Despite the Hype, E1 Doesn’t Cut West Bank in Two
December 2, 2012 16:51 by Pesach BensonThe patch of land the world’s fixated on today is roughly 4.5 square miles adjacent to Jerusalem and Maale Adumim. There’s no fancy name to the place. It’s simply known by the bureaucratic moniker, E1.
After the UN General Assembly unilaterally boosted the Palestinians to non-member observer state and a Mahmoud Abbas speech that piqued Israeli officials, Jerusalem responded by dusting off old plans to develop E1. We’re talking about 3,000 housing units.
Settlement activity’s a divisive issue, even among Israelis. But let’s get one thing clear.
Developing E1 doesn’t divide the West Bank in two. It doesn’t wreck the contiguity of a future Palestinian state. Even if Israel does move forward with these plans (and this isn’t the first time over the years that E1 bureaucracy made news and was then put on hold), the remaining land available to the Palestinians will still leave them with territorial contiguity.
The Palestinian waistline — between Maale Adumim and the Dead Sea, is roughly 15 km wide. That’s a corridor no different than the Israeli waistline. Indeed, that has never caused a problem of Israeli territorial contiguity.
And yet today’s papers repeat and reinforce the same Palestinian hype. Among the culprits:
• Los Angeles Times correspondent Ed Sanders:
The hillside development, known as E-1, would connect the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim with East Jerusalem, cutting off access between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.
• AFP:
Palestinians bitterly oppose the E1 project, as it effectively cuts the occupied West Bank in two, north to south, and makes the creation of a viable Palestinian state highly problematic.
(To its credit, AFP produced a decent map, though I wonder how many people saw it).
• BBC (which included a vague map):
Plans to build settlements in the area, known as E1, are strongly opposed by Palestinians, who say the development will cut the West Bank in two, preventing the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.
• New York Times bureau chief Jodi Rudoren writes:
Construction in E1, in West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war, would connect the large Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem, dividing the West Bank in two.
I have an extra bone to pick with the NYT. Their headline played up the inaccurate division, then produced a map that didn’t show E1 in the context of the West Bank. An accurate map would’ve contradicted the sexy headline and allowed readers to judge for themselves:
• Daily Telegraph reporter Robert Tait:
Reports said some of the new homes would be built in a disputed area known as E1, between the Maale Adumim settlement and east Jerusalem, dividing the northern and southern part of the West Bank.
• Washington Post correspondent Joel Greenberg:
Critics said planned building near Jerusalem would cut links between the northern and southern West Bank, seriously damaging prospects for a viable Palestinian state.
What a load of hooey.
Public debate about settlement activity is heated enough. Big Media hyperbole doesn’t benefit anyone.
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10:33 pm
Dec 05, 2012
[...] Post: Despite the Hype, E1 Doesn’t Cut West Bank in Two - by HonestReporting Share this:TwitterFacebookGoogle +1LinkedInStumbleUponEmailLike this:LikeBe the first to like [...]
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halloof
12:19 am
Dec 06, 2012
This time I’ll have to disagree: there are no North-South roads on the East side of Maale Adumim.
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Der Mythos illegaler Siedlungen « israelkompetenzkollektion
11:31 am
Dec 06, 2012
[...] daher der Beitrag Despite the Hype, E1 Doesn’t Cut West Bank in Two (Honest Reporting, 3.12.12), der einen Zusammenhang verdeutlichenden Blick auf die Landkarten von [...]
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Larry Kuznick
7:07 pm
Dec 09, 2012
The same hooey, hyperbole, downright lies and geographic ignorance by journalists who we think know their landscape. They should be testEd on their true agendas.
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BRUCE KESLER: THE NEW YORK TIMES SELLS A BRIDGE. THEN BUYS A MAP | RUTHFULLY YOURS
12:20 pm
Dec 11, 2012
[...] map (courtesy of Honest Reporting, for example, shows that not to be true. The New York Times must have bought a map, and just ran [...]
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DeeDee
11:15 pm
Dec 11, 2012
Show me another country with an impossible map like we have in Israel. Show me another country that other countries decide for her where it should build and where not to build.
In 1947 the U.N. (or other organization) decided to split the land of Israel to different areas – for the jews and for the arabs. Well, Israel is way too small to do this kind of map. It is impossible to live with. The jews agreed to that only because there were many jewish holocaust survivors waiting to enter a jewish state. We had nothing, and no time to wait so we accepted this outragous map. The land of Israel goes all the way from the mediteranean sea to the jordan river.
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Making Mountains Out of Molehills | THE VIEW FROM THE PALACE
11:50 am
Dec 12, 2012
[...] Take a look at the map prepared by Honest Reporting, in which we can clearly see that the “waistline” of the proposed [...]
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John Whitbread
10:50 pm
Dec 17, 2012
Any student of military history can recognize the shape of the Jordanian ‘West Bank’ bulge and the Egyptian Gaza beachhead. These are the sorts of territorial first objectives that have been the character of conflicts throughout history. To expect Israel to have ever accepted these was a signal from the international community that it was always aiming to give the Arab a military advantage.
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Victor Gordon
9:36 pm
Dec 23, 2012
Although there is no current road linking Northn and South on the east side of Maale Adumim Israel has plans drawn up to build a double lane highway to link these regions. No one mentions that. Also this road will be free of roadblocks which will be to the advantage of the Palestinian population.
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E benAbuya
6:45 pm
Dec 24, 2012
It’s an outrage ! ! ! But not unprecedented. Stamford, Darien, New Caanan and Norwalk are similarly “cut off” from Danbury by the Evil Empire of Westchester.
http://tinyurl.com/Google-Westchester-map
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Netanyahou a-t-il peur sur sa droite? « La Voie Juive
11:45 pm
Dec 26, 2012
[...] zone garantira la contiguité d’Israël autour de sa capitale Jérusalem, sans empêcher la contiguité d’un hypothétique état palestinien malgré les réactions hystériques de la communauté internationale à la suite de [...]
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“Palestinsk utpost”. Araber försöker stjäla land som Arafat lät Israel kontrollera och fick Nobelpris för? « The Golani Spy
10:25 am
Jan 12, 2013
[...] Från http://honestreporting.com/despite-the-hype-e1-doesnt-cut-west-bank-in-two/ [...]
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iris claire blutreich
8:32 pm
Jan 24, 2013
The NY Times has its funding from our confiscated tax dollars and is the mouthpiece of a corrupt gov’t in the United States. We shouldn’t trust or believe anything that is printed in their paper any more than the Russian citizens believe Pravda.
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12:21 am
May 19, 2013
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