Attara: It is billed as a symbol of the future Palestine: a modern, middle-class city of orderly streets, parks and shopping plazas, built on the hills of the West Bank, ready for independence, affluence and peace.
But the $800-million (Dh2.9 million) Rawabi project has hit a snag: Palestinians say construction of the city depends on an access road being built, which can't go ahead without Israeli permission.
At a time when the latest US-brokered peace effort is in crisis, the tussle over the road-building has become a test of Israel's willingness to give up much of the West Bank and allow Palestinian statehood to move forward.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he supports Rawabi's construction, but Jewish colonists and their supporters in the Israeli government, who oppose the very idea of a Palestinian statehood, want the whole project to be scrapped.
Rawabi, some 30 kilometres north of Jerusalem, is one of many West Bank projects, such as industrial zones and facilities for the supply of water that have been similarly held up.
But perhaps none of these have the symbolic value of Rawabi, where builders envision 40,000 Palestinians enjoying the comforts of an American suburb, instead of crowded and disorganised towns and villages with poor infrastructure.
The city has promised 1,000 deluxe units and 5,000 comfortable homes for a growing middle class that can afford monthly mortgage payments of $400 to $700.
There will also be office and residential towers, a conference hall and a hotel, shops, cafes, a cinema, mosques and a church. The view from the hilltop is a panorama of Palestinian villages and, 40 kilometres to the west, the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean.
Rawabi, which means ‘green hills’, is a business venture by a Qatari firm, Diar Real Estate Investments and the West Bank-based Massar International.
In fact the US government has contributed nearly $6 million to plan a regional wastewater treatment facility, high-tech communications and street-paving in the city.
The site was carefully chosen. It has no ancient religious relics for Jews and Arabs to quarrel over. What’s more it lies in one of the Palestinian-administered areas of the West Bank, where construction doesn't need to be approved by the Israeli colonists.
Work began on the site in January, to a fanfare and predictions that the first residents could move by 2013.
Nine months later however, bulldozers have carved some foundations and hillside roads, but little construction has taken place. Without the access road, builders say, the city isn't worth building.
The site can now only be reached by a narrow, winding road which goes through Palestinian villages, and is in parts too narrow for two lanes of traffic.
The problem is that about three kilometres of the proposed access road would have to cross an Israeli-controlled zone.
The Palestinian Authority asked Israel last year to give permission for building on the strip of land needed, and senior Palestinian officials say Israel has repeatedly assured them that approval is imminent.
Israeli defence officials, requesting not to be named, say they expect the road to be approved, but don't know when.
Many on both sides expect Rawabi to emerge as a bargaining chip in peace talks, suggesting the issue could drag on for years and turn investors off the project.
"On the political level, there is no progress on the road," said Bashar Masri, managing director of the company behind the project. "This is part of doing business while you're still under occupation."
Foreign diplomats, involved in the process, have expressed frustration, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now an international Middle East envoy, has lobbied for a solution.
Israeli colonists, who generally want to see Israel retain the West Bank, say the planned access route crosses one of the roads they use. Their settlement of Ataret is about a kilometre from Rawabi and from Atara, the Palestinian village nearest to the site.
Aliza Herbst, a spokeswoman for the colonists' umbrella group, cited fears of drive-by attacks. She said Rawabi would be "detrimental to the future of the security of Israel" and that she hoped the colonists' nearby road and communities would block its construction.
Members of Netanyahu's cabinet have meanwhile also criticised the plan.
In a visit to Rawabi last week, Israeli Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, said he would try to block construction of the road until the Palestinians explain how they will deal with the city's sewage and trash.
Masri, the manager of the development, said developers had commissioned American, Israeli and Palestinian engineers to address all the environmental issues. He said Israel was using the issue as a pretext, and Herbst seemed to agree, suggesting that anything that hinders Rawabi's rise would be helpful.
"I'm really glad the road is there to prevent them from building that city," she said, speaking in English, "and yay for us that we have established those communities so that the problem exists."
