{"id":49202,"date":"2014-11-03T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=49202"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:35","slug":"under-israeli-apartheid-palestinians-cannot-ride-israeli-buses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/11\/under-israeli-apartheid-palestinians-cannot-ride-israeli-buses\/","title":{"rendered":"Under Israeli Apartheid, Palestinians Cannot Ride Israeli Buses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Never Equal<\/em><\/p>\n

28 Oct 2014 – <\/em>Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya\u2019alon has officially banned Palestinians from traveling on Israeli-run public transportation in the West Bank, according to a new report by Haaretz<\/a>, Israel\u2019s most prominent newspaper.<\/p>\n

The new apartheid law dictates that Palestinians cannot take buses that go from central Israel to the West Bank. They must go out of their way, to the Eyal Crossing, near the city Qalqilyah, \u201cfar from populated settler areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is already difficult for Palestinians to enter Israel. Palestinian workers traveling into central Israel for their jobs have to go through high-security, militarized check points. Those who are allowed to cross are not allowed to sleep in Israel. Unemployment and poverty are high in the West Bank, because of 47-year Israeli military occupation<\/a>. Palestinians seek employment opportunities in Israel, often in low-paid, dangerous work such as construction. Because of the checkpoints and Israeli militarized security apparatus, it takes Palestinians a long time to travel into Israel (if they are even able to do so at all). This new decision will increase their already inordinately large commute times even more.<\/p>\n

A security official involved told Haaretz that \u201cno Palestinian will be prevented from reaching his destination\u201d; this may be true, but the question is how much longer will it take that Palestinian to travel between work and home?<\/p>\n

Haaretz notes that the decision to segregate buses did not come out of the blue; Ya\u2019alon decided on it after facing \u201cintense pressure from settlers.\u201d The paper explains the Samaria Settlers\u2019 Committee and local Jewish authorities \u201cconducted an aggressive campaign\u201d to ban Palestinians. It adds that \u201csettlers have tried on multiple occasions to prevent the Palestinians from commuting on those buses, and have released a video calling for them to be banned.\u201d Ya\u2019alon \u201cmet with settler leaders\u201d and assured them he would implement the apartheid, Jewish-only policies they desired.<\/p>\n

It is clear that this decision is explicitly motivated out of a racism, not out of \u201csecurity\u201d concerns. Haaretz indicates that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has officially stated it \u201cdoes not view the presence of Palestinians on West Bank buses as a security threat.\u201d The paper interviewed IDF GOC Central Command Major General Nitzan Alon, who insisted that West Bank Palestinian do not pose a \u201csecurity threat,\u201d as they already \u201cmust obtain pre-approval from the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police in order to receive permits. They then undergo body checks at the border crossings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Member of Knesset Moti Yogev, of the far-right, religious, pro-settler Habayit Hayehudi party, explained his reasoning: \u201cRiding these buses is unreasonable. They are full of Arabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

This call for bus segregation is not new. AFP reports<\/a> that \u201cIsraeli settlers in the West Bank have called for years for Palestinians to be banned from public transport.\u201d In many ways, Israeli buses have been moving toward segregation for some time. In March 2013, Israel created Palestinian-only buses<\/a>. Although not technically mandatory, racist Israeli settlers used the existence of these buses to pressure Palestinians into de facto<\/em> segregation.<\/p>\n

A variety of human and civil rights organizations publicly criticized this de facto <\/em>racism. Among these was Israeli human rights organization B\u2019Tselem. In the wake of this most recent decision, the Israeli government officially implementing de jure<\/em> segregation, AFP interviewed B\u2019Tselem, which insisted \u201cIt is time to stop hiding behind technical arrangements\u2026 and admit this military procedure is thinly veiled pandering to the demand for racial segregation on buses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motivated by a Racist Society<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is most telling that this decision was pressured from below, not imposed from top-down. Racism in Israeli society is not just systemic; most Israelis themselves are obscenely racist toward indigenous Palestinians and African refugees.<\/p>\n

In Israel, it is not uncommon for fascist mobs to roam the streets \u201cDeath to Arabs!\u201d<\/a> and \u201cGas the Arabs!\u201d (as well as \u201cDeath to leftists!\u201d<\/a> and \u201cGas the leftists!\u201d).<\/p>\n

The vast majority of Israelis support their ethnocracy<\/a>\u2018s ethnoreligious supremacist policies. 95% of Israelis<\/a> supported their country\u2019s most recent military attack on Gaza, \u201cOperation Protective Edge\u201d\u2014a 50-day assault that killed close to 2,200 people\u2014including roughly 1600 civilians, 500 of whom were children\u2014wounded over 11,000, and made over 100,000 homeless.<\/p>\n

