
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(help) - ^ Stoil, Rebecca Anna (10 August 2009). "Rivlin: No peace without E-1 building". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ Klein, Manachem (2010). The Shift: Israel-Palestine from Border Struggle to Ethnic Conflict. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd. p. 61. ISBN 1849040850.
- ^ "Israel firm on settlements as world outcry grows". AFP. 5/12/2012. Retrieved 11/01/2013.
{{cite news}}
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and|date=
(help) - ^ "Palestinian activists set up 'outpost' near Jerusalem". AFP. 11/01/2013. Retrieved 11/01/2013.
{{cite news}}
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and|date=
(help) - ^ a b c d e "Editorial: The logic of E1". Jerusalem Post. 2 December 2012. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
- ^ Berg, Raffi (12 November 2005). "Israel's Lynchpin Settlement". BBC News. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ Second Maʹale Adumim outline plan 420/4, approved 1999.
- ^ "Diplomacy & politics", The Jerusalem Post.
- ^ "Israel, PA E-1 zone settlements", Pulse, AL monitor, 2012.
- ^ "Israeli leader mocks EU 'dismay'", EU Observer, 11 December 2012, retrieved 15 December 2012.
- ^ "Israel stands by settlements plan despite growing diplomatic crisis", The Guardian, 3 December 2012, retrieved 15 December 2012.
- ^ E1, against all odds, Ynetnews, access date 6 May 2009
- ^ Harel, Amos (14 May 2009). "New West Bank roads jeopardizing chances for peace accord". Haaretz. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
- ^ Pressure mounts on Israel to reverse on settlements (AFP, Dec. 3rd, 2012)
- ^ "Netanyahu, Lieberman 'struck secret deal for West Bank construction'". Haaretz. 10 August 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ Kershner, Isabel (17 April 2006). "Unilateral Thinking". Jerusalem Report (cover story). Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ "Maale Adummim in the Future". Municipality of Maale Adummim. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
- ^ Harel, Amos (1 February 2009). "NIS 200m spent on new W. Bank neighborhood". Haaretz. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
- ^ HCJ 2966/95, Muhammad Ahmad Salem Harash and nineteen others v Minister of Defense et al., Takdin Elyon 96(2) 866 (1996), par 2.
- ^ Ravid, Barak (23 December 2011). "EU voices protest over Israeli policies in East Jerusalem, West Bank". Haaretz. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
- ^ Hass, Amira (6 February 2012). "Bedouin community wins reprieve from forcible relocation to Jerusalem garbage dump". Haaretz. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/201311312243144380.html; http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2013/01/20131132164455264.html; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21002450
External links
- "E1 development plan", Palestine facts (PDF) (map), Passia.