Aim appears to be to give Jewish state control over chunk of territory from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley, analysts say

Special to The Globe and Mail

JERUSALEM -- One day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on his people to prepare to make painful concessions ahead of a U.S.-hosted peace process, an Israeli newspaper revealed that his government has ordered the expropriation of Palestinian land to build a highway.

Israeli and Palestinian analysts believe the move is meant to give the Jewish state control over a large chunk of Palestinian territory from Jerusalem east to the Jordan Valley.

The Israeli army issued the order to expropriate 1,100 dunams of land from four Arab villages, the Israeli broadsheet Haaretz reported yesterday. (A dunam is 1,000 square metres.)

The Defence Ministry confirmed that the order was given to the Israel Defence Forces on Aug. 9, and said the 16-kilometre road is meant to be a "Palestinian highway" that will provide contiguity between Palestinian communities to the north and south of a so-called finger of Israel's controversial separation barrier.

The barrier's fingers will extend deep into the West Bank, and one will include the settlements in the area of Maaleh Adumim, a few minutes drive from Jerusalem.

"The [Israeli] strategists want to make sure that there is a strong wide Jewish finger going to Maaleh Adumim so that it won't be an isolated Jewish enclave," said Professor Oren Yiftachel of Ben-Gurion University, an expert in the political geography of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "Their other goal is to weaken the Palestinian state by fragmenting the territory."

A number of observers believe that the real purpose of the new highway is to pave the way for Israel to build up the so-called E-1 zone between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, and to destroy the contiguity of a Palestinian state.

Israel has long been planning to develop the geopolitically strategic E-1 area, the last stretch of land separating Jerusalem from Maaleh Adumim, but was forced to stop in 2005, as a result of U.S. pressure.

Palestinian information minister Mustafa Barghouti said Israel's latest move is part of a plan to expropriate land from Jerusalem all the way to the Jordan Valley, where Israel has already severely limited Palestinian access.

"This is not an isolated incident," Mr. Barghouti said. "It's part of a whole plan to disconnect the Jordan Valley from the West Bank, destroy the contiguity of the West Bank and control the border with Jordan."

The Israeli Defence Ministry denied the allegation, saying the confiscations were for the benefit of the Palestinians. But even creating a so-called Palestinian Highway is problematic, said Prof. Yiftachel, who wrote the book Creeping Apartheid, about the Israeli network of roads, walls and checkpoints to separate the Palestinians from Jews inside the West Bank.

"If they say it's a Palestinian road, then it means the other road is Jews only," he said. "Even if that sounds positive, it's actually apartheid."

Recent reports by the United Nations and the Israeli human-rights organization B'Tselem reveal that Israel has been creating an increasingly intricate system inside the West Bank that allows Israelis free access to about 1,660 kilometres of roads and limits Palestinian access by roadblocks, check points and a permit system.

The new road will be built on about 162 hectares of Palestinian land, 56 of which is privately owned. The land is being confiscated from the villages of Abu Dis, Arab al-Sawahra, Nebi Musa and Talhin Alhamar.

The revelation of the land confiscation comes at a diplomatically sensitive time. Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams began this week to try to draft a joint document that will be presented at the U.S.-hosted peace conference to take place in November in Annapolis, Md.

The document is meant to present their joint objectives for solving the conflict's most difficult issues: permanent borders, Palestinian refugees, and Jerusalem as a capital for both states.

Professor Yoram Meital, director of the Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University, said the latest Israeli move does not bode well for conducting a peace process.

"Israel's policy is based on very problematic premises," Prof. Meital said. "It thinks it can make progress in the quote-unquote peace process with the Palestinians and at the same time confiscate more Palestinian lands.

"This is a contradiction, and I believe that there will be a very, very small chance that that this peace process will succeed. Unfortunately I'm afraid we are moving instead towards a severe crisis."