a large variety of fruits, vegetables, and the Palestinian drink arak.157 The heavy dependence on agriculture and the importance of Jerusalem’s markets to Bethlehem’s economy is evident in the tax (cizye) records of the Ottoman authorities,158 and the fact that more than half of the Bethlehem sub-district remained rural right up to the Nakba,159 with large areas of productive land including 13,952 dunums planted with olives and cereal, 1,742 dunums that were irrigated, and a further 14,694 dunums registered as cultivable land.160 Israeli authorities have consistently pursued policies to incrementally sever the connections between major Palestinian centers. In the case of Jerusalem, this began immediately following the Israeli military occupation after the 1967 War and the complete annexation of Jerusalem.161 The boundaries of Jerusalem expanded dramatically from 6.5 km2 to 71 km2, including land from some 28 villages of Bethlehem and Ramallah, with Israel then placing this land under Israeli civilian control, rather than military law.162 The impact of this on Bethlehem was significant as 18,048 dunams (18 km2) of land was annexed from Bethlehem, and from its associated cities of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, along with lands from its neighboring villages.163 This land was then appropriated for part of the colonial enterprise that now encircles Bethlehem, specifically Gilo, Har Homa and Giv’at HaTamos colonies, and used to redirect the road network to favor Israeli-Jewish colonizers and bypass Bethlehem. At the time, Israel pursued these policies to engineer an Israeli-Jewish demographic majority and contrive the Israeli claim to an indivisible Jerusalem as their capital city.164 The Israeli plan to cut off Jerusalem accelerated dramatically following the First Intifada in 1987 which revealed the ongoing resilience of Palestinian resistance and brought about negotiations between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. As Jerusalem was a matter left for so-called 157 Davis, supra 154, 39. 158 Singer, supra 150, 82. 159 In 1922, the Bethlehem sub-district had a recorded population of 24,613 that included 14,854 living in rural areas. In 1931, 14,180 people were recorded living in rural areas of the sub-district, with a total diminished population of 23,725. McCarthy, supra 153, 155. 160 Palestine Remembered, “Bethlehem, District of Bethlehem,” webpage, available at: https://www. palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Bethlehem_536/index.html [accessed 28 February 2020]. 161 Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem [ARIJ], Geopolitical Status of Bethlehem Governorate (Bethlehem: ARIJ, 2007), 9, available at http://www.arij.org/files/admin/2007-2_Geopolitical_ Status_of_Bethlehem_Governorate.pdf 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 164 BADIL, Jerusalem The Epitome of Israeli Annexation, Colonization and Forcible Transfer, Occasional Bulletin No.28 (June 2019) 3, available at: https://www.badil.org/phocadownloadpap/Badil_docs/ bulletins-and-briefs/Bulletin-no28-JerusalemAnnexation.pdf 50