DaysofPal – Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced plans to approve thousands of new housing units in one of the most contentious and long-delayed settlement projects in the occupied West Bank, declaring the move would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Smotrich said he would authorize tenders for more than 3,000 homes in the E1 area, a project that would link Jerusalem to the large settlement of Maale Adumim, several kilometers to the east.
“Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan that we began implementing with the establishment of the government,” he said, describing the project as “Zionism at its best.”
Smotrich, who also serves in the Ministry of Defence with broad powers over West Bank settlement approvals, celebrated breaking “decades of international pressure and freezes” to connect Maale Adumim to Jerusalem.
Strategic Impact on Palestinian Territory
Critics and observers have long warned that construction in E1 would have grave consequences for any future Palestinian state. The project’s location would cut the occupied West Bank into northern and southern sections, severing East Jerusalem from Palestinian urban centers like Bethlehem and Ramallah and making a contiguous Palestinian territory virtually impossible.
The plan had been postponed in 2022 under US pressure, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has revived it in recent months. The government has already approved road expansions in the area and restricted Palestinian access.
Israeli settlement leaders hailed the announcement as a historic breakthrough. Israel Gantz, head of the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization representing settlers, and the Binyamin Regional Council, called it a “tremendous and historic achievement” and a “true revolution in strengthening the settlement enterprise.”
Maale Adumim mayor Guy Yifrach described the project as a “Zionist response of settlement and nation-building” and claimed it would thwart what he called Palestinian “illegal construction” aimed at establishing a foothold in the area.
Wider Settlement Expansion
According to Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now, a total of 4,030 new housing units were approved on Wednesday across the occupied West Bank.
These include 730 units west of the Ariel settlement and 3,300 in a new Maale Adumim neighborhood that will connect it to its eastern industrial zone.
Peace Now noted that the Maale Adumim expansion alone represents a 33% increase in the settlement’s housing stock, a significant boost for a community whose population has hovered around 38,000 for the past decade. The group added that this scale of expansion raises “serious questions about the need for the E1 plan” itself.
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