West Bank. This was further compounded by the Israeli military rule then imposed on all Palestinians inside the Green Line, as per the 1949 Security Zones Ordinance and rapid land confiscation.307 Umm al-Fahm’s relationship with other cities and villages in the North, like al-Tayyiba, [prior to 1948] was not too strong unlike its relationship with other eastern and southern cities and villages [namely Jenin, Tulkarm, and Anin]. During the period of military rule between 1949 and 1966, the economic and political situation in Umm al-Fahm rapidly deteriorated. The people of the city could not move without obtaining work and movement permits from the respective [Israeli] military ruler. This policy culminated in disruption of social cohesion and interaction, separation from land, strangulation and severe movement restrictions. As such, Israel’s military policy aimed to constrain the people of Umm al-Fahm. One of its relics is the remaining fragmentation of families. Some families lived in the West Bank while the rest of their relatives resided inside the Green Line. Following these policies, those in the West Bank were enclosed in that area, separated from their families, and displaced from their lands. Wajdi Hassan Jabbarin, Writer and Historian Interview: Umm al-Fahm, 6 November 2019 After seizing the Marj Ibn Amer area, Israel quickly confiscated large swathes of Umm al-Fahm’s lands under the Absentee Property Law and state land declarations,308 reducing the city’s boundaries to 27,000 dunums. This then paved the way for colonial expansion around Wadi ‘Ara. In 1964, Israel established the first colony in the area, Mei Ami, located on the immediate southern fringe of Umm al-Fahm.309 As of today, an entire ring of colonies encircle the valley that includes a cluster of Israeli-Jewish colonies implanted to the east namely Tall Menashe, Hinnanit, Shaqed and Rehan around which the Apartheid Wall was constructed; Megido and Givat Oz colonies in the north; and clusters around Harish and Katzir further south.310 In accordance with the Sharon Plan, these colonies intentionally and dramatically altered the demographic balance of Wadi ‘Ara, impeded the natural growth of Palestinian communities in the area, and contributed to their geographic fragmentation. Unsurprisingly, the deliberate discontinuity and disruption 307 Shira Robinson, Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 38. 308 Jabbarin, supra 294. 309 Muhammad Amara, Politics and Sociolinguistics Reflexes: Palestinian Border Villages (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1999), 5. 310 Ibid. See also B’Tselem, From the Field, Interactive Map, available at: https://www.btselem.org/map [accessed 28 February 2020]. 78