[short piece] E-1, or how I learned to stop worrying about the two-state solution

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E-1, or how I learned to stopworrying about the two-statesolutionMARCO ALLEGRA 1 August 2014

The development of the E-1 area is seen as a ‘doomsdaydevice’ that can make or break the Israel-Palestine two-statesolution. Despite its significance, however, it is merely oneof many factors indicating that, for all the self-deception, itmight already be too late.

In November 2013, the new round of Israeli-Palestiniannegotiations – which had begun that summer as a result ofefforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to bring the partiesto the table – threatened to collapse, after the Israeli Ministry ofHousing issued tenders for a total of 20,000 housing units in theWest Bank.

The list published by the ministry announced the construction of1,400 housing units in the so-called “E-1 area” as well as in otherlocations near Jerusalem, including Gush Etzion and Efrat. Thedeclaration provoked an immediate reaction from the PalestinianAuthority and the US government. This prompted Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu, who apparently had no priorknowledge of the Ministry of Housingʼs actions, to immediatelycancel the tenders for the E-1 area.

These events represented only the most recent chapter in theE-1 saga. A year earlier, a storm had erupted when, after theconcession of “non-member observer” status to Palestine by theUN General Assembly, the Israeli government announced that itwould approve development plans for the E-1 area – a few dayslater, the West Bank Higher Planning Council (HPC, the Israelilocal planning commission) began to examine plans for theconstruction of more than 3,000 housing units in the area.

The Israeli retaliation over the UNGA vote triggered a muchstronger reaction from the international community.Representatives of all major European countries immediatelyissued uncharacteristically harsh statements – and were joinedin that by, among others, the UN Secretary General, Russia,Australia, Brazil, Egypt and Jordan. Israeli ambassadors invarious countries were summoned to explain Tel Avivʼs action –France and the UK even considered the unprecedented move ofrecalling their ambassadors.

A spokesperson for the White House invited Netanyahu to“reconsider” his move. Palestinian activists erected a symbolic“counter-settlement” in the E-1 area to protest against the Israeli


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plan. The president of the Palestinian Authority, MahmoudAbbas, termed the plan a “red line” not to be crossed; if plans forthe E-1 area were implemented, he said, “the idea of peace, theidea of a two-state solution, will disappear”.

What was all the fuss about? The label “E-1”, coined by Israeliplanning offices decades ago, denotes an area of about 12square kilometres that lies immediately east of the Israeli-definedcity limits of Jerusalem, within the municipal jurisdiction of theJewish settlement of Maʼale Adumim.

Beginning in 1995, Israel drafted a number of development plansfor the area, none of which has yet been implemented – exceptfor the construction of a police station (the new headquarters forthe district of Judaea and Samaria) and infrastructural works.The reason for the near absence of developments in the E-1area in the last 20 years is that the E-1 plan is widely perceivedas a 'Doomsday Device' placed at the core of the peace process.

Just as in Stanley Kubrickʼs Dr Strangelove, the detonation ofE-1 would dramatically change the reality on the ground, to thepoint of initiating a long nuclear winter for conflict resolution. Theimplementation of Israeli plans for E-1, the conventional wisdomgoes, would destroy any chance of creating a contiguous andsovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, and thereforedetermine the collapse of the so-called “two-state solution”.

On the surface, the E-1 story therefore has a happy ending, orperhaps we should say a “happy non-ending”. The minimalistprogress of the plan through the local planning bureaucracy hasclearly been unable so far to produce any significant result onthe ground. The US has been able to stop the implementation ofIsraeli projects for the area – a rare example of successfulsettlement freeze obtained through diplomatic pressure.

A plan that would destroy any hope of reaching a peacefulresolution of the conflict has been successfully frozen for thepast two decades and, if the American veto is maintained, thepossibility of implementing a “two-state” solution by creating aPalestinian state would remain open for the future. Despite thebleak condition of Israeli-Palestinian relations, internationaldiplomacy thus seems to have scored a crucial success.

Or have they? The fact that E-1 is widely considered as theparadigmatic “Doomsday Settlement” has contributed to blockingits implementation so far; by and large, both its supporters andopponents of Israeli plans tend to view E-1 as a territorial point ofno return in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

My argument here, however, is that the conventional wisdomabout E-1 is, at least in part, misleading when it comes toassessing the nature of the plan itself and the geopolitics of theconflict in the Jerusalem area. More broadly, the E-1 affair alsodemonstrates how Americaʼs determined efforts to cling to theso-called “two-state” formula are far removed from the reality onthe ground. In this respect, the prevalent discourse about E-1 isjust another component of what Ian Lustick has defined, in arecent New York Times op-ed, as the “Two-State Illusion” – i.e.an exercise in self-deception that saves all the parties involvedfrom coming to terms with reality, while at the same time


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E1 plan, 1998. The Palestinian AcademicSociety for the Study of International

Affairs (PASSIA).

maintaining all their claims intact.

