Israeli settlement plan may sever West Bank

'Do that, and there’s no Palestinian state,' a mayor says

- BY NABIH BULOS

MAYA ALLERUZZO For The Times

PALESTINIAN Bedouin children with their teacher in Jabal Al-Baba, West Bank, who face displacement.

Hanging by the desk of the mayor of Bethany Ezariya, in Arabic — is a blown-up aerial photo from 1938 showing this Palestinian town on Jerusalem's edge how it once was:

Before the Israeli separation wall severed its access to Jerusalem to the west, before the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim settlement took root nearby, and before a new wall that will soon block it from the east and effectively rend the occupied West Bank in two.

Mayor Khalil Abu Al-Rish stared at the photo one recent morning, a cigarette in one hand and a glum look on his face, then pointed with his other hand out his office window at Ezariya’s bustling main thoroughfare, the primary artery connecting north West Bank cities like Ramallah to Bethlehem and Hebron in the south.

“There are 55,000 living in this town. This road alone has 60 cars passing through it every minute, according to our research. The [Israeli] plan now is to shut it down,” he said.

“Do that, and there's no Palestinian state.”

“The plan” Abu Al-Rish was referring to is East One or El, the long-deferred Israeli project that aims to build 3,400 new settlement homes over a 3,000-acre area in the mountains stretching out from East Jerusalem to Maale Adumim.

It’s another ina series of moves Israel has taken over the last two years to further the possible annexation of the West Bank, which Palestinians consider a part of their future state and which Israel snatched from Jordan in 1967; its occupation is considered illegal by international law. President Trump said annexation is a red line he will not allow Israel to cross, but he also has not discouraged Israel from expanding settlements in the region.