“They want the land, they don’t want the people,” says Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert at the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, referring to the new bypass road project that Israel plans to start work on next month in the occupied West Bank.
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This is a key part of the blueprint for a vast illegal new settlement in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, which would fragment the occupied West Bank. Opponents call the bypass “apartheid road” because it forces Palestinians and Israelis into separate transport systems.
Communities, including Elazariya, Abu Dis and Sawahra, will also be isolated within the Israeli settlement bloc. “They can theoretically decide to put a checkpoint in Elazariya and allow residents’ cars permits for the area, but you cannot sustain a community life if you are in an enclave of Israelis,” Ofran said. “What is likely to happen is those communities will be disconnected from their surroundings and either immediately evicted or pushed out.”
“This road will cement de facto annexation of an area critical for the viability of a future Palestinian state”, says the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison. It will also be an instrument for ethnic cleansing of remaining Palestinian communities in the area, according to Hagit Ofran.
Israel must hold an election by October at the latest; the government appears to be racing to take concrete steps towards annexation before voters go to the polls, according to activists, reports Graham-Harrison.
