On Tuesday, a group of activists, The Freedom Riders, caught a bus to protest the politics of segregation effectively keeping the life of West Bank Palestinians and Israelis apart. The activists, five men and one woman, had gathered at a West Bank bus stop by the Psagot settlement and waited for an Israeli bus to pick them up. They wanted to reach Jerusalem on a bus, which is commonly reserved for Jewish settlers. The 6 are Palestinians from the West Bank, and caught their ride without the required permission from Israeli authorities. Their trip was heavily covered by journalists and photographers, and the settlers on the bus had a quite unusual trip. “You can't believe what's going on here, it's unbelievable,” Israeli journalist Amira Hass reported one Jewish passenger whispering into his cellphone. But the trip was quiet, and the Freedom Riders experienced no reproach from the settlers. Badee' Dwak, a social worker from Hebron, expressed his surprise, claiming that “the settlers here [near Ramallah] are quiet, not like ours in Hebron.” Up until they were arrested and dragged away, the Freedom Riders insisted: “We have the right to reach Jerusalem. Why doesn't a settler need an entry permit? We do not obey apartheid rules. We're Palestinian, and this is Palestine.” They got as far as to the Hizmeh checkpoint, a commonly used checkpoint for settlers because it is less busy, before problems occurred. Here they were asked to get off the bus, but stayed on until they were forced off and arrested. On Tuesday night, the last of the six was released. This was the first act of civil disobedience by The Freedom Riders who have decided to take on the politics of “demographic segregation,” forbidding Palestinians from reaching East Jerusalem in buses from inside the West Bank. The efficient segregation system of bus transportation allows for Israelis to take certain busses to and from settlements inside Palestinian territory into Israel. What remains is an apartheid-style public transporting: One for Israelis and one for Palestinians. While it is not officially forbidden for Palestinians to use Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, many of them pass through Jewish-only settlements, to which Palestinian entry is prohibited by military decree. The “Freedom Riders” protest action was inspired by the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, who nonviolently challenged segregation in the American South in the 1950s and 1960s. “The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel's attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories,” a statement from the group said. “Several Israeli companies, among them Egged and Veolia, operate dozens of lines that run through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state,” said the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said in a press release. “They run between different Israeli settlements, connecting them to each other and cities inside Israel. Some lines connecting Jerusalem to other cities inside Israel, such as Eilat and Beit She'an, are also routed to pass through the West Bank.” According to the group, Israelis suffer almost no limitations on their freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory, and are even allowed to settle in it, contrary to international law. “Palestinians, in contrast, are not allowed to enter Israel without procuring a special permit from Israeli authorities,” the committee added. “Even Palestinian movement inside the Occupied Territories is heavily restricted, with access to occupied East Jerusalem and some 8 percent of the West Bank in the border area also forbidden without a similar permit.” The action comes just as the jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine held sessions in Cape Town, South Africa, to assess if the state of Israel and its mode of conduct towards the Palestinian people are a breach of the prohibition on apartheid under international law. After two days, the tribunal published its final statement, stating that: “The Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid.” The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) was created as an International People's Tribunal, as a group of citizens came together to embark on the promotion of peace and justice in the Middle East. The tribunal counts civil society activists, writers, journalists, poets, lawyers and judges as well as former officials to the UN and former heads-of-state. ** Desmond Shepard contributed to this article BM
