Israel postpones scheduled hearing on E1 settlement project

Israel pushes off a hearing to discuss the controversial E1 settlement project by several months.

Last month, the Civil Administration subcommittee that hears legal objections to settlement projects scheduled a hearing on E1 for March 27. Today the meeting was rescheduled for June 12, according to a letter from the body published by the Kan public broadcaster.

The plan to build 3,412 homes in a new neighborhood of Ma’ale Adumim has been characterized by critics as a “doomsday” settlement that would divide the West Bank in half.

Last month a joint communique from an Israeli-Palestinian summit in Aqaba, Jordan, included a commitment by Jerusalem to “stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorization of any outposts for six months,” though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately rushed to vow that there was no settlement freeze.