An Israeli settlement located in the central occupied West Bank, Maale Adumim was founded in 1975. Started as a small community of settlers, it is now classified as a city. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the settlement has experienced rapid spurts of population growth estimated at 5.3 percent in 2006 alone.

As with other Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the existence of this community violates international law, which prohibits an occupying power from "transferring its civilians" to territory that it occupies and territory that is disputed.

STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE

The strategic importance of this community to Israel is based on Maale Adumim’s placement between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank and its role in bridging other Israeli settlement communities to East Jerusalem. Maale Adumim is connected to Jerusalem through a bypass road (open exclusively for Israeli drivers) that connects it to French Hill and Mt. Scopus.

GREATER JERUSALEM AND THE E-1 PLAN

The E-1 plan was originally conceived by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 to create a contiguous link between the Maale Adumim settlement bloc and Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem comprising Pisgat Zeev, Pisgat Omer, Neve Yaacov, and French Hill. This makes the settlement an even larger threat to the  territory of an independent Palestinian state as the bloc would create a barrier between the West Bank and Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem.  The construction of the Wall has further aided Israeli government efforts in isolating the West Bank from East Jerusalem communities and expanding westwards into Palestinian territories beyond the Green Line inside the occupied West Bank.