Another planned Israeli community is about to be named for President Donald Trump, this one closer to Jerusalem than Ramat Trump, located in the Golan Heights and built during the president’s first term.
Ma’ale Adumim Mayor Guy Yifrach announced Wednesday that the new neighborhood, to be located in the city’s E1 (Trump 1) “Mevaseret Adumim” area, is to be named in Trump’s honor.
Construction is expected to be completed in the next four years, during the president’s second term in office.
The Mevaseret Adumim (E1) area, which covers approximately 12,000 dunams on the western border of Ma’ale Adumim, is intended to connect the city to Jerusalem.
Such a move will strengthen national security and provide a solution to the housing crisis in the Greater Jerusalem area.
At present, Ma’ale Adumim is located about 7.5 kilometers (approximately 4.7 miles from Jerusalem, as the crow flies.
Plans for the area sandwiched in between Ma’ale Adumim and eastern Jerusalem — referred to as the “E1 corridor” comprised mostly of Israeli state land in Area C — have for years been on the drawing board.
Plans for construction in the E1 area, which falls within Ma’ale Adumim city limits, have existed since the era of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The area is strategically situation at the narrowest point of Judea and Samaria, spanning just 12 square kilometers (4.6 square miles) and forming part of a security belt of land encircling the Israeli capital.
Past US administrations have worked hard to keep Israel from building residential projects in the area in deference to opposition from the Palestinian Authority, which claims the area for part of its hoped-for “Palestinian state.”
If the Palestinian Authority were to seize control over the E1 area, it would cut off the city of Ma’ale Adumim and the Dead Sea from Jerusalem, and create a three-sided choke hold around Israel’s capital.
