December 18, 2012

WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than 400 Jewish clergy asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to go ahead with new homes construction in an area bridging Jerusalem and the West Bank.

“We fear that building settlements in E1 would be the final blow to a peaceful solution,” read the letter released Monday and organized by J Street, Americans for Peace Now and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. “If Israel builds in E1, it will cut East Jerusalem off from its West Bank surroundings and effectively bifurcate the West Bank. In doing so, E1 will literally represent an obstacle to a two-state solution.”

The E1 area straddles a main West Bank north-south corridor. Israeli officials maintain that its development does not necessarily obviate a contiguous Palestinian state.

Successive American governments have opposed development in E1.

“As American rabbis and cantors, we also fear that construction in E1 damages the critical relationship between Israel and the United States,” the letter states. “Construction in E1 would violate repeated commitments to the United States, dating back to 1994, not to build settlements in the area.”

The signatories are rabbis, rabbinical students, cantors and cantorial students from across the United States, including large representations from Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Denver, Boston, Florida, Chicago, the Washington DC-area, and New York.

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