A new Israeli wonderland, where you can almost forget where you are

Maale Adumim, West Bank

THERE is a vast indoor amusement park that resembles an alien spaceship run aground in the Judean Desert and, nearby, a luxe shopping mall rising incongruously in Italian Renaissance style in the beige hills east of Jerusalem.

"Nothing in Israel compares with it," declared Pnina Revach, the chief executive officer of the mall.

Israeli public relations gurus are likening the growing commercial and entertainment hub, Park Israel, which opened about 3 months ago, to the attractions of Las Vegas.

But as they appeal to Israelis to visit, they are vague about exactly where it is.

The roughly 20-minute drive from central Jerusalem is a giveaway, however. As one emerges from a tunnel under the Mount of Olives, the view is dominated by the high-rise Palestinian suburbs of Al Azariya and Al Zayyem.

And the turn-off to the amusement park and mall lies just beyond a military base.

Like their counterparts around the world, the shiny complexes are all about making you forget where you are.

They lie in the hitherto drab industrial zone of a sprawling Jewish settlement, Maale Adumim, in the occupied West Bank.

The developers hope to turn a geopolitical hotspot into a hot ticket.

More than a half-century after Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war, most of the world considers the increasingly entrenched settlement project as a violation of international law.

But with peace talks long stymied, the new attractions are only the latest illustration of the increasing complexity on the ground and of the fading prospects of a resolution to the conflict by means of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

For the Palestinians, the area is a critical segment of the north-south corridor of any viable, contiguous future Palestinian state.

Longstanding Israeli plans to expand Maale Adumim in the direction of Jerusalem have so far been blocked by international pressure on grounds that the development would effectively sever any Palestinian state into halves connected only by highways.

Israel also views Maale Adumim, a bedroom community of about 40,000 residents, as of strategic importance.

It commands the high ground between Jerusalem and the border with Jordan, and most Israelis assume it will remain in their hands as part of a land swop with the Palestinians in any future peace agreement. Now the area is called Park Israel. NYTIMES