What hasn’t Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised voters in the last week before the election? He is offering a free year in college for anyone who completes military service or national service. He is willing to erase the criminal records of anyone charged with using cannabis. He is prepared to lower taxes and increase deregulation, and more. Among all these proposals, which may not have a chance of being fulfilled after March 2, there is one especially dramatic promise. This week, Netanyahu announced that he would lift the freeze on a plan to construct 3,500 new housing units in Area E1 between Jerusalem and the settlement town of Ma’ale Adumim. Earlier, Netanyahu announced that he had approved the expansion of the Har Homa neighborhood (2,000 housing units) as well as construction in Givat HaMatos (4,000 units).

What’s the difference between the housing units in these three areas and the wave of construction that occurred in the settlements throughout Netanyahu’s term in office? The answer can be found in remarks he made Feb. 20 while overlooking the Har Homa neighborhood. “I hereby announce the creation of Har Homa E. … It will be a neighborhood with 5,000 residents, just like a mid-sized city in Israel.” The strategic location of the Har Homa neighborhood in the south of Jerusalem, on the Palestinian side of the Green Line, as well as the two other neighborhoods, eliminates any chance of establishing a future Palestinian state, and kills the idea of a two-state solution. From now on, the only possible future on the table is annexation and a binational state.

In the years between his return to office in 2009 until just this week, Netanyahu has managed to withstand the pressure exerted on him by the settlers. He realized that any attempt to announce the commencement of construction in Area E1 or Givat HaMatos is a red line, and that crossing it would likely upset the international community. He wouldn’t dare make the smallest possible step toward building in the area, even after the Trump administration gave him a free hand to build in Jerusalem neighborhoods across the Green Line. Maybe he believed that he could tell the international community that he is still interested in a two-state solution but that, sticking to his script, there is no partner on the other side.

Given his current announcement on new construction in Givat HaMatos and Area E1, Netanyahu can no longer claim that he is willing to talk and that there is something to talk about. E1, for example, is a 12 square kilometer strip of land, which even Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, “Father of the Settlements,” avoided developing out of concern over the response of the US administration (under President George W. Bush). Construction in Area E1 would prevent the Palestinians from having a strip of territory connecting the West Bank to the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Back in 2005, when Sharon only said half-heartedly that he still planned to connect Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem, he was immediately forced to provide a clarification to the White House. During his meeting with Bush in Texas that year, the president informed him that the United States opposes any construction that would prevent a permanent solution in the future.