have in return hampered the way the Palestinian agricultural industry operates. Disconnection of Palestinian cities that used to thrive through their trade exchange due to total or partial closure, dismantled transportation links, augmented travel times, uncertainty due to the complicated and sometimes dangerous passage through checkpoints and roads, has removed existing markets, diminished commercial competitiveness (when compared to Israeli-Jewish markets), and restricted Palestinians to highly localized and insufficient economies. This results in dim economic prospects, high unemployment and poverty rates, and tedious commutes to seek employment outside people’s places of habitual residence. Moreover, the division of Palestinians, subjected to different levels of economic control or privileged and conditioned access to Israeli markets, paves the way for intensified socioeconomic inequalities. On the other hand, these segregation, fragmentation and isolation policies also underpin the colonization of the land, which inhibits economic independence and sovereignty, and coerces Palestinian communities into low-paid and unstable jobs dependent on the Israeli sector. Roads and public transport are part of the structural system used to direct Palestinians out of their traditional markets and into Israeli-Jewish markets, such as manufacturing, construction and tourism, where they are tightly controlled through unequal wages, poor working conditions and strict security measures. This leads to de-industrialization, the neglect of Palestinian lands and dependence on Israeli economic structures – all converging into coerced de-development of the Palestinian economy and society. Cultural deprivation Palestinian society with its deeply embedded historical roots and indigeneity to the land has evolved into an organic, complex and intertwined cultural landscape, comprised of narratives of belonging, memory, identity and religion that are imperative to Palestinian identity.390 Israel’s systematic policies, embodied in part through their denial of direct and efficient connection between Palestinian cities, towns and villages, are calculated to obstruct, disentangle and erode these cultural and social ties that have existed for centuries throughout Palestine. Manifestations of cultural deprivation include inter alia the suppression of the Arabic language, severing farmers’ association and relationship with the land, appropriation of Palestinian dress, traditions and norms, and the suppression of cultural, communal and 390 See Nasser Abufarha, “Lands of Symbols: Cactus, Poppies, Orange and Olive Trees in Palestine,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, no.15 (2008). 100