is now Israel.107 Such an intricate road system is pivotal to Israel’s goals of land control, as it establishes an efficient road system for Israeli-Jews through the entire area. Unsurprisingly, this road system simultaneously constructs a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion, connection and disconnection, whereby Israel can exclude Palestinians and disconnect Palestinian areas, while enabling Israeli-Jewish inclusion and cohesion. West Bank roads: Israeli colonization and incorporation of the road network Israel has pursued a number of different road plans in relation to the West Bank, but the strategy has nevertheless remained consistent - the ultimate goal of acquiring the maximum amount of land with the minimum number of Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine. The result is that these varying strategies have affected a gradual reorientation of the entire road system of the West Bank into one that now runs east-west rather than the historic north-south system, servicing the needs of the Israeli-Jewish colonizers, and connecting it almost seamlessly across the Green Line. This intricate network of bypass roads both facilitates the growth of the colonial enterprise in the West Bank and ensures the seamless integration of Israeli-Jewish colonies into 1948 Palestine. The idea of the bypass-roads system, which enables access to and between colonies without having to pass through Palestinian villages, was first raised during the colonial push in the late 1970s.108 As stated in the Settlement Master Plan for 1983-1986, “[t]he road is the factor that motivates settlement in areas where settlement is important, and its [road] advancement will lead to development and demand.”109 One of the primary objectives for determining the routes was that colonizers commuting across the Green Line were enabled to “bypass the Arab population centers.”110 The plan goes on to explicitly express that a primary consideration in determining the sites for colony construction was to limit construction in Palestinian villages (i.e. impeding their natural growth and confiscating their land). In other words, the Settlement Master Plan spelled out a strategy in which roads were strategically used by the Israeli regime to facilitate the encirclement of Palestinian villages with colonial 107 Ibid. 108 Ministry of Agriculture and Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization [WZO], Master Plan For Settlement of Samaria and Judea, Plan for Development of the Area for 1983-1986 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Spring, 1983), 27, cited in: B’Tselem, “Forbidden Roads – Israel’s Discriminatory Road Regime in the West Bank,” Information Sheet (2004), 5-6, available at: https://www.btselem.org/ download/200408_forbidden_roads_eng.pdf [accessed 28 February 2020]. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid.; See also Peace Now, “Confiscation Orders Issued for the Widening of Bethlehem Bypass Road for Settlers,” webpage, 9 September 2019, available at: https://peacenow.org.il/en/confiscation-tunnelsroad [accessed 28 February 2020]. 35