Buses take the front in struggle against apartheid in Israel

This past week, under
heavy national and international pressure, the Israeli government suspended a
program for segregation between Palestinians and Israelis on public buses.

The proposed
separation would have harmed Palestinian workers employed either in Israel or
in Jewish-owned factories in the Occupied West Bank, who have so far been
taking the same buses as Jewish settlers living in colonies, in order to
commute to work daily. It is mostly only workers who have permits to leave the
walled-off areas of the West Bank.

It should come as
little surprise that of the many discriminatory policies Israel engages with
regularly in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, separation on buses caught
the world’s attention.

As Palestinian
intellectual and writer Sayed Kashua cynically commented:

“You can’t utter the
“A” word… So, I’m not saying it, and I don’t think it’s necessary make such a
comparison, not even when it comes to the episode of the Palestinians and the
buses. In general, Arabs and buses is a big problem. In contrast, say, to Arabs
and checkpoints, Arabs and fences, Arabs and closures, Arabs and bypass roads,
or the destruction of Arab villages inside Israel so as to build new ones on
the same site for Jews only: Those cases weren’t branded as symbols of earlier
struggles against racism, so they’re alright. But separation on buses? After
Rosa Parks? What will the world say about us – that we’re an “A” state?”

This is only part of
the story, however. The negative reaction to the proposed program, across the
board (for example, prominent critiques included Israeli President Rivlin and
former MP Sa’ar, both of whom belonged to Netanyahu’s Likkud party), was
immediate. In part because of Netanyahu’s
recent infamous video message to his supporters on election day (17 March), in which he warned that "The right-wing government is in danger.
The Arabs are going to the polls in droves. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them on
buses”. It cannot be overstated, that such speech is racist (anti-Arab),
undemocratic (anti-franchise and anti-minority) and hypocritical (because
Jewish parties and civil society associations organise buses to their
constituencies).

That incitement
granted Netanyahu with ample
global scrutiny (hence his caution now) chiefly for its blatant hate
mongering, which betrayed Netanyahu’s duty as everyone’s PM, and jeopardized
Israel’s image as a democracy. However, little is known about a struggle which
took place around the same time, and which puts Netanyahu’s racist comments in
an even direr context.

A few days prior to
elections, the
state rejected an appeal to provide Arab voters with transportation to the
polling stations. Civil society organization Adalah, which promotes the legal
rights of Arab citizens in Israel, appealed to the elections committee in
Be’er-Sheva—the metropolitan center of the southern desert area—on behalf of
the indigenous Bedouin minority, which populates the region.

The Bedouins are
traditionally a widespread shepherds community, who for decades have been
facing violent state attempts to uproot them from most of the Negev desert
area, concentrate them and forcefully settle them in towns. Their dwellings are
unrecognized by the state, and the 10,000 voters among them have not a single
polling station in any of their villages (in Israel, there is a ratio of only
32,550 votes per parliament seat).

By comparison, any
Jewish residential settlement form (such as Kibbutzim) with even as few as 50
registered voters, has its own polling station. Adalah’s appeal represented
inhabitants in thirteen unrecognized communities, whose allotted polling
stations were within a range of 10-40 kilometers (6-25 miles) away from their
residence.

The state did provide
them with vouchers for free rides via public transport. It is important to
note, however, that state’s refusal to recognize Bedouin villages means a lack
of public infrastructure and services such as water, electricity, and public
transportation, so that the nearest bus stop is always on the highway, outside
of one’s village.

In other words, the
state failed to ensure that Arab minority voters have access to the polling
stations, thereby leaving them to rely on third sector groups to provide such
access. It follows, that Netanyahu’s dangerous statement on election day was
more than a lapse of foul sentiment. It was a symbolic expression of an ongoing
attempt to constrain Arab citizens’ franchise by various creative means, short
of de-jure disenfranchisement. From planning and provision to court
rulings, the state puts hurdles on citizens’ ability to fulfill their
democratic right.

Sadly, this is not
where the story ends, as far as segregation in transport. In fact there are
always new issues, each one adding to the other. For example, there are
numerous stories of passengers intimidated by both drivers and fellow
passengers if they are heard speaking Arabic on public buses—not merely buses
going to the Occupied Territories, but inside Tel-Aviv as well.

Most recently, the
Israeli-based startup Get-Taxi/Gett (a taxi-on-demand ordering application,
available in Israel as well as the UK, the US and Russia) launched a Kosher
(‘Mehadrin’) line of cabs among its services, supposedly marketed to a religious
target population.

The Mehadrin service
guarantees that the driver observes Sabbath (does not drive on Saturday),
however leaked reports
by sources inside the company indicate that the service actually intends to
ensure a Jewish driver, to those customers who wish not to take a ride with an
Arab one. It is important to note that there is no religious imperative for
ruling out Arab drivers, quite the contrary: Halacha rules do not apply for
‘gentiles’ and therefore one can take a ride with them regardless of whether
they drive on Sabbath or not.

At stake, then, is a
matter of racist preference, and a masqueraded way to oblige it: since many
Jewish drivers refrain from working on Sabbath shifts, those are staffed mostly
by Arab drivers, hence ruling out drivers who work on Sabbath is almost a
fail-safe way of sorting out the Arab drivers from the pool.

It seems that the
company found a convenient way to avoid cases in which clients cancelled an
order upon finding out the identity of their driver (the application allows you
to do so while the cab is on its way to pick you up). That the convenient way
feeds racist assumptions, and denies Arab drivers of a fair share of the rides,
seems not to concern this private firm, despite (so far little) public
critique. This, too, is not a case of obvious formal discrimination, but the
devil, as always, is in the details.

Segregation is a
blueprint underpinning many of the state’s systems. Public transport is in
the spotlight, because it involves so many issues: from residential
segregation, through labor struggles, and access to rights, to free speech in
the public domain.

So far, Israeli policy
makers make sure to stay on the safe side of a de-jure separation, but
often their daily actions speak louder than laws. For now, one plan of action
was shelved, but it might be aired again when conditions are more ‘favorable’
to the government. We will undoubtedly hear of it in the future.