How many times have we heard friends of the Palestinians urge them to command American attention by mimicking the freedom riders of Jim Crow? Well the Palestinian movement has imagination, and it is taking just that step. [Will Michael Walzer, who fervently supported such direct actions for equality in the American south, get on board?] From Jonathan Pollak of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee in Palestine:
Palestinian activists will reenact the US Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides to the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public transportation in the West Bank to travel to occupied East Jerusalem.
Next Tuesday [Nov. 15, 1 p.m.], Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli public transportation headed from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s.
Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience.
The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel’s attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories.
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.
Very powerful video.
When a “victim” becomes “a victimizer”, he must lose its privileged status, and be charged for his crimes.
Especially that the real victims are mostly gone.
The victimiziers ARE a new generations, that were NEVER victims per se.
They are just using the “victim label” ,like a shield, immunity pass that supposedly gives them the right to commit their atrocities.
If a son of a father ,who was violently killed,turns into a bloody murderer of innocent people, will the public let him get away with it, will they feel sorry for him and let him continue his gory rampage??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKdsxCVFyS0
So how many Palestinians will get shot? How many will be arrested?
i wish i could be there on tuesday. i will make the call.