"E-1 is Ma'ale Adumim, Ma'ale Adumim is Jerusalem"

First letʼs try to understand how it all started. The history of E-1began in the early 1990s, when the government led by YitzhakShamir started discussing plans for the development of a(Jewish) urban corridor linking Jerusalem and Maʼale Adumim,located about 7 km east of the Old City.

In 1994, while Yitzhak Rabin was in power, the E-1 area wasplaced under the municipal jurisdiction of Maʼale Adumim –which consequently expanded to cover an area of 48 km2 (TelAviv, whose population is ten times larger, occupies an area of52 km2), reaching Jerusalem city limits. The following year, thesame government approved what eventually became known asthe “E-1 plan” (formally Outline Plan 420/4).

Maʼale Adumim wasfounded at the end of1970s within the context of

a wider effort for the creation of a belt of Jewish settlements inthe metropolitan area of Jerusalem. This was done with the aimof creating a territorial-demographic “fact on the ground”,challenging the Palestinian presence in the area, and, at thesame time, providing an answer to the overcrowding of the innercity and the growing Jewish demand for suburban housing.

From the very start, the development of Maʼale Adumim hasalways been intimately connected, both in geopolitical andplanning terms, to the development of the metropolitan area ofJerusalem – indeed, the first project implemented in the areawas the construction in the mid-1970s of the industrial area ofMishor Adumim, destined to serve the region as a whole. Twentyyears later, planning for the E-1 area clearly followed thismetropolitan approach, allocating vast expanses of land for“regional needs” and “the social and economic benefit of the


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population of [Maʼale Adumim] and the district” (meaningJerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the area).

In the 1980s Maʼale Adumim began its steady and so faruninterrupted growth, and with a current population of about40,000, is today one of the largest settlements in the West Bank.Maʼale Adumim also represents a success story in Israelʼssettlement policy, due to the pace of its expansion, the highquality of life enjoyed by the residents in terms of services andinfrastructures, and its relatively uncontroversial status in Israelipublic opinion.

Finally, Maʼale Adumim – whose population primarily consists ofcommuters working in Jerusalem – is also a good example of thesuburban character of Israelʼs settlement policy, as the vastmajority of settlers live in relatively large localities around the twomain metropolitan centres of the country, Tel Aviv andJerusalem.

In the last twenty years, however, the slow progress of Israelʼsplans for the E-1 area has been, paradoxically, due to the samefactor that allowed for a rapid growth of Maʼale Adumim – thestrict relation between the settlement and the metropolitan areaof Jerusalem. It is in this context that the E-1 plan has become,for its supporters and opponents alike, a focal point for Israeli-Palestinian relations.

On the Israeli side, the development of E-1 represents a matterof almost universal consensus. The equation “E-1=MaʼaleAdumim=Jerusalem” has served to considerably lessen thecontroversial character of the plan, to the extent thatdevelopments in the E-1 area are widely considered necessaryto ensure the natural growth of (Jewish) metropolitan Jerusalem,and its continuation under Israeli control. All subsequent Israeliprime ministers after Shamir have endorsed the E-1 scheme.Governments of different colours have promoted its progressthrough the Israeli planning system, and countless statements byIsraeli politicians have defined E-1 as a strategic area that willremain under Israeli control whatever happens in the future.

The Israeli consensus surroundin g the E-1 plan reflects thesame mix of geopolitical and planning arguments behind thedevelopment of Maʼale Adumim. As Jerusalemʼs Mayor, NirBarkat, put it in a 2012Wall Street Journal op-ed:

“The expansion of Jerusalem's residential areas isessential for the natural growth of all segments of ourpopulation…The capital of a sovereign nation cannot beexpected to freeze growth rather than provide housing tofamilies of all faiths eager to make their lives there. As forʻE-1ʼ, this land has always been considered the natural sitefor the expansion of contiguous neighbourhoods ofmetropolitan Jerusalem. ʻE-1ʼ strengthens Jerusalem. Itdoes not impede peace in our region. The internationalalarm about planned construction is based solely on themisplaced dreams of the Palestinians and their supportersfor a divided Jerusalem”.


