Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Going Contentious

The Atlantic published a report "Is Peace Possible?" and in a follow-up interview, there was this question:

In your presentation on Borders, you mention Ariel as one of the most difficult settlements to resolve, because it is so populous but it is so deep into the West Bank. What are some of the other contentious settlements? Why are Maaleh Adumim and Efrat so controversial if they are so close to the 1967 lines?

And his answer is:

The Ariel bloc actually consists of more than just the settlement of Ariel...the Ariel bloc stretches far to the east, and includes a lengthy northern "finger" that stretches over Karnei Shomron, Immanuel, and all the way up to Kedumim; a central "finger" all the way to Ariel; and a southern "finger" that includes Beit Arie-Ofarim. In total, the areas of the Ariel bloc that are not immediately adjacent to the 1967 lines host about 40,000 settlers and have been one of the most contentious points in negotiations.

What more contentiousness?

Well, you then would need to include the greater Jerusalem area which "includes a few neighborhoods that are not as intrusive as the further settlements in the Ariel bloc, but are still extremely contentious", and Giv'at Ze'ev (pop. roughly 12,000) is located northwest of Jerusalem, between Ramallah and Jerusalem, and Ma'ale Adumim (pop. roughly 38,000) is located east of Jerusalem and Har Homa (pop. roughly 12,000, and growing rapidly) is located inside Israel's self-declared municipal boundary of Jerusalem and also Efrat (pop. roughly 9,000) is located east of the Etzion bloc.

Over 70,000 contentious Jews.

Are there no contentious Arabs?

^

1 comment:

www.leon-3d.com said...

It cannot really have success, I suppose so.