A similar concept is embodied by the planned bypass road linking the northern and southern West Bank – the road whose completion the Palestinians now oppose. It is important to recall that the basic principle of the road as a tool not only for transportation, but also for solving political problems, was initially accepted by the Palestinian Authority. In the framework of the Oslo accords, its representatives agreed to the creation of a “safe passage” between Gaza and the West Bank. That arrangement was not implemented, since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations ran aground. In principle, however, the sides agreed, and have not abjured this agreement, to a land passage from the West Bank to Gaza that would constitute a substitute for territorial continuity. (Although Israel and the Palestinians remain divided on the course and nature of the Israeli presence in the passage, agreement prevails regarding its creation as part of the permanent settlement.) The bypass road that is planned to enable Palestinian traffic from north to south is not fundamentally different from the safe passage route between the West Bank and Gaza. These two areas of Palestinian settlement, which are relatively distant from each other, would be linked only by a road rather than have territorial continuity. On the safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinians and the Israelis compromised. The Palestinians gave up land continuity and settlement continuity between Gaza and the West Bank; the Israelis agreed to the creation of a passage that in some ways turned some of its territory into an exterritory. A similar understanding could be reached regarding the link between the northern and the southern West Bank. The nature of the road, and the traffic arrangements on it, could be decided through negotiations.
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