Israel puts E1 housing project back on agenda weeks ahead of Biden’s trip

The Defense Ministry is planning to advance a controversial housing project in the E1 Area of the West Bank after the Israeli government withdrew the plan in January amid international pressure and assured the Biden administration that it would not be moving forward with it.

The ministry’s Civil Administration body that authorizes West Bank construction publishes its agenda for a July 18 meeting to discuss objections to projects that have received initial approval, with two E1 plans totaling 3,412 housing units the only ones on the docket.

The E1 project was first approved by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in 2012 and then put on hold for roughly eight years amid significant international pushback.

The homes would be built east of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the middle of the West Bank, breaking up contiguity between Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem.

The plan even received pushback during the Trump administration, which envisioned Israel annexing all West Bank settlements in the peace plan it presented in 2020. Weeks later — and against the backdrop of a parliamentary election — Netanyahu took the plan off the back-burner, directing that the plan be deposited.

The next stage in the planning process requires the Civil Administration’s High Planning Subcommittee to hear objections against projects, which were filed by a large group of Palestinian attorneys along with several Israeli rights groups. Those hearings were delayed amid the repeated election cycle until August of last year. Two sessions were held but a final one scheduled for January was yanked from the agenda.

US Ambassador to the US Tom Nides revealed in March that he aggressively pushed the Israeli government to withdraw the plan.

The Defense Ministry does not respond to a request for comment.