Originally published on Tikkun Daily |
Palestinian activists in the West Bank are expanding their nonviolent protest efforts against civil and human rights abuses with a new campaign set to launch next week.
As Noam Sheizaf reports in +972 Magazine:
Palestinian activists are increasing their efforts to expose Israel's segregation policy in the West Bank, as well as violations on their civil and human rights. In a message to the press, the Popular Struggle Committee announced that on November 15, Palestinian activists "will reenact the US Civil Rights Movement's Freedom Rides to the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public buses in the West Bank to travel to occupied East Jerusalem."
Palestinians in the West Bank have lived under Israeli military control since 1967. Among other restrictions, they can only vote in elections to the Palestinian Authority, which has very limited power on the ground. They cannot travel out of the West Bank or receive visitors without Israeli permits, and they are tried in military courts, which curtail the rights of defendants. Jews living in the West Bank enjoy full citizenship rights.
This effort joins several other creative, nonviolent protests that Palestinian activists have launched in recent months. One such protest - called "Welcome to Palestine" - saw participants fly to Israel and declare their desire to visit the West Bank. This resulted in over 100 people being detained and deported. (Another "Welcome to Palestine" protest has been scheduled for the spring.)
The Popular Struggle Committee - organizers of the upcoming "Freedom Rides" - describes their initiative set for next week in this way:
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. 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.
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. Even Palestinian movement inside the Occupied Territories is heavily restricted, with access to occupied East Jerusalem and some 8% of the West Bank in the border area also forbidden without a similar permit.
While it is not officially forbidden for Palestinians to use Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, these lines are effectively segregated, since many of them pass through Jewish-only settlements, to which Palestinian entry is prohibited by a military decree.
With the Arab Spring still reverberating, Occupy Wall Street blooming and the PA's U.N. statehood bid still on the table, expect similar efforts to be born as Palestinians in the West Bank continue to embrace nonviolent resistance to the occupation.
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