Buses a Target for Terror: Understanding Israeli Security Precautions

Great article from our friends up north

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is a non-partisan organization creating and implementing strategies to improve the quality of Jewish life in Canada and abroad, increase support for Israel, and strengthen the Canada-Israel relationship.


In 2000 at Camp David, Israel offered a proposal for peace including full Palestinian statehood, as well as shared sovereignty of Jerusalem, to Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Arafat rejected the proposal and refused to put forward a counter-offer, following which President Clinton explicitly blamed Arafat for the collapse of peace and Palestinian statehood.

· Immediately after Camp David, Arafat incited Palestinian terror groups to launch a campaign of suicide bombings and attacks that claimed the lives of 1,218 Israelis – the vast majority being civilians, including women, children, and the elderly.

· Israeli civilian buses were a regular target for suicide bombers. Since 2000, 212 Israelis were murdered and 1,051 maimed in bus bombings. Dozens more were killed in bombings at bus stops and in roadside shooting attacks on buses.

· Residents of Israel and the West Bank require no permit to ride buses. This includes Jewish, Christian, and Muslim residents. However, Palestinians (who are not Israeli citizens) cannot enter Israel proper from the West Bank without a permit – whether on a bus or by foot. In contrast, Arab citizens of Israel (numbering over 1 million) need no permit to enter Israel other than their passport (as also required of Israeli Jewish citizens).

· Every sovereign government has the right to screen those attempting to enter their country, in an effort to prevent the entry of contraband, criminals, and security threats. For example, American citizens attempting to enter Canada on Greyhound buses must first receive permission from Canadian border guards before crossing – and Canadian officials have the authority to deny entry on the basis of security concerns.

· In the same way, Israel has a duty to ensure that Palestinians entering Israel (including those on buses) do not pose a danger to civilians. This is best achieved through a permit system that enables Palestinians to travel into and work in Israel after first undergoing a routine background check. In fact, tens of thousands of Palestinians enter Israel in this manner on a daily basis (in 2009, the daily average number of working permits was more than 26,000).

Freedomriders

On Tuesday, Nov. 15 at noon the latest attempt to push the Israel: apartheid analogy will take place in downtown Oakland.

A "solidarity rally" will be help for the West bank "freedomriders" will be held, orchestrated by the haters at Jewish Voice for peace:.

From their "Toolkit"

Their messages: (My coments in BOLD)

Buses in Palestine/Israel are just like buses in the US South in the 60s –
separate and unequal.

No. There is no segregation on Israeli buses and Arabs, Jews and Christians all ride together. Is it precisely this level of integration that made this possible:

or this


or this:


• All the Freedom Riders did was to take a bus from one place in the
Occupied Territory to another, using public transportation. While Israelis
are allowed to come and go as they wish in the Occupied Territory - even
to settle in it in contradiction to international law- Palestinians' movement in
it is severely restricted.
• The PA has spent the past twenty years negotiating with Israel, and
achieved virtually nothing. Settlements have more than doubled, the Wall
was built and it is now harder than ever to move around from one place to
another. What needed now isn't talking to the Occupation, but disrupting it
using civil resistance.

The Palestinians have turned down every opportunity for statehood and compromise that has been offered to them, saying no to peace and statehood over and over.
With this "toolkit" Jewish Voice for Peace has now officially rejected diplomacy and negotiations in name of "resistance"•

The Palestinian struggle for freedom must be understood as part of the
continuum of people fighting against unjust oppression, just as African-
Americans struggled against segregation and inequality and as South
Africans battled Apartheid. All the Freedom Riders are asking for is the
realization of their rights.

The Jewish people's struggle for Freedom must also be understood as part of the continumum of people fighting against oppression. As human beings, the Jewish people are entitled to human rights. Jewish Voice for Peace has consistently ignored the fundemental rights of the Jewish people to security and to self determination in their ancient homeland


UPDATE
6 arrested. Fadi Quran, Nadeem Al-Sharbate, Badee Dwak, Huwaida Arraf, Basel Al-Araj and Mazin Qumsiyeh. More journalists than participants. You'd think with the sheer level of noise they produced, there were hundreds involved.