West Bank – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called off a proposed plan to segregate Palestinians from Israelis on West Bank buses, overruling his own defense minister following a flurry of criticism in an attempt to avert the first crisis of his new government.
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An official in the prime minister’s office said Netanyahu called Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to tell him he found his proposal “unacceptable” and the two then decided to freeze the plan.
Yaalon had launched the three-month pilot program following repeated complaints from Jewish settlers who ride the buses and say the Palestinian workers constitute a security threat and harass female Jewish riders.
Thousands of Palestinians enter Israel for work each day from the West Bank and often return home in buses alongside Jewish settlers. The Palestinian laborers all have security clearance and special permits, but the proposed change would have forced them to return home through the same checkpoint they entered and prevented them from riding West Bank buses alongside Israelis.
Critics derided the plan as racist and said it would harm Israel’s image, which has already been under pressure because of its continued settlement activity in the West Bank. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and Palestinians want it as part of their future state.
“The separation between Palestinians and Jews on public transportation is an unnecessary humiliation and a stain on the face of the country and its citizens,” opposition leader Isaac Herzog wrote on his Facebook page. “It adds unnecessary oil to the bonfire of hate against Israel in the world.”
Zehava Galon, leader of the dovish Meretz party, went further, saying, “This is how apartheid looks.”
The proposal even came under fire from backers of the settlements, who said it did not promote their cause and created undue damage to Israel’s image.
Netanyahu quickly reversed course amid the criticism, marking an inauspicious start for a government that took office this week and has held exactly one cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu’s narrow coalition is dominated by hard-line lawmakers aligned with the West Bank settler movement. In particular, the heavily pro-settler Jewish Home party managed to drive a tough bargain during coalition negotiations – with party members securing appointments as education minister, agriculture minister, justice minister and deputy defense minister.
Their support for further settlement construction, and their opposition to peacemaking with the Palestinians, has set the stage for likely clashes between Israel and its Western allies. The bus segregation plan, if implemented, would have likely drawn global comparisons to both South African apartheid and the racial segregation on buses that sparked the American civil rights movement.
Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Reuven Rivlin, commended the reversal of course saying that such separation between Israelis and Arabs would be “unthinkable.”
“Such statements go against the very foundations of the state of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state,” he said. “It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side.”
Later Wednesday, Netanyahu was scheduled to meet the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini. The EU has voiced harsh criticism of Israeli settlements, and some countries are pushing for the bloc to require goods produced in settlements to have special labels if they are to be sold in Europe.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian attacker in a vehicle ran over two police officers in east Jerusalem, police said.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says said officers on the scene opened fire at the attacker and killed him. The two police officers were lightly wounded and evacuated to a hospital.
Israel has seen several isolated vehicular and stabbing attacks in Jerusalem in recent months, raising fears of a renewed wave of Palestinian violence like the one that gripped the country a decade ago.
Oh come on….. dont start a fight now, dont bring out this rotzchim arabs from there hole,
Bibi is a liberal at heart.
On the level of our Western Democratic ideals, all things being equal it makes sense. Reality tells another story. All things aren’t equal.
They say it’s an :unnecessary humiliation” for the Arabs. Is Jewish girls and women to being sexually harassed and sometimes attacked, especially if there is an Arab driver who turns a blind eye to it a necessary humiliation?
Jewish concerns, which led to the issue, is very real. Before buying a car, we saw Arabs acting threatening first hand. We always sat nearer to younger Jewish girls to protect them if necessary. We know women who were groped by these pigs.
Netanyahu is playing to the world, while Jews suffer the consequences. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon made the original decision and didn’t do so lightly.
They even tried to have buses going directly to Arab villages, so the Arab workers won’t have to get off the regular bus on the main road and walk a significant distance. It was a benefit for the Arabs, but most refused to use it because they wanted to go on the buses going to the Jewish Yeshuvim. When their bus routes first began, a buses were left in their villages over night and they burned it.