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<h1><font size=4><b>Israel arrests "Freedom Riders" challenging
apartheid road
system</b></font></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/jillian-kestler-damours">
Jillian Kestler-D'Amours</a> <br>
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<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-arrests-freedom-riders-challenging-apartheid-road-system/10595#.TsWICvLSRBk" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-arrests-freedom-riders-challenging-apartheid-road-system/10595#.TsWICvLSRBk<br>
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<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/location/jerusalem">Jerusalem</a>
<br>
15 November 2011 <br><br>
<br>
“I’m a Freedom Rider! I’m just trying to go to Jerusalem!” shouted
Palestinian activist
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/huwaida-arraf">Huwaida
Arraf</a> Tuesday evening as a live Internet video feed showed Israeli
police officers dragging her off a bus linking Israeli settlements in the
West Bank to Jerusalem.<br><br>
Arraf and five other Palestinian activists boarded segregated Israeli
public bus number 148 which connects the illegal Israeli settlement of
Ariel to Jerusalem on Tuesday in an act of civil disobedience aimed to
draw attention to Israeli colonial and apartheid policies and the lack of
basic human rights Palestinians are afforded under this system.<br><br>
After sitting peacefully on the bus at Israel’s Hizma checkpoint, just
outside the northern entrance to Jerusalem, and nonviolently resisting
attempts by the Israeli authorities to get them off the bus, all six
“Freedom Riders” were eventually removed by force and arrested for
illegally entering Israel without permits.<br><br>
Another Palestinian Freedom Rider was also arrested while attempting to
ride the segregated buses, and according to a Freedom Riders press
release, was taken with the six other activists to Atarot police station
(“<a href="http://palfreedomrides.blogspot.com/2011/11/palestinian-freedom-riders-on-their-way.html#%21/2011/11/palestinian-freedom-riders-on-their-way.html">
Palestinian Freedom Riders On Their Way to Jerusalem Violently Arrested
on Israeli Settler Bus</a>”).<br><br>
Their 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.<br><br>
“It’s going to be a challenge for Palestinians and for every human being
for their morality. It’s going to be a challenge for the whole world to
really take action against the Israeli crimes,” Palestinian Freedom
Riders spokesperson Hurriyah Ziada told The Electronic Intifada on
Monday.<br><br>
While Palestinians are not explicitly barred from boarding Israeli public
transportation in the West Bank, since most buses pass through Israeli
settlements that are off-limits to Palestinians, the system is <i>de
facto</i> segregated.<br><br>
“Our challenge is going to be on the ground dealing with the settlers,
but on the other hand, we’re waiting for the peoples’ reactions and the
world’s reactions. Enough talk; we need real action on the ground and for
people to take a side, taking a rightful side against Israeli
discrimination,” Ziada said.<br><br>
<b>Tense hours at the checkpoint<br><br>
</b>The Freedom Riders left
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/location/ramallah">Ramallah</a>
Tuesday afternoon and headed to a bus stop in the occupied West Bank,
which serves Israeli
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settlers">settlers</a> near
the Israeli settlement of Psagot. After a few buses drove past the
Palestinian activists without stopping, six Freedom Riders, and a large
group of journalists, managed to board a bus.<br><br>
The bus was reportedly followed along its route by Israeli soldiers and
police, and was stopped shortly after arriving at the Hizma checkpoint.
Once there, Israeli settlers who had been on the bus got off, and Israeli
soldiers and police officers boarded to check passengers’ IDs, according
to images broadcast on the Freedom Waves live Internet video
feed.<br><br>
“The Israelis can’t take the wait and so they are getting off the bus.
