The E1 road Israel plans to build for Palestinian use only in order to separate them from Israelis “is the beginning of the implementation of the annexation and apartheid plan,” today said Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
“It always begins with roads,” he said, “There are many roads in the West Bank Palestinians can’t use.”
The PLO said Israel’s new apartheid road on the eastern gateway to occupied Jerusalem advances the E1 colonial plan and the further expansion of Maale Adumim settlements towards severing the territorial contiguity of the State of Palestine.
Israel’s defense minister advanced plans last week to build this road that would connect Palestinian towns east of Jerusalem in order to divert Palestinian traffic only to the new road instead of the original Jerusalem-Jericho road heavily used by Palestinians travelling between the north and south of the West Bank and by settlers in the illegal Maale Adumim settlement bloc.
The new road is intended to separate Palestinian and Israeli motorists as Israel sets to build thousands of housing units in the highly controversial and widely condemned EI settlement complex east of occupied Jerusalem.
