Israel Advances Controversial E1 Settlement Plan in West Bank

In the contested hills between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, Israel's government has opened bidding for thousands of housing units in the E1 zone — a stretch of land long understood as the geographic keystone of any viable Palestinian state. The decision, made by a right-wing coalition that has set aside decades of informal restraint, does not merely add homes to a landscape; it reshapes the territorial logic of an entire people's aspirations. What is being built in concrete and stone is also, many observers warn, the slow foreclosure of a negotiated future.