When I heard the tragic news this morning about an accident involving a school bus near Jab’a that left several young Palestinian school children dead I was devastated by the details and began to think about how scared those children must have been and how difficult life will be for the families of those involved going forward. It is sad and horrifying any time innocent people, especially children, die or get injured.
I remembered taking the school bus on a daily basis here in the States from elementary school all the way through high school. Our buses always stopped at railroad tracks, even when there was no trains in sight or approaching. It was a policy to stop and have the bus driver open the door and look both ways. At the time, it seemed like an over-cautious waste of time to me but I know it reflects the utmost need to protect society’s most valuable assets; it’s children.
So as I continued to listen to the details I went from being sad, to confused and finally, to angry. Something didn’t make much sense to me. Here are some of the details reported from
The bus had set out from a Palestinian school in Shuafat in east Jerusalem to the Ramallah area for a day trip, carrying some 60 children. It turned around and headed back because of treacherous weather conditions. It was struck by the truck en route to east Jerusalem….
The accident occurred just after 9 a.m. at Kikar Adam, a major intersection north of Jerusalem between highway 60 and highway 437.
The children on the school buses were from the Shufaat refugee camp. Shufaat is inside the municipality of Jerusalem. Their destination was toward Ramallah which would mean they’d have to pass through Kufr Aqab, another Palestinian locality inside the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem.
I know this gets complicated, so maps help to simplify things. In the map on the right, you can see where Shufaat is and where Kfur Aqab is. Kufr Aqab is essentially the gateway to Ramallah from the Jerusalem municipality. The green route, in my estimation, signifies the most logical, shortest, straightforward and safest route to get from Shufaat to Kufr Aqab. However, the bus didn’t go that way.
The buses filled with Palestinian school children instead followed, again in my estimation, the red route, which is longer, far more rural, more dangerous, out of the way, narrower, more curvy and hillier than the green route. The yellow circle is an estimation of where, based on the Jerusalem Post’s account, the accident happened. So why on earth would a bus filled with Palestinian children take the red route instead of the green route?
Because even though both Shufaat and Kufr Aqab are part of the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem, the infrastructure of apartheid, in this case the wall, makes the safest and most convenient route unavailable to these residents of Jerusalem because they were born in the wrong neighborhood- a Palestinian one – on the other side of the wall.
Have a look at this next map to the right where the green and red lines are my estimations of the different routes as in the map above, but this version includes a thick black line indicating where the wall exists preventing Palestinians from taking the safer, more direct route in green.
I want to be clear, the children that died today died in an accident. This accident was most likely a direct cause of poor weather conditions and I’m not placing blame on Israel or Israelis as the direct cause of this accident. Rather, what is important to note here is that the infrastructure of occupation regularly forces Palestinians into inconvenient and, in many cases, unsafe conditions where the likelihood of dangerous events increases. Accidents can happen anywhere, especially when weather conditions are bad, but there is little doubt in my mind that the chances of such a thing happening decrease when you are spending less time on the road in a safer more direct route.
As a Palestinian, you can not travel from Ramallah to Bethlehem, for example, without taking a long and often dangerous drive circumventing Jerusalem and going nearly as far as Jericho to do it. For many locals, this is just something they have gotten used to. Sure the road is more dangerous, but it is something they do regularly so they may forget how much safer one can be taking other routes if they were available.
As someone who spends most of my time in the United States but visits the region often I have taken both the red and green routes on different occasions and it is easy to notice that the green route is much, much safer.
This is life in Palestine. This is occupation. No one should have to get used to it. If we can learn anything from this tragedy today it is that even when there are no soldiers, incursions, weapons or settlers involved, the very infrastructure of occupation increases the risks and challenges facing Palestinians on a daily basis.
After Jerusalem crash, racist comments appear on Netanyahu’s Facebook page
Posts include sighs of relief that ‘only Palestinians’ were killed, as well as slogans such as ‘Death to Arabs, Why do we help them?’
Get Haaretz on iPhone
Get Haaretz on Android
Racist comments appeared on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Facebook page after the school bus crash near Jerusalem on Thursday in which 10 children died and more than 40 were injured.
Satisfaction that “only Palestinians” were the victims and slogans such as “Death to Arabs, why do we help them?” were posted on the Facebook pages of Netanyahu, Wallah and the Israel Police.
Other comments included “Can we send another truck?” and “I’d send a double-trailer to wipe out all those shits” after the bus overturned when it crashed into a truck.
Netanyahu expressed sorrow over the accident, but his aides did not remove the racist comments from his Facebook page or denounce them.
“Relax, it’s Palestinian children,” someone wrote on Wallah’s Facebook page. Others wrote “Great! Fewer terrorists” and “May there be such buses every day.” Similar comments were posted on the police’s Facebook page, including “When they grew up they’d be terrorists …. God nipped them in the bud.”
Woody Tanaka
February 17, 2012 9:39 am
“I’m not placing blame on Israel or Israelis as the direct cause of this accident.”
You should. The blood of these children stains the hands of every Israeli government official and every Israeli adult who voted for them and those who favor this apartheid policy. They are all guilty.
seafoid
February 17, 2012 9:50 am
In Israel, Palestinians are unpeople. They don’t have rights.
