Rebecca Anna Stoil
Rivlin and Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) were visiting the suburban settlement east of the capital to view firsthand building projects frozen under US pressure.
"Without Ma'aleh Adumim and without the construction in E-1 and a continuous Jerusalem territory, there will not be peace, but there will be a division of Jerusalem, which will intensify the conflict," said Rivlin. "We have had disagreements with the US, but [former president George W.] Bush gave an explicit and valid letter saying that Ma'aleh Adumim, with other parts of Israel, will be areas where Israel can continue to be based."
Rivlin and Yishai visited E-1, a mostly empty area of 12 sq.km. in Ma'aleh Adumim that borders on Jerusalem's French Hill neighborhood to the west, as well as a site within the built-up part of Ma'aleh Adumim where they saw the encroachment of a Beduin encampment hundreds of meters away from some of the city's most expensive private homes.
Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel said that new building in the city was completely stopped, including a freeze on a permit for hundreds of units in the northeast Nofei Sela neighborhood. Kashriel expressed concern regarding the impact of American pressure to stop building throughout the West Bank on the future of his city.
The municipality has plans to build 3,500 apartments in E-1, also known as Mevaseret Adumim, but has yet to receive a permit despite promises in the past from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he supported the project.
The city has also not received a final permit for the 450-unit project in Nofei Sela, which was frozen by the Olmert government, although all the infrastructure for those units is already in place.
There are some 450 apartment units in Ma'aleh Adumim which are under construction. But according to a city spokesman, new permits would be needed before any other building could take place.
Netanyahu has not approved a single building project in a West Bank settlement since taking office on March 31.
Rivlin, who keeps a map of the Ma'aleh Adumim area hanging in his Knesset office, said that "the struggle for Jerusalem begins in Ma'aleh Adumim. The building within Ma'aleh Adumim and in E-1 is part of a national consensus on security and strategy. Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim are part of the same unit. Cutting off Ma'aleh Adumim from Jerusalem would put Ma'aleh Adumim in a situation similar to that of Mount Scopus between the years 1948 and 1967."
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Related: The link between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim
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