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Israel is reviving a settlement plan that would annex a strategic tract of land east of Jerusalem and build 3,400 new housing units on top of it. Known as the E1 settlement project, the plan would effectively split the West Bank in two and “bury” any prospects of a Palestinian state, according to far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a statement last week.

“This is Zionism at its best — building, settling, and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel,” Smotrich stated.

The settlement plan, which dates back to the 1990s, aims to connect Jerusalem to the existing illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim located east of the city. The over 3,400 new planned housing units are set to be built over an area exceeding 12 square kilometres, known on Israeli maps as E-1, which stands for “East-1.”

Smotrich’s announcement was widely welcomed by the Israeli settlement community, with the Chairman of the Yesha Council settler organization, Israel Gantz, praising the plan as “another great and historical achievement for the settlement on the eve of the application of sovereignty.”

Ma’ale Adumim’s mayor, Guy Yifrach, said the project would thwart the Palestinians’ goal of pursuing what he described as “illegal construction” in the E1 area.

The E1 area straddles a strategic tract of land east of Jerusalem that separates the northern West Bank from its southern half. The E1 settlement plan would block any territorial contiguity between those two halves and effectively split the territory into two. Palestinian transportation between north and south would be rerouted to a planned network of tunnels set to pass underneath E1, effectively banning any Palestinian presence aboveground in the area.

The E1 settlement plan has been on the Israeli agenda for over 20 years, shifting between freezes and renewed attempts to implement it.

The first attempts took place in the early 1990s under then-Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir and then-Defense Minister Moshe Arens. The Shamir government signed a document transferring part of the area to Maale Adumim’s Local Council.

A few years later, in 1994,........

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