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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Life under occupation Home page  back Print  Send To friend Apartheid Watch – Palestinian laborers removed from buses to the West Bank, Ofra Lyth Machsomwatch 28.2.13 http://www.machsomwatch.org/en/reports/checkpoints/28/02/2013/afternoon/22705 Translator: Charles K. Background: An initiative resulting from a video by Kav La’Oved revealing that Palestinian laborers aren’t allowed on the bus to Ariel. Line No. 286 of the Afiqim bus company is the only public transportation available to residents of many villages in the area who make a living from manual labor in Israel. An article by Jacki Houri in Ha’aretz exposed the ugly practice. To understand what was going on, we rode that bus a few months ago. We saw nothing unusual. We stationed ourselves at the Central Bus Station and spoke to the drivers, who apparently had already realized that refusing to transport someone because of his ethnicity was illegal, and stopped. For a while it seemed that reports of apartheid on public transportation had ended the practice, but then new reports surfaced. Dafna and Yehudit were there, observed, photographed and reported. Here’s my report from another afternoon of ugly, infuriating racist festivities. I arrived (alone, unfortunately) at 4 PM at the bus stop (near what’s known as “the Shomron gate interchange”). Until 5 PM nothing seemed to be happening. Welcome boredom, riders embarking and alighting, including people who appeared to be Palestinians. Then a military vehicle behind the bus violently blows its horn for no apparent reason and suddenly sounds its siren. The action begins exactly at 5: A policeman, Shai Zecharia, a sergeant major,ceremoniously boards bus No. 286 after it stops. Soldiers order all the Palestinians to get off. They first take their IDs as they leave the bus – so they won’t be able to go anywhere until they receive permission. About 30 laborerers, aged 30-50, march obediently. The soldier/officer bellows: “Udrub!”, and then “Sit on your asses! On your asses!” People march to the bus station’s fence, are made to stand along the fence in a line, sit on the cold ground and wait. Soldiers check their green IDs, demand to see residence permits, work permits. A few lucky ones get their documents back and take another bus, but complain about having to pay for another trip. But our forces immediately do away with that alternative: One-by-one, the Palestinians are ordered to get out of there and walk to the Azzun Atma checkpoint 2.5 kilometers away. It’s already cold, the sun has set. Most have risen at 3 AM to get a ride to work. They live a few kilometers from Ariel, which is right here. They only want to stay on the bus for two or three more stops. And they’ve paid for the ride. By the way, it costs NIS 8000 to get a crossing permit. Someone must work very hard to cover that cost before earning even one shekel. The soldiers hunt down four laborers who dared cross without a permit. “Let them spend some time at Metzudat Yoav,” says the shortest one venomously. When the next new shipment of some 25 laborers arrives the armed hero starts pushing them. The process repeats: urdub, on your ass, IDs. Crossing permit. Yalla, to Azzun Atma, walk. About 80 men were humiliated in half an hour by a handful of armed soldiers and one policeman. All sadly restrained themselves, at most asked the obvious questions and sometimes received illuminating answers – for example: “Because you’re not allowed on Highway 5!” [Finally, official confirmation that there are apartheid roads, despite all the denials]. “Because you’re not allowed to use public transportation!” Sergeant Major Shai Zecharia instructed one of the older Palestinians who had vital information: it’s better to ride in the special vans and not the Israeli buses. The Palestinians suspect there’s an unwritten business arrangement between the security forces and the Bedouin operating the vans. They charge five times as much as the bus for the relatively short trip. The price of a ride that takes a few minutes equals the amount they’re paid for an hour or two of work. Let me note that the Sergeant Major answered as the law required when I asked for his name and rank, but immediately announced that my questions “are disruptive” and that “soon” I’ll also find myself spending a few hours in the nearest police station. Here are some questions and thoughts that occur to me as I drive home on the Ayalon Highway (my heart goes out to the thousands of Israelis stuck in Thursday evening traffic): - How many hundreds of Palestinians were forced to go through the regular hazing this evening at the end of a work week during which they cleaned, built, plastered and paved our homeland for us? - What’s the logic behind this harassment? How can it be that the same laborer doesn’t endanger Israel’s security in Tel Aviv or in Rishon LeZion from morning till evening, but his bus trip home becomes a matter for the IDF? - Shouldn’t those who keep threatening that a third intifada will explode any day now want obedient and industrious laborers to get home safely? (Incidentally – that’s what the workers themselves said. They may be poor, but they’re certainly not stupid.) - Another thing: When a woman is made to sit “on the rear seats” of a bus full of ultra-orthodox men, Israeli society becomes frantic and rebellious, our hearts ache and we try to do something about those who carry out this benighted discrimination. But a Palestinian laborer isn’t allowed to ride on “our” buses, not even in the back, not even standing, and that’s just fine as far as the law is concerned – or could it be that someone is really, really breaking the law. - How pleasant it is this evening to attack the anonymous judge who whipped his poor children, and the legal system which didn’t censure him. Because enlightenment ,human rights, children’s rights, equality before the law are, of course, what guide us. Happy Apartheid Week to E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E!. Links to the latest articles in this section Occupation forces injure mourners following funeral of slain infant Mohammad Tamimi Nabi Saleh village assaulted - toddler shot in the head died in hospital Palestinians in the snow: thrown from home into the snow, throw snowballs and get arrested