First displacement of Bedouin tribes The
Jahalin and
Sawahareh Bedouin tribes, evicted by Israel from their traditional pastoral lands in the
Tel Arad area of the
Negev, settled in the area of what would become the Ma'ale Adumim municipality, then under
Jordanian administration, after contracting with local Palestinian landowners and receiving permission to graze their livestock there. After the
Israeli conquest and occupation of the West Bank in the
Six-Day War in 1967, they were gradually hemmed in by restrictions, due to pressures from the development of the Israeli settlement, many ending up in tracts of land in the vicinity of the
Jericho-Jerusalem road or a rubbish dump near
Abu Dis.
Initiation of Israeli settlement As early as 1968, just after the Six-Day War,
Yigal Allon had advanced a proposal to establish a settlement somewhere in the area of Ma'ale Adumim and
Jericho. The government of
Levi Eshkol did not implement the step, because the political and diplomatic implications were significant, in that it would effectively split the West Bank. It was later opposed by
Yehiel Admoni, the then head of the
Jewish Agency for Israel's Settlement Department, as lying outside the scope of the
Allon Plan, and if the '
Red Ascent' were settled, it would further erode what land might remain over for restoring territory to the Palestinians in a future peace negotiation. The idea of making an industrial park for Jerusalem in the area of Ma'ale Adumim had been circulating for some years. In August 1974,
Yisrael Galili, a major presence in the settlement project together with
Meir Zorea with strong connections to
Gush Emunim, aired the idea of settling it. He had privately offered it as a recompense for settlers who had attempted to establish themselves in
Sebastia, to be rebuffed when that group refused to compromise. The links with Gush Emunim attested to a growing impact of
Religious Zionist ideology on Israel's developing policies regarding the
Palestinian territories. It is thought that the agreement to develop an industrial zone for Jerusalem there was the result of a deal struck between the
National Religious Party and the government of
Yitzhak Rabin, as part of a bargain between members of the coalition government, for which the green light was given on 24 November 1975. This government strategy to create "
facts on the ground" was a response to the
Rabat Summit decision in
Morocco in October to recognize the
PLO as the sole representative of the
Palestinian people. It was decided to permit 25 residential units to house 100 Israeli settlers/workers.
Development of the settlement Problems existed from the start, since there were no budget funds allocated for the project, and ministers opposed it either on financial grounds or out of suspicions that its creation had nothing to do with the establishment of an industrial town, but masked an intention to make a civilian settlement, something opposed by
Mapam. Whatever monies were used,
Yossi Sarid complained, would detract from funds targeted for Israel's own impoverished
development towns. The evidence suggests that the decision was inspired more by political needs, including the perceived need to placate far-right groups, rather than respond to the requirements of the city of Jerusalem. Gershom Gorenberg argues that the cabinet compromise was 'a ruse' that spoke of setting up factory housing when in fact the aim was to create a fully fledged settlement afterwards. Galili himself argued that a settlement between Jericho and
East Jerusalem was needed to keep Jordanians away from the Holy City. In an interview several decades later, the mayor of one of the larger settlements claimed that the aim of establishing Ma'ale Adumim was to 'protect Jerusalem from Arabs' and secure the road to the
Jordan Valley. According to the
Jerusalem Post, the site had served as a
Nahal military outpost, before being designated to become an Israeli labourers' camp. The outpost's establishment was delayed for political reasons, despite the November decision. Yigal Allon was due to meet
Henry Kissinger in Washington and any leak of a new settlement would have been inconvenient at that time. Galili said the timing for the setting up of camps on the site should coincide with Kissinger's movements, timing it so that the latter's
shuttle diplomacy would find him in transit to
Brussels. Finally, around March 1975, following a ministerial decree to expropriate 3,000 hectares of land from the area's Palestinian villages, forty members of Gush Emunim built a water tower and
prefab concrete hut on the site, only to be evicted the same afternoon by Israeli troops, each prospective settler carried away by four soldiers. This site was thereafter called by the settlers "Founder's Circle". In 1977,
Haim Sabato founded a
hesder yeshiva (paramilitary field seminary) there and it was also designated to become a
planned community,
suburb and
commuter town for nearby Jerusalem, to which many residents would commute daily. The boundaries of the settlement were set at some 3,500 hectares in 1979 and by the early 90s had extended to 4,350 hectares. Writing in 2003,
Cheryl Rubenberg stated that For the bedouins, as well as for the villagers, loss of their lands meant loss of their agricultural way of life and major transformations in their social life. Today, the area available to the villages together, with a population of approximately 40,000, is some 460 hectares. The area of Ma'ale Adumim with some 26,000 settlers, is 11.5 times greater.
Displacement of Jahalin Bedouins in 1990s In the late 1990s, approximately 1,050 Jahalin Bedouins were displaced from land that was now annexed to form part of the settlement. Court orders required compensation by the Israeli government and they received cash, electricity and water supplies.
Attack and planned expansion After Palestinian gunmen killed one Israeli and injured five Israelis near Ma'ale Adumim, Israel's far-right Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich in February 2024 announced a "settlement response" after speaking to Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant, as "any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our hold all over the country", with 2,350 more homes in Ma'ale Adumim being arranged for approval. American Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized the announcement, stating that new Israeli settlements are "inconsistent with international law" and "counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace", risking "Israel’s security". ==Urban plans==