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In a more politico-strategic fashion, the current President ofIsrael, Likud MP Reuven Rivlin, declared that blockingdevelopment in E-1 would:

“Cut off [Maʼale Adumim] from the rest of Israel like MountScopus was from 1947 to 1967. Everyone who sees[Maʼale Adumim] as part of Israel understands the need forterritorial contiguity. [Maʼale Adumim] cannot continue toexist if all the area connecting it to Jerusalem becomesdensely populated with Palestinians. This will only lead toputting the city in danger of terror attacks”.

Conversely, the implementation of the E-1 plan is considered byPalestinians and the international community alike as anirreparable vulnus to the conflict resolution perspectiveembodied in the formula “two people, two states” – whichenvisions the birth of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, andconsiders the armistice line of 1949 (the pre-1967 border) as theterritorial basis for future interstate borders (with possible -minimal - land swaps and a special agreement on Jerusalem).

The E-1 plan is widely interpreted as a project for the creation ofa Jewish “urban corridor” between Maʼale Adumim andJerusalem, and therefore is seen as the ultimate threat to theterritorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state. Since the onlyconnection between the north (Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin) and thesouth (Bethlehem, Nablus) of the West Bank passes through thearea between Jerusalem and Maʼale Adumim – and given thetopography and infrastructure of the area – the development ofsuch a corridor would split the West Bank into two separatecantons. On this point, a background paper published by thePLO Negotiation Support Unit in 2009 notes that:

“If fully implemented, E-1 would deny East Jerusalem itslast remaining area for future growth and economicdevelopment. In addition, the location of E-1 and itsmassive size would assure Israeli control over the keyjunction area connecting the northern part of the WestBank to the south”.

Interestingly, this seems also to be the view held by many of thestaunchest supporters of the plan. As the former leader of theCouncil of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the GazaStrip (YESHA), Pinhas Wallerstein, argued: “E-1 is the key toJerusalem's security…Building in E-1 will create a continuousarea from French Hill to [Maʼale Adumim]. The minute E-1 isfilled with Jewish building, then we have closed the corridor fromAbu Dis to Ramallah. Not building will endanger parts ofJerusalem”.

Nadav Shragai, from the right-wing think tank the JerusalemCentre for Public Affairs, concurs, defining building in E-1 as “avital Israeli interest”:

“Contiguity of Israeli construction between Jerusalem and[Maʼale Adumim] will ostensibly create a barrier between


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E1 detailed plans, based on the map inthe report by Peace Now. View larger

version.

Palestinian areas south of Jerusalem and areas ofPalestinian settlement to the north. By contrast, if the areaof E-1 passes into Palestinian hands and/or Palestinianconstruction there intensifies, this will detach the city of[Maʼale Adumim] from Jerusalem…The construction of E-1will make the difference between Jewish contiguity fromwest to east and Palestinian contiguity from north to south”.

Dissecting the E-1 plan

In general, supporters and opponents of the E-1 plan seem toagree about the politico-territorial consequences of theimplementation of Israeli projects (the zero-sum game inherentto development in the area and the relation between E-1 andfinal status issues), as well as on notions such as “urbancorridor” and “territorial contiguity”.

It is also interesting to note that in the prevalent discourse on theissue, the “E-1 plan” is considered as a whole, a singledevelopment package, graphically represented by reports,newspapers and websites as a uniform area (usually blue orred-coloured) stretching between Maʼale Adumim andJerusalem. In order to get a sense of what E-1 really is, however,we need to dig a bit deeper.

To begin with, the very notion of “E-1 plan” tends to obscuremore than clarify the nature of the projects for the E-1 area. The“E-1 plan” is technically an Outline Plan (plan 420/4, drafted in1995, approved by the Higher Planning Commission in 1999). Inthe local planning system, Outline Plans constitute generalplanning schemes defining land use – in this case, for the twelvesquare kilometres that constitute the E-1 area.

As a consequence, for any tender to be issued and constructionto start, the local planning commission needs to approve aspecific detailed plan. Finally, throughout the planning process,the Israeli Ministry of Defence – and, at least in this case, theprime ministerʼs office – must approve each and every step.

Within the framework ofOutline Plan 420/4, variousdetailed plans have been

presented by different Israeli bodies and agencies: for theexpansion of the residential area of Maʼale Adumim (DetailedPlans 420/4/7 and 420/4/10, for a total of 3,650 housing units);for the construction of hotels and villas (420/4/3, 260 housingunits); for a leisure and commercial area (420/4/2); for a waterreservoir near the al-Zayin junction (420/4/1); and for the above-


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mentioned police station (420/4/9). So far, these plans haveprogressed very slowly through the politico-bureaucratic jungleof Israelʼs planning system.

