This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In , its population was 38, The international community holds that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, within Israel, termed Judea and Samaria, are illegal under international law.
The town name Ma'ale Adumim is taken from two mentions made of an area marking the boundaries between two Israelite tribes [ 5 ] in the Book of Joshua. At , in a passage on the inheritance of the Tribe of Judah , it is stated that part of the boundary ran from Debir to Gilgal , facing the ascent of Adumim , which the text places south of the wadi. At , in a description of the inheritance by the casting of lots that fell to Tribe of Benjamin , it is stated that part of its boundaries ran from En-shemesh then to Geliloth , which likewise faced the ascent of Adummim.
The toponym literally means 'Red Ascent' or 'Bloody Ascent' [ a ] referring to the hue of the exposed red limestone rocks, tinted by iron oxide , that in patches line the ascent from the Dead Sea towards Jerusalem. The Jahalin and Sawahareh Bedouin tribes, evicted by Israel from their traditional pastoral lands in the Tel Arad area of the Negev , [ 7 ] settled in the area of what would become the Ma'ale Adumim municipality, then under Jordanian administration , after contracting with local Palestinian landowners and receiving permission to graze their livestock there.
After the Israeli conquest and occupation of the West Bank in the Six-Day War in , they were gradually hemmed in by restrictions, due to pressures from the development of the Israeli settlement, many ending up in tracts of land in the vicinity of the Jericho-Jerusalem road [ 8 ] or a rubbish dump near Abu Dis. As early as , just after the Six-Day War, Yigal Allon had advanced a proposal to establish a settlement somewhere in the area of Ma'ale Adumim and Jericho.
It was later opposed by Yehiel Admoni , the then head of the Jewish Agency for Israel 's Settlement Department, as lying outside the scope of the Allon Plan , [ 10 ] and if the ' Red Ascent ' were settled, it would further erode what land might remain over for restoring territory to the Palestinians in a future peace negotiation. The idea of making an industrial park for Jerusalem in the area of Ma'ale Adumim had been circulating for some years.
