Maaleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel has published an open letter to US President George W. Bush calling on him to keep his word and honor his promises to Ariel Sharon regarding building in areas of Judea and Samaria.

The mayor of the Jerusalem suburb points out in his letter that every Israeli prime minister since Yitzchak Rabin has declared the necessity to build in the so-called E-1 area between Maaleh Adumim and the capital.

Kashriel quote’s Bush’s own letter that he wrote to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the months prior to the 2005 Disengagement in which the US President recognized the concept of settlement blocs to be annexed by Israel, even following a final negotiated agreement.

The relevant text of the letter reads: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

State department officials later spoke dismissively of the letter, saying its non-committal wording was meant to allow Sharon to claim diplomatic gains in order to promote his Gaza withdrawal, but not as a solid commitment that Israel could retain any parts of Judea or Samaria.

Kashriel’s open letter to Bush was published Thursday in Israel’s daily newspapers. The mayor himself has moved a caravan to the E-1 area, which now sits alongside the new Judea and Samaria police headquarters on the barren tract of land slated to become the neighborhood of Mevaseret Adumim.