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Two researchers from the Sikkuy NGO, Samah Alkhatib-Ayoub and Abed Kanaaneh,
claim in their article, “Arab women want to go to work, but they have no way
to get there” (published in “The Marker”, 4/2/2015), that the State’s
investment in developing infrastructure and employment in Arab society is
inadequate. According to the researchers, the means of dealing with the
serious shortcoming in workplaces in Arab communicates need to include the
creation of infrastructure that will make it easier for women to go to work,
such as daycare and public transport to places of employment outside Arab
communities. Moreover they point to the lack of Arabic signage at bus stations
in the mixed cities as well as many smaller centres served by public
transport.
In their article the authors point to one of the serious problems that
planners of public transport in Israel have difficulty dealing with these
days, a problem that is one of the profound contradictions in the Israeli
apartheid regime. The policy of structural discrimination against the Arab
population has been expressed in various ways from the outset. Along with the
expropriation of lands, which since 1949 has gradually reduced the space
available to Arab society despite the fact that the Arab population has
increased nearly tenfold since then, Israel has not permitted the
establishment of new Arab communities or the development of the existing
communities, and has even planned public transport with the objectives of
depriving the Arab population of mobility and isolating it. Today government
departments are faced with a difficult problem: continue the policy of
isolation and exclusion, or change it in accordance with the economy’s need
for development? The economists’ whining about the harm done to the economy is
basically an admission of the lack of adequate public transport in Arab
communities.
A good example of that is Nazareth, the only Palestinian city that survived
the Nakba. Nazareth has undergone a process of de-urbanization through
exclusion from the public transport lines that linked it to various parts of
the country in the past. In the 1980s Nazareth had typical urban public
spaces, such as theatres, cinemas, gender organizations and various political
groups. All those, along with established institutions such as government
offices and courthouses, contributed to its urban quality and improved the
lives of its residents. Similarly it served as a central junction for public
transport, which connected the Galilee it to the south, the coast and the
centre. At that time it retained its status as a regional city, a role it had
played since the Ottoman administration, even though its neighbour Upper
Nazareth, which was established as part of the “Judaization of the Galilee”
programme, received most of the government investment.
A highway bypassing Nazareth was inaugurated after the Oslo Accord. It was
created due to the accumulated experience of the Israeli colonial regime in
creating a network of bypass roads in the West Bank, in order to exclude the
Palestinians from vital resources, to concentrate them into certain areas and
to fragment their social solidarity. That colonial experience, which began in
the territories occupied in 1967, was implemented within “old Israel” within
the 1948 borders. The construction of bypass roads did indeed cause serious
harm to the only Arab city in Israel, and the buses to the Upper Galilee
stopped going through it. The deterioration of public transport, which was
planned in advance, served as a pretext for transferring government offices
and courthouses to Upper Nazareth. And the sidelining of public transport did
indeed bring about social and gender regression. The villages around Nazareth
sustained even greater harm, since their ties to the city were weakened. The
highway bypassing Nazareth was connected to other bypass roads, which are
connected to Jewish settlements and bypass Arab communities. Dr. Manar Hassan
of Tel Aviv University wrote about that in her doctoral thesis in 2009:
“This sidelining put a nearly complete halt to regular public transport
connecting the Palestinian villages in the area to the (Jewish) central
cities, which brought about their isolation. That fact had a decisive
influence on gender relations and the status of women in certain strata. The
fact that the economic status of Palestinian women who are citizens of Israel
is the lowest of all the gender-sectors among the citizenry in Israel (Jewish
women, Palestinian men and Jewish men) reduces the chances many Palestinian
women have compared to those of men from the same society (and the general
population) to acquire a car of their own. (…) [T]he cessation of public
transport (…), after the construction of those bypass roads, compromised
the position of women who do not have access to a car, because of their
increased dependence on male members of their family (husbands, brothers,
fathers or sons) with cars and drivers’ licences (…) which in many cases
caused those women to be confined within the walls of their homes.”
It turns out that the Judaization of the Galilee does not require the transfer
of Jews from the centre to the north; it suffices to render the Arab residents
of the Galilee invisible. The bypass roads, which are intended for Jews only,
are spread out all over historical Palestine and embody the policy of
apartheid that has been conducted in Israel since its founding. Apart from
being an instrument for ethnic separation, those roads are an important
instrument in the de-urbanization of Palestinian society, a process that has
been ongoing since the beginning of 1948 and which embodies the deepest
essence of the Nakba.
