The Gritty Truth About Israel's 'Jewish-Only' Highways

The road to apartheid is paved with racist intentions.

Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski/The Jerusalem Post

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - An Israeli 'media' group using the name CAMERA apparently exists to convince Internet searchers that Israel does not have 'Jewish-Only' roads, which it does have and has maintained for a number of years.

In spite of what political factions like CAMERA tell you while they parade as media, the fact remains that Israel is an apartheid state. Israel has roads that only Jewish people can use.

This fact can be checked through many sources and by that I don't mean pro-Palestine media, I mean groups like +972 Mag and The Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz and the United Nations.

It just isn't nice for groups like CAMERA to lie to the public.

It seems the argument waged by CAMERA is one of semantics, at best, and as I have admitted in the past, I am antisemantic when it comes to news. By most accounts, the Israeli government was smart enough not to post 'Jewish Only' signs in most cases, however the facts are what they are and the Israeli checkpoints ensure compliance. CAMERA is highly disturbed that the one media