leopards never change their spots;

One underground tunnel will soon be the only connection between 1.5 million Palestinians in the southern West Bank and the rest of the territory. This recently approved infrastructure plan, dubbed the “Fabric of Life” project, would effectively split the West Bank into two.

Transportation for Palestinians in the Bethlehem and Hebron governorates to Jericho in the Jordan Valley would go through a new underground tunnel Israel is planning to build to bypass the wilderness east of Jerusalem. What this means is that the entire space between Jerusalem and the edges of the Jordan Valley would become accessible to Israelis only.

The project, approved by the Israeli government earlier this month, will cost $90 billion, which Israel plans to cover from a special fund it feeds with pirated Palestinian customs money collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA). These funds are ostensibly meant for development projects for the Palestinian population in the West Bank, but the project isn’t about the improvement of Palestinian transportation — it’s about the consolidation of Israeli control over the geographic area of the West Bank east of Jerusalem. The Fabric of Life project would effectively ban any Palestinian circulation in this zone.

The larger context of the Fabric of Life is only one piece in Israel’s larger “Greater Jerusalem” development plans, which Israel first laid out in the early 2000s under then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. .........more..........