The Transport Ministry plans over the years are plans of pure apartheid, which
were created in order to complicate the access of the Arab population both to
the urban centres as well as to other Jewish communities. Take a look, for
example, at the map of public-transport night lines; out of the over a hundred
communities that receive night service, only three are Arab: Nazareth, Daliat
al-Carmel and Usfiya. In the latter two the night-lines were activated in
order to facilitate access for Druze soldiers. Tira, Taybeh and Umm al-Fahem
are not connected to any night-line, but Kochav Yair, the population of which
is about 20% of that of Umm al-Fahem, receives public transport at night.
Incidentally, according to the Transport Ministry’s new plans, Umm al-Fahem,
which is located in Wadi Ara on Highway 65, is liable to reach a state of
severe isolation by losing the link to the public that uses Highway 65.
According to local resident Nabil Saad:
“Nobody disagrees that the traffic on Highway 65 is an ongoing nightmare every
day of the week, and especially on Sabbaths and on holidays. One of the
obstacles on it is the traffic-light at the Umm al-Fahem junction, a traffic-
light that was supposed to regulate the traffic all along the route from
Hadera to Afula as well as exit and entry at Umm al-Fahem (a community of
nearly 60,000 people). That traffic-light is a source of significant
congestion. In order to facilitate an ongoing flow of traffic at that
junction, a bridge with three lanes in each direction could be built over the
entry-junction to Umm al-Fahem, along with a widening of the road. That would
permit the free movement of traffic in both directions, north and south. The
lower junction at Umm al-Fahem could be improved and integrated into the main
road through off-ramps, north to Afula and south to Hadera and Tel Aviv. That
solution would be both safe and convenient for everyone. Moreover, that
traffic solution would calm the exaggerated fears of stone-throwing or
`harassment of Jewish traffic`, slogans that are raised to keep Jews away from
Arab communities. The Transportation Ministry is planning it differently: the
plan is to put the main road under a bridge that will lead to Umm al-Fahem,
but to build walls on that bridge that will prevent stone-throwing. In the
community itself, 200 metres from each side of the highway will be declared a
green zone where construction and businesses will be forbidden. A similar plan
exists for all the Arab communities of Wadi Ara: Kfar Kara, Barta’a, Ara,
Ar’ara, Be’er, Umm al-Fahem, Ein Ibrahim, Musmus, Mushirfa and Bayada. Soon
the Public Works Authority or a substitute for it will build separation
interchanges and bridges at the entrances to the aforementioned communities,
on the pretext of solving congestion and traffic jams on Highway 65. The
solutions that have been proposed to the traffic problems will in fact produce
isolation, encirclement and exclusion of the Arab communities of Wadi Ara.”
The declaration of the entire Wadi Ara area as a green zone will inhibit
development at the entrances to those villages and destroy commercial and
tourist enterprises. Work to obstruct the entrances to the Arab communities
will be matched by the accelerated development of the Jewish-owned Gan Shmuel,
Karkur and Megiddo Junction areas. In the Megiddo area, for example, they are
planning to close the Megiddo prison and convert it into a zone for tourism
and Jewish-owned businesses, even though most of the consumers will be Arabs
from the area. Most puzzling of all are the silence and indifference from the
Islamic municipal government of Umm al-Fahem and the village councils in the
Wadi Ara area. The National Infrastructure Committee plan shows the great
importance that Israel ascribes to the separation, exclusion, obstruction and
confinement of those Arab communities.
A truly exemplary apartheid plan
The facts presented here shed light on the framework for hindering the
development of Arab society under Israeli rule. This framework includes
historical, geographical, social and racial components. They reflect the
interests of a colonial entity that that acts thusly by virtue of its very
existence, not due to bureaucratic difficulties or arbitrariness. The
transport plan that has been proposed for the improvement of Highway 65
highlights the exclusion of the Arab population from urban ties and the
inhibition of its economic and social development. An understanding of the
essence of the Israeli regime leads to the conclusion that the process of de-
urbanization of Arab society will take precedence over any rational
consideration of Israeli economic interests. It is the very independent
development of Palestinian society, which has become more and more modern
despite the policy of apartheid, that scares the shapers of Zionist policy. It
is the social development of the minority, which has been pushed to the
margins, which motivates the regime to develop an overtly antisemitic policy.
Translated from Hebrew for Occupation Magazine by George Malent
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