Cultural Genocide? No, it’s the Fabric of Life silly.

this is a piece i am currently working on. IT NEEDS WORK, i know. please give feedback…

The road system currently under construction by the Israelis in occupied Palestine, deemed the “Fabric of Life” by it’s creators, is based on separation and land appropriation and is only the newest step in that dance in the madhouse of what the Israeli state perpetuates against the Palestinian people.
Just over 17 miles long, Highway 443 sits as an example of this new and deceptively pretty approach within the Israeli paradigm that results in land acquisition, further erosion of Palestinian society’s ability for self-sustaining their livelihood, the possibility of a future contiguous state and peace in the area.
443 runs as the main thoroughfare connecting the Israeli settlement of Modi’in with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and serves as a secondary roadway connecting the Tel Aviv area and Jerusalem. Reportedly built during the British mandate on stolen Palestinian land using forced and unpaid Palestinian labor, 443 was widened prior to September 2000 by annexing even more private Palestinian land for expansion into a 4-lane highway. At the time, Israel maintained that the road expansion would create ease of movement for the local population who of course would have access to the road.
Contrary to this promise, 443 has now become prohibited to Palestinian use, including foot or car traffic on the more then 8 miles that actually lie within the West Bank (and hence on the most recently stolen Palestinian land). Until 2002, 443 was the main artery between the urban center of Ramallah and the city’s’s surrounding villages to the southwest. For the past 7 years, the majority of roads accessing 443 from the Palestinian villages on either side have been blocked with concrete barriers. These blockades now cause a journey that in the past took mere minutes to take up to an hour due to the single lane, winding and poor conditioned roads. These longer and more cumbersome routes are left for the over 35,000 local Palestinian residents of these surrounding villages to reach the hospital, schools, and markets and for the more mundane daily existence needs of socializing and shopping.
Because 443 bisects the route from these villages to Ramallah, tunnels exist in order to facilitate Palestinian movement without having to utilize 443 itself. This seperation creates a multi-layered road system based on what ID card one holds (and really only those that are Jewish holders being what’s important to the creators of this road system). Again, 443 becomes only an example of this new road system of two layer roads popping up across the West Bank. In most cases, these new roads leave the Israeli- and settler-only roads on top while the roads created for Palestinian use are underneath and utilize an intricate system of tunnels and walled corridors to make the separation complete. These secondary roads built by the Israelis for the local Palestinian population has resulted in even more land confiscation from Palestinians and has cost approximately $44.5 million USD.
According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 200 miles of main roads in the West Bank are forbidden or restricted to vehicles bearing Palestinian license plates.
Ironically termed ‘Fabric of Life’ by the Israeli planners, these roads, built to circumvent the expanding system of Israeli-only roads in the West Bank, further create a reality of Palestinian invisibility to their Israeli occupiers thus allowing the perpetrators to not be bothered by having to witness the effects of their oppressive system.
Like so much in the reality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Israel has chalked the need for a separate road system built on Palestinian lands within the West Bank to security needs and fear of the Palestinian population, while completely ignoring the effect and inconveniences of these new roads for the local population on whose backs the roads have been built.
And although Israel is doing a good job at making even these new Palestinian roads look good by paving them where there used to only stand pot-holed streets, the fact remains that the Israelis have and are making unilateral decisions on where and how and who can use this entire new system of roads.
If this isn’t apartheid, what is? And if these practices don’t lead to cultural destruction, what does?
But really it’s only the Fabric of Life, right?