AG’s office orders monthlong delay in E1 proposals, citing electioneering concerns

The Attorney General’s Office orders a monthlong delay in the controversial E1 settlement expansion in the West Bank, according to Hebrew media reports, citing concerns that the project could be used for electioneering.

The project has long been especially contentious internationally because E1 is a strip of land between East Jerusalem and Ramallah, so settlement expansion there would bisect territory where Palestinians hope to establish an independent state. Western governments have strenuously objected to the project, while members of Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have trumpeted it.

According to the reports, the Attorney General’s Office has ordered a monthlong postponement of the deadline for submitting proposals for a tender to build 1,200 housing units in the area. That would put the deadline after the October 27 election.

The municipality of Ma’ale Adumim, a settlement adjacent to E1, objects to the order and will petition against it in court, according to Haaretz.

“The diplomatic decision to advance the tender was made months before the election, and since then, it has progressed via a professional process that by its nature takes time,” Ma’ale Adumim Mayor Guy Yifrach says, according to the Hebrew daily. “If the claim is that continuing the tender is ‘political,’ I say exactly the opposite: Stopping it now is, in fact, an intervention with political implications.”