As I have noted in a previous article<\/a>, in 2012, also in Haaretz, renowned journalist Gideon Levy published the results of a poll that found \u201cMost Israeli Jews Would Support Apartheid Regime in Israel<\/a>.\u201d This study, \u201cexpos[ing] anti-Arab, ultra-nationalist views espoused by a majority of Israeli Jews,\u201d was not based on an internet survey. It was conducted by Dialog and directed by professor Camil Fuchs, Haaretz\u2019s polling expert and head of the Department of Statistics at Tel Aviv University\u2019s School of Mathematical Science, and commissioned by the Yisraela Goldblum Fund.<\/p>\n

The study revealed the following unsavory facts about Israeli society:<\/p>\n

\u2013 59% want preference for Jews over Arabs in admission to jobs in government ministries.<\/p>\n

\u2013 49% want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones.<\/p>\n

\u2013 42% don\u2019t want to live in the same building with Arabs.<\/p>\n

\u2013 42% don\u2019t want their children in the same class with Arab children.<\/p>\n

\u2013 c. 33% want a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset.<\/p>\n

\u2013 69% object to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.<\/p>\n

\u2013 74% majority are in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u2013 24% believe separate roads are \u201ca good situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 50% believe separate roads are \u201ca necessary situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 47% want part of Israel\u2019s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n

\u2013 36% support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange for keeping some of the West Bank settlements.<\/p>\n

\u2013 38% want Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them.<\/p>\n

\u2013 31% don\u2019t admit that Israel practices apartheid against Arabs.<\/p>\n

\u2013 58% do admit that Israel practices apartheid against Arabs.<\/p>\n

In August 2014, Haaretz released a report titled \u201cIsraeli teenagers: Racist and proud of it<\/a>,\u201d revealing that \u201cEthnic hatred has become a basic element in the everyday life of Israeli youth.\u201d The piece opens with a quote from a 10th-grade Israeli girl from a high school in the central part of the country.<\/p>\n

For me, personally, Arabs are something I can\u2019t look at and can\u2019t stand. I am tremendously racist. I come from a racist home. If I get the chance in the army to shoot one of them, I won\u2019t think twice. I\u2019m ready to kill someone with my hands, and it\u2019s an Arab. In my education I learned that \u2026 their education is to be terrorists, and there is no belief in them. I live in an area of Arabs, and every day I see these Ishmaelites, who pass by the [bus] station and whistle. I wish them death.<\/p>\n

The article is a review of upcoming book from which this interview is excerpted. Scenes from School Life<\/em> is based on three years of field work by Israeli sociologist Idan Yaron at a six-year, secular Israeli high school. The school was \u201cthe most average school we could find,\u201d says professor of education Yoram Harpaz, who wrote the book with Yaron. The quote above was taken from a student at this \u201cmost average school.\u201d Yaron\u2019s book is filled with myriad instances of Israelis calling for the murder, and even genocidal extermination, of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Yet Israeli racism is not just directed at indigenous Palestinians. Journalists Max Blumenthal and David Sheen released a brief documentary titled \u201cIsrael\u2019s New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land<\/a>,\u201d detailing the horrific extent to which anti-black racism pervades Israeli civil and political society. In it, they show video footage:<\/p>\n

\u2013 of prominent politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Member of Knesset Michael Ben-Ari, among others, calling African refugees \u201cinfiltrators\u201d and\/or \u201ccancer,\u201d and even openly using the n-word;<\/p>\n

\u2013 of Israeli citizens harassing fellow Israelis for engaging in interracial relationships; and<\/p>\n

\u2013 of some politicians even going so far as to propose the creation of concentration camps in which to hold African refugees.<\/p>\n

De jure<\/em> bus segregation such as this reminds us that Israel is simply an apartheid state; there is no candy-coating this fact. In 2007, David A. Kirshbaum, of the Israel Law Resource Center, published a piece titled \u201cIsraeli Apartheid \u2014 A Basic Legal Perspective<\/a>,\u201d meticulously detailing the many ways in which Israel is an apartheid state, under its very own laws.<\/p>\n

Once again, Israel\u2019s most-read newspaper has published pieces confirming this fact, admitting that \u201cIsraeli Arabs have never been equal before the law<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

Ben Norton<\/em>\u00a0is an artist and activist. His website can be found at http:\/\/bennorton.com\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 Oct 2014 – Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya\u2019alon has officially banned Palestinians from traveling on Israeli-run public transportation in the West Bank, according to a new report by Haaretz, Israel\u2019s most prominent newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}