RAMALLAH: On Monday it was announced that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to alter the route of Israel's separation wall to cut Palestinians off from the E1 Area of the West Bank, Ha'aretz reports. The fence will run between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adomim, the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and will block villagers from the neighboring Al-Za'im from the E1 Area. Al-Za'im, though originally part of the Jerusalem district, is not presently included in Israel's Jerusalem borders and has already been subjected to a large wall situated west of the village, the intention of which was to block its residents from entering Jerusalem. The rerouting of the separation fence will effectively encage Al-Za'im's villagers, between two winding fences and an Israeli military checkpoint. Though the Defense Minister says the official reason for the rerouting is that building the separation fence on the opposite end of Ma'ale Adomim, which was the previous plan of the government, is too expensive, another reason is widely suspected to be the primary motive. Last weekend Palestinian activists set up a protest encampment in E1 and declared the village of “Bab Al-Shams" as a form of direct action against Israel's plans to build some 3,000 settler homes on the land. After the Netanyahu administration declared E1 a closed military village and tried to prevent entrance, Palestinian and international activists easily entered from Al-Za'im and other neighboring villages. Bab Al-Shams was evacuated at 3:00 am last Sunday when Israeli military and police raided the encampment and arrested scores. Protesters unsuccessfully attempted to return several times throughout the following week. Israeli officials announced their plan to settle E1 in response to the Palestinian Authority's upgrade to “observer state" in the United Nations General Assembly last November. The international community immediately expressed dissatisfaction as the move is largely believed to render the two-state solution impossible by dividing the West Bank into two separate parts and encircling East Jerusalem (set to be Palestine's capital) with Jewish settlements. BN