The first two plans for residential housing now only need the finalapproval by the prime minister, while the third is still laggingbehind in planning terms and, at least as far as its residentialcomponent is concerned, the Ministry of Housing expressedreservation about its economic viability. The plan for thecommercial area also initially met with financial difficulties, andrecently an internal review by the Israeli planning officesdiscovered that private properties in the area were far morenumerous and larger than expected.

This means that its implementation in the original form and scaleenvisaged is impossible, and that planning in the area will haveto start from scratch. The projects for the police station and thewater reservoir are the only ones to have been implemented sofar. As a consequence, the Outline Plan for the E-1 area cannotbe “implemented” as such. The individual detailed plans putforward in the context of this general planning scheme areindependent from one another in terms of their progress; ifimplemented, each would have different territorial and politico-diplomatic consequences.

But this is perhaps just a sophistic and ultimately futile exercisein semantics. The fundamental dispute around E-1 focuses onthe two plans for residential housing; and indeed, theimplementation of these plans – with a combined potential of15-20,000 new residents – would be a territorial anddemographic “fact on the ground” of such magnitude that itwould imply the maintenance of Israelʼs control on the newneighbourhoods for the foreseeable future (by way ofcomparison, it is worth noting that roughly 8,000 residents wereevicted from smaller and more peripheral settlements scatteredacross the entire Gaza Strip in 2005, and only at a huge politicaland material cost).

The past history of the area suggests that this would almostcertainly be the case. Still, this does not mean that conceptssuch as “urban corridor” or “territorial contiguity” are necessarilyrelevant for assessing the impact of the implementation of Israeliplans for E-1. In the first place, the two planned residential areas(plans 420/4/7 and 420/4/10) are located north (not west) of theMaʼale Adumim settlement; the plans for the area stretchingbetween the settlement and Jerusalem (420/4/3 and 420/4/2) arelagging far behind and, in any case, do not envisage the denseresidential development associated with the notion of “urbancorridor”.

Moreover – and despite the wishes of some Israeli supporters ofthe plan – it is hardly possible to imagine how a “Jewishterritorial contiguity” could be created between Jerusalem andMaʼale Adumim: localities such as Abu Dis, El-Eizariya, Al-Zayimand ʻAnata form a belt of Palestinian residential areas betweenthe two. Conversely, no Palestinian residential development inthe area could guarantee the connection between the north andsouth of the West Bank.

In this respect, it is difficult to argue that the severe limitations to


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the Palestiniansʼ freedom of movement in the area ofmetropolitan Jerusalem are connected to the implementation ofIsraeli plans for E-1 (and in particular to the two plans forresidential housing). As a matter of fact, while the E-1 plan hasbeen almost completely frozen for the past twenty years, in thesame period the situation has steadily worsened for thePalestinians. Indeed, Palestinian areas currently enjoy only aprecarious ʻtransportational contiguityʼ, to the point thatPalestinian mobility could paradoxically take advantage of thecurrent Israeli projects for the creation of a “Palestinian only”road between Ramallah and Bethlehem in the al-Zayim area.

Palestinian mobility depends on the management of the roadsystem and, at least for the future, on the realisation ofinfrastructure developments aimed at improving the north-southroad connections – to be realised either east or west of theMaʼale Adumim settlement (even if the former area is regardedas presenting difficult technical challenges).

In other words, the PAʼs concerns notwithstanding, thelimitations to Palestinian mobility between Ramallah, EastJerusalem and Bethlehem parallel the existence of similarobstacles in the rest of the West Bank (not to mention theproblem of the connection between the latter and the Gaza Strip)and depend not so much on the E-1 plans but rather on theexistence of infrastructural and administrative obstacles (in theform of lack of investments, physical barriers, checkpoints,bypass roads and the permits system).

Much ado about nothing? Not really. The arguments voicedagainst the implementation of the E-1 plans cannot be easilydismissed. The plans envisage a significant expansion of aJewish settlement in the overcrowded, politically and territoriallyfragile area of Jerusalemʼs eastern periphery – as well asconsiderable territorial developments of various types. Both theimplementation of the housing projects and the creation ofcommercial and tourist infrastructures would implicitly strengthenIsraelʼs argument for further developments, as well as for themaintaining of a tight security system in the area. However, if weconsider the demographic and territorial issues in the light of apossible agreement based on the “two-state” formula, the core ofthe problem is represented by the very existence of thesettlement of Maʼale Adumim; and, more broadly, by the fast andchaotic expansion of metropolitan Jerusalem in all its territorialand demographic components.

