Palestinian Freedom Riders Prove Israel Is Not Apartheid

That point is made by Glenn Beck's The Blaze: Palestinian Bus-Riding Gimmick To Prove Israeli 'Apartheid' Ends Up Showing...No Apartheid:

A contrived effort to engineer a Rosa Parks moment fall flat Tuesday when a handful of Palestinian activists set out to board an Israeli bus that they say services only West Bank Jewish settlers. In trying to create a comparison between the U.S. civil rights movement and the Palestinian predicament, they hoped to prove the long-standing claim of Palestinians and their international supporters that Israel is an “apartheid” state.


Their contention was quickly debunked when the half-dozen “Palestinian Freedom Rides” activists – trying to imitate the 1960s American Freedom Rides – freely boarded a bus heading from a West Bank settlement toward Jerusalem. Israeli buses are not segregated.

Rosa Parks would have been proud.

Of course, if you want real Apartheid, you can always go to Saudi Arabia

(as long as you are a Muslim)

And of course, you will find Apartheid closer to home--if the Palestinian Arabs have anything to say about it:

The Palestine Liberation Organization's ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews.

"After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated," Maen Areikat, the PLO ambassador, said during a meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. He was responding to a question about the rights of minorities in a Palestine of the future.
PLO ambassador says Palestinian state should be free of Jews, USA Today, 9/18/11

What would Rosa Parks say?

HonestReporting does what the media cannot be bothered to do: point out that Palestinian Arabs are in fact allowed on Isreaeli buses in the West Bank:

So who bothered to include some vital context?

• “Israel has no law barring Palestinians from its public transport in the West Bank” – Reuters
• “no specific rule prevents Palestinians from riding the “Israeli” buses” – Associated Press, Daily Telegraph
• “Palestinians are not explicitly barred from riding the Israeli buses” – Christian Science Monitor
• “It is not illegal for Palestinians to travel on Israeli buses in the West Bank” – The Guardian

And who preferred not to challenge the false narrative?

The LA Times, BBC, Washington Post, AFP, The Independent all pointedly failed to make it clear that there is no law banning Palestinians from riding on Israeli buses, omitting this vital context.

Sheera Frenkel, however, went one step further writing for both McClatchy and The Times of London (subscription-only):

• “Six Palestinian activists were arrested Tuesday when they attempted to enter Jerusalem on buses designated for Israelis alone.”
• “Israel operates two bus lines in the West Bank that run through the circuitous mountains and into Jerusalem. Only Israelis, however, are allowed to use the bus system.”
• “Many of the Jewish passengers said they were surprised to learn that Palestinians were not allowed on the Israeli bus system.”
• “For some Jewish passengers it was a surprise to learn that Palestinians were not allowed on the Israeli bus system.”

Perhaps the passengers expressed surprise because Frenkel had told them something that is not actually true.

While there are restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the West Bank due to security concerns, which includes access to Israeli settlements and within the Green Line, including Jerusalem, there is nothing to stop Palestinians from riding Israeli buses within the West Bank and from continuing their journeys into Jerusalem if they have a permit to do so.

Hat tip: BoL

Technorati Tag: Israel and Apartheid.