This extends to spatial rights and the right to speed. Jews have a fast life. Settlers can zip from Shiloh to Hebron in 40 minutes. The landscape has been destroyed to make this possible.
For Palestinians it can take 4 hours to go from Jenin to Hebron. It’s only a few miles further away than Shiloh. Many days it is not possible to travel at all. Jews are broadband. Palestinians are pedestrians.
It’s all part of the sick system known as Erez Israel.
Winnica
February 18, 2012 11:56 am
The accident was tragic, and it aches to think of the pain the families are going through.
The facts portrayed in this article, however, are not accurate.
1. The Palestinians of Shuafat, like all Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, are the only group who can move freely throughout Israel and the West Bank. The Jews aren’t allowed into Area A (including Rammallah), and the West Bankers are not free to move into Israel. (Some of the resident of Shuafat are Israeli citizens, the rest are permanenet residents, and they all enjoy the same freedom of movement).
2. Which means that the school children of Shuafat could have taken whatever road they (or their driver) chose to take.
3. The reason they took the longer route should be immediately clear to anyone who has ever driven in, say, Los Angeles: roads through residential areas are often slower, even if shorter, than freeways. Highway 437 is longer but goes through an empty rural area, and takes less time to drive on. Remove all Israelis from Israel and replace them with Palestinians and a reasonable driver going from Shuafat to Rammallah would still likely take route 437.
4. The readers of this website will be familiar with the thesis that the Israelis build fine roads for the settlers and narrow backroads for the Palestinians. Route 437 in its present form is one of these roads, and was built for the settlers so that they wouldn’t go through the congested area from Beit Hanina northwards. Since the onset of the 2nd Intifada in 2000, it serves as the main route for all settlers going north from Jerusalem.
5. Of course, Palestinians use route 437 also, as in the case of this doomed schoolbus, but not because it’s a rural road through nowhere, but for precisely the opposite reason: it’s a fine road and travel on it is swift.
http://www.haaretz.com
After Jerusalem crash, racist comments appear on Netanyahu’s Facebook page
Posts include sighs of relief that ‘only Palestinians’ were killed, as well as slogans such as ‘Death to Arabs, Why do we help them?’
Get Haaretz on iPhone
Get Haaretz on Android
Racist comments appeared on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Facebook page after the school bus crash near Jerusalem on Thursday in which 10 children died and more than 40 were injured.
Satisfaction that “only Palestinians” were the victims and slogans such as “Death to Arabs, why do we help them?” were posted on the Facebook pages of Netanyahu, Wallah and the Israel Police.
Other comments included “Can we send another truck?” and “I’d send a double-trailer to wipe out all those shits” after the bus overturned when it crashed into a truck.
Netanyahu expressed sorrow over the accident, but his aides did not remove the racist comments from his Facebook page or denounce them.
“Relax, it’s Palestinian children,” someone wrote on Wallah’s Facebook page. Others wrote “Great! Fewer terrorists” and “May there be such buses every day.” Similar comments were posted on the police’s Facebook page, including “When they grew up they’d be terrorists …. God nipped them in the bud.”
“I’m not placing blame on Israel or Israelis as the direct cause of this accident.”
You should. The blood of these children stains the hands of every Israeli government official and every Israeli adult who voted for them and those who favor this apartheid policy. They are all guilty.
In Israel, Palestinians are unpeople. They don’t have rights.
This extends to spatial rights and the right to speed. Jews have a fast life. Settlers can zip from Shiloh to Hebron in 40 minutes. The landscape has been destroyed to make this possible.
For Palestinians it can take 4 hours to go from Jenin to Hebron. It’s only a few miles further away than Shiloh. Many days it is not possible to travel at all. Jews are broadband. Palestinians are pedestrians.
It’s all part of the sick system known as Erez Israel.
The accident was tragic, and it aches to think of the pain the families are going through.
The facts portrayed in this article, however, are not accurate.
1. The Palestinians of Shuafat, like all Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, are the only group who can move freely throughout Israel and the West Bank. The Jews aren’t allowed into Area A (including Rammallah), and the West Bankers are not free to move into Israel. (Some of the resident of Shuafat are Israeli citizens, the rest are permanenet residents, and they all enjoy the same freedom of movement).
2. Which means that the school children of Shuafat could have taken whatever road they (or their driver) chose to take.
3. The reason they took the longer route should be immediately clear to anyone who has ever driven in, say, Los Angeles: roads through residential areas are often slower, even if shorter, than freeways. Highway 437 is longer but goes through an empty rural area, and takes less time to drive on. Remove all Israelis from Israel and replace them with Palestinians and a reasonable driver going from Shuafat to Rammallah would still likely take route 437.
4. The readers of this website will be familiar with the thesis that the Israelis build fine roads for the settlers and narrow backroads for the Palestinians. Route 437 in its present form is one of these roads, and was built for the settlers so that they wouldn’t go through the congested area from Beit Hanina northwards. Since the onset of the 2nd Intifada in 2000, it serves as the main route for all settlers going north from Jerusalem.
5. Of course, Palestinians use route 437 also, as in the case of this doomed schoolbus, but not because it’s a rural road through nowhere, but for precisely the opposite reason: it’s a fine road and travel on it is swift.