ON 7 JUNE, the Guardian newspaper reported that the UK government, alongside a group of western allies, were preparing a package of sanctions against Israel in an effort to ‘deter companies from becoming involved in a proposed West Bank settlement that would split the territory in two and render the concept of a two-state solution near impossible’.

Last year, international news agencies reported that Israel’s widely condemned ‘E1 master plan’ was in train, while in May of this year, Mondoweiss reported that Netanyahu’s government was just moments away from realising the plan.

The aim of the expansionist project – one that has been decades in the making – is to vastly expand the already sprawling (and illegal under international law, according to the global community) settlement of Maale Adumimm, to create a continuous corridor between the remaining illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

The ultimate outcome would put paid to the illusory notion of a future two-states, with the E1 plan effectively cutting the occupied West Bank into two.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in the Knesset. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Since the creation of the E1 project, the Israeli government has been waging a relentless campaign against Palestine’s indigenous and nomadic Bedouin communities, those who live on the land slated for ‘development’.

Plan No. 1627/7, also known as the ‘Shami neighbourhood’ project, seeks to force Palestine’s Bedouin communities from the land........

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