The Israeli security Cabinet approved on Sunday the construction of a road for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Critics say it will open the door for Israel to annex a key area just outside Jerusalem, further undermining the feasibility of a future Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the project is meant to streamline travel for Palestinians in communities near the large Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group, said the road will divert Palestinian traffic outside of Maaleh Adumim and the surrounding area known as E1, a tract of open land deemed essential for the territorial contiguity of a future state.
That will make it easier for Israel to annex E1, according to Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert with the group, because Israel can claim there is no disruption to Palestinian movement.
Critics say Israeli settlements and other land grabs make a contiguous future state increasingly impossible. Several roads in the West Bank are meant for use by either Israelis or Palestinians, which international rights groups say is part of an apartheid system, allegations Israel rejects.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three for their future state. A two-state solution is widely seen as the only way to resolve the decades-old conflict.
