The 12 Kilometer Gap Between Israel and the EU

Also, Mansour Abbas’ flagging moderation.

Aerial view of the E1 area, outside Maale Adumim, October 25, 2025. (Yaniv Nadav/FLASH90)

It’s Thursday, August 27, and Al Jazeera calls it “the final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, of all people, agrees: construction in the E1 corridor east of Jerusalem, he says, “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”