One could legitimately argue that, to paraphrase MiltonFriedman, settlement expansion should be avoided “under anycircumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it'spossible”. But if we assume that large settlements such asMaʼale Adumim will remain under Israelʼs control (and any otheroption seems far removed from reality, at least for theforeseeable future), the enormous problem we face today is that,whatever the progress of the plans for the E-1 area, any partitionof Mandatory Palestine into two states would imply a territorialzero-sum game.

In other words, (limited) territorial contiguity for one of the partiescan only be realised by offering a mere “transportationalcontiguity” to the other. In the case of Jerusalemʼs periphery, the


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alternative is between privileging Palestinian (by creating anarrow infrastructural corridor between Jerusalem and MaʼaleAdumim) or Israeli contiguity (by creating a corridor betweenBethlehem and Ramallah). Moreover, if we assume thatJerusalem should remain a functioning urban system to beshared by the two parties – at least to some degree or in relationto specific functions and areas – any politico-administrative andterritorial solution would require both the presence of dedicatedphysical infrastructure (new roads, tunnels, barriers,checkpoints, and so on) and a high degree of coordinationbetween the Israeli and Palestinian states (including specialagreements for the joint management of specific issues).

Today, this intractable bundle of territorial and demographic“facts on the ground” represents the core of Israeli-Palestinianrelations. Against this background, the idea that is possible tosolve the conflict by drawing a line between Palestinian andJewish communities constitutes at the very least a form ofself-deception and serves as a way to avoid coming to termswith an unpleasant reality.

An ever-ticking time bomb?

The conventional wisdom about settlement expansion and E-1 ispart and parcel of this self-deception – a role-playing game thathas been going on for the last thirty years. The so-called“irreversibility debate” began in Israel in the early 1980s, whenMeron Benvenisti was one of the first to declare that theoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza had already passed thepoint of no return and had therefore become an irreversible, defacto annexation. Benvenisti argued that settlement expansionhad already dramatically transformed the Israeli-Palestinianconflict, from a border dispute to an inter-communalconfrontation within a bi-national state.

The events that marked the end of 1980s and the beginning of1990s contributed to burying this debate: after 1987, the FirstIntifada significantly increased the political and material costs ofIsraelʼs control of the Territories, signalling that the Palestinianswere not ready to exchange their rights for the benefits of Israelʼs“benevolent occupation”. In 1993, the start of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations seemed to confirm that the two-stateformula could function as the basis of a political agreement oncrucial issues such as the powers and responsibilities of aPalestinian government, along with questions concerningsettlements, border issues (including the status of Jerusalem)and the problem of Palestinian refugees.

Since then, however, more than twenty years of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under the aegis of the US have failed tomeet these enormous challenges. And, every once in a while,the expansion of a Jewish settlement resurrects the sameoutcry: that the settlement doomsday clock is fast approximatingmidnight, and that the window of opportunity for a two statesolution is closing. As negotiations failed to produce results, thisbecame the mantra of diplomats, analysts and the growingpeace-process industry.

The original doomsday clock – which appeared for the first timein 1947 on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and


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has been maintained ever since, oscillating back-and-forth,reflecting the fluctuating risk of a global nuclear war. The pace ofa hypothetical settlement doomsday clock, however, confrontsus with a paradox: in the past forty-six years, the expansion ofsettlements has proceeded unabated, but the “point of no return”mantra is still being chanted by a chorus including all the mainplayers – Israelis, Palestinians and the international community.It would seem that, whatever happens, we are permanentlystuck at five minutes to midnight.

An educated guess would be that the clock in fact struckmidnight a long time ago. Today, Israeli plans for E-1 are widelyconsidered the ultimate doomsday settlement. It would be wrongto deny the relevance of these meaningful and controversialplans for the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. But it wouldbe probably better to admit, however, that considering theirimplementation to be the death blow to the peace processreveals a great deal of optimism in assessing the present stateof the conflict.

More than that, it demonstrates the reluctance of politicians andanalysts to leave the comfort zone represented by the two-stateformula and venture into the uncharted territory of a “post-borderapproach” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am deliberatelyusing the formula “post-border approach” instead of, say,“one-state solution” because I do not believe that the sunset ofthe two-state discourse automatically provides us with analternative, better path towards the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – indeed, no such path seems to be visibletoday.

But, whatever the future brings, it would be better to look itstraight in the eye. Today, like the proverbial drunk man, we havelost the keys of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the park, but weare busy looking for them under the street light; nothing willcome out of it, but, of course, “at least thereʼs some light there”.

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[short piece] E-1, or how I learned to stop worrying about the two-state solution

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