Let them see what we have to go through and let them ask why this is
happening, and why it has to happen this way in order to try to change
things,” said Freedom Rider Huwaida Arraf, as the settlers stood up and
began leaving the bus, as documented in the Freedom Waves video
feed.<br><br>
“Whether they’re corralled in pens at checkpoints or held up and
detained, not told why, arrested, held for days, weeks, sometimes months
without any kind of legal justification at all … this happens to
Palestinians every day,” she said.<br><br>
<b>“I want people to see the apartheid system here”<br><br>
</b>The Electronic Intifada spoke directly with
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mazin-qumsiyeh">Dr. Mazin
Qumsiyeh</a>, one of the Freedom Riders, at approximately 4:20pm local
time on Tuesday, as he sat on the bus at the checkpoint.<br><br>
“We’re on the bus. They just moved us a few yards beyond the [Hizma]
checkpoint. We are in a parking lot and the soldiers are asking us to
come down from the bus. The people refuse to come down from the bus. They
are telling [us] that [we] are detained and [we] have to come from the
bus. We don’t know yet what they are going to do. They took one person
from the bus. There’s [Israeli] special forces, border police, regular
police and soldiers surrounding the bus,” Qumsiyeh said.<br><br>
“I don’t know [what will happen] but I think we will be punished
severely,” Qumsiyeh, who was later arrested with the five other Freedom
Riders, added. “I want [people] to see that we have an apartheid system
here. There are illegal, colonial settlements in our land. These
settlements have their own buses and they get to Jerusalem without
anybody checking them, yet we, the native Palestinians, are not allowed
to get to Jerusalem.”<br><br>
<b>Freedom of movement severely restricted<br><br>
</b>Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, are illegal according to international law, including the
Geneva conventions. It is estimated that approximately 500,000 Jewish
Israelis currently live in illegal settlements in the occupied West
Bank.<br><br>
The Israeli human rights group
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">B’Tselem</a>
estimates that from 1967
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/1967-war">when Israel imposed
its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip</a> to
mid-2010, the Israeli government established 121 settlements in the West
Bank that were officially recognized by the Israeli Ministry of
Interior.<br><br>
In that same period, approximately 100 settler outposts, considered
illegal under both international and Israeli laws, were erected, while
twelve so-called “neighborhoods” of Jerusalem were built on land
illegally annexed by Israel and are thereby also illegal under
international law.<br><br>
According to B’Tselem, Israel has created a system of “separation and
discrimination, with two separate systems of law” in the occupied West
Bank.<br><br>
“One system, for the settlers, <i>de facto</i> annexes the settlements to
Israel and grants settlers the rights of citizens of a democratic state.
The other is a system of military law that systematically deprives
Palestinian of their rights and denies them the ability to have any real
effect on shaping the policy regarding the land space in which they live
and with respect to their rights,” B’Tselem states on its website
(“<a href="http://www.btselem.org/settlements">Land expropriation and
settlements</a>”).<br><br>
Restrictions on Palestinian freedoms do not end at the settlements
themselves, however. Instead, Palestinians’ rights are also violated by
the infrastructure built to accommodate Israeli settlers, especially
private, Israeli-only roads. “In October 2010, there were 232 kilometers
of roads in the West Bank that Israel classified for the sole, or almost
sole, use of Israelis, primarily of settlers,” says B’Tselem
(“<a href="http://www.btselem.org/freedom_of_movement/checkpoints_and_forbidden_roads">
Checkpoints, Physical Obstructions, and Forbidden Roads</a>”).<br><br>
“Israel also prohibits Palestinians from even crossing some of these
roads with vehicles, thereby restricting their access to nearby roads
that they are ostensibly not prohibited from using. In these cases,
Palestinians travelers have to get out of the vehicle, cross the road on
foot, and find an alternative mode of transportation on the other side,”
according to the human rights group.<br><br>
<b>Veolia a boycott target for serving settlements<br><br>
</b>Egged, Israel’s largest public transportation company, operates the
bus that the Freedom Riders boarded in the West Bank Tuesday. French
company <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/veolia">Veolia</a>
also operates bus lines serving illegal Israeli settlements throughout
the occupied West Bank.<br><br>
According to the
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bnc">Palestinian BDS National
Committee</a> (BNC), which organizes around the 2005 Palestinian call for
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/BDS">boycott, divestment and
sanctions</a> (BDS) against Israel as a way to end Israeli violations of
international law and promote Palestinian rights, Egged and Veolia “are
complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their
involvement in and profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement
infrastructure.”<br><br>
Palestinian Freedom Rides Spokesperson Hurriyah Ziada told The Electronic
Intifada that promoting the BDS call and the specific boycott of and
divestment from Egged and Veolia is a major aim of the Freedom Rides
movement.<br><br>
“We’re trying to support the BDS campaign,” Ziadah said. “Negotiations
have been going for too long and we haven’t been achieving anything on
the ground. Everybody knows that these settlements are illegal on our
land, but nobody is doing anything. Israel is not paying any cost for any
of its actions. They have to pay a price by people boycotting them and by
highlighting how racist they are. We ask for human rights and freedom,
justice and dignity.”<br><br>
“In the civil rights movement, they were fighting against racism,” Ziadah
added, “but we’re going to be fighting against racism, discrimination
[and] occupation. We’re going to be fighting to exist.”<br><br>
<i>Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based
in Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at
<a href="http://jkdamours.com">http://jkdamours.com</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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