in the last 10 years.212 Moreover, the well-understood long-term prognosis is that Israel intends to acquire permanent and exclusive control of the route, as reinforced by Israeli positions in previous land swap discussions, and reflected in the maps included in the Trump administration’s recently released plan. 213 Bethlehem’s isolation from its neighboring villages Israel’s fragmentation policies that have led to the severing of the relationship between Jerusalem and Bethlehem and between Bethlehem and the remainder of the West Bank are not solely about claiming Jerusalem or annexing more West Bank land. They have had a corollary but intentional impact on Bethlehem itself and its previously organic interconnections between rural areas and urban life. Bethlehem’s proximity to Jerusalem has also made it a key site for Israeli colonization, resulting in its suffocation by an almost complete ring of more than 45 colonies, including outposts.214 Transportation infrastructure has also played a key role here in the fragmentation and isolation goals at the heart of Israel’s strategy. A closer look at the colonizer road network and associated infrastructure reveals that it is not only critical to the recent consolidation and expansion of the Israeli colonial enterprise,215 but is also essential to the policies designed to confine and isolate Palestinian communities. This is because isolation is necessary to establish and ensure Israeli territorial continuity, and to undermine Palestinian resilience and resistance to these policies.216 We See this enacted against the Palestinian people in a number of ways. • Construction of colonizer bypass roads: Israel has constructed several bypass roads in the Bethlehem governorate, the most obvious of which is the Route 60 re-routing to bypass Bethlehem itself. Another more recent example is Route 398, also known as the Lieberman Road,217 which runs for nine kilometers, connecting Jerusalem through the colony of 212 B’Tselem, “Statistics: Palestinians Killed by Israeli Security Forces in the West Bank, Since Operation Cast Lead,” webpage, available at: https://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/after-cast-lead/bydate-of-death/westbank/palestinians-killed-by-israeli-security-forces [accessed 28 February 2020]. 213 See maps in Appendix 1, which note that only the colonies of Ma’ale Amos, Asfar and Karmei Zur will be enclave communities. The implication is that Efrat, Tekoa, Nokdim, and their satellite outposts will be annexed as part of the contiguous Israeli state, as will Route 60. Trump Administration, supra 147. 214 BADIL, supra 156, 11. 215 Id., 52-57. 216 Id., 59-61. 217 Barbara Opall-Rome, “‘Lieberman Road’ Turns Settlements Into Suburbs”, Defense News, 23 May 2016, available at: https://www.defensenews.com/home/2016/05/23/lieberman-road-turns-settlementsinto-suburbs/ [accessed 28 February 2020]. 60