A Freeway in Israel Provokes a Cringe: Apartheid

[Purveyor]

"They took our land to build this road, and now we can't even use it," bitterly says Abu Safia, a Palestinian in an excellent piece by Ethan Bronner in today's "New York Times."

The highway in question is 443, a major access road to Jerusalem. A recent decision by Israel's Supreme Court has tacitly endorsed the idea of separate roads for Palestinians in the occupied territories. It certainly magnifies the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it also shows how roadways all over the world have often been used to divide communities, often along racial or ethnic lines. It echoes many of the critiques Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford and others have brought against modern urban planning.

Highway 443 was built hugely on private Palestinian land. It was legally challenged in the early 1980s, but the Supreme Court allowed the project to go ahead because the Israeli army claimed its purpose was to serve local Palestinians, not Israeli commuters. In the wake of stone throwings and several drive-by shootings (five people have been killed since 2001), however, Israeli authorities have blocked Palestinian access to the road.

Today 443 is a conduit for some 40,000 cars headed to Jerusalem, almost all of them Israeli. The Israeli Supreme Court ruling was based on a promise by the army to build separate, commensurate roads for Palestinians.

Urban planners around the world have pushed major thoroughfares through poor neighborhoods to disperse communities or otherwise cut them off from urban centers. The current ruling from Israel's Supreme Court seems more likely to usher in a two-tiered system.

---eoe---

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/03/a-freeway-in-is.html

[mike_c]

1. israel is an apartheid nation-- where have we heard the phrase...

..."separate, but commensurate" before? Ever notice how the separate part almost always undermines the commensurate part? That's the tragedy of apartheid.

[MaryCeleste]

5. Apartheid is based on race, the division here is nationality

All Israelis are allowed to use the road, all Israelis, be they Arab, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Bahai, Druze, or secular.

[breakaleg]

6. Except, the road isn't in Israel. nt

[peacetalksforall]

2. "They took our land ...." Where have we heard that before?

I never thought it would be Israelis.
So disappointing

[ProgressiveMuslim]

3. Say it with me, kids: A-P-A-R-T-H-E-I-D.

A rose by any other name and all....

[azurnoir]

4. A "unique" idea

David Kretzmer, an emeritus professor of international law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote in an op-ed article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz of what he called the "judicial hypocrisy" of Israel's reign over the territories manifest in this case.

He said that while the changed security circumstances of recent years may have forced a change in the road's mixed use, "the unavoidable conclusion is that, as unfortunate as this may be, Israelis should not be allowed to travel on the road that was built, let's not forget, for the benefit of the local population.

Seeing as how the road was built on Palestinian land primarily for Palestinian use

[subsuelo]

7. "separate roads for Palestinians"

How anyone can fail to consider the Apartheid analogy must be deceiving themselves

[Vegasaurus]

8. Tell the Palestinians to stop trying to blow up Israelis every chance they get

and then there wouldn't be so many restrictions.

You fail to see the connection.

[subsuelo]

9. Fine, tell the Israelis to stop blowing up Palestinians too then

I favor calling on both sides to stop attacking each other.

How about you?

[Vegasaurus]

10. Sure.

The Israelis have stopped attacking numerous times, but the favor hasn't been returned.

I repeat my claim: let's see the Paletsinians stop their attacks for even one week, and look at the Israeli response. If there are incursions or IDF response, I will be the first to decry it.

That's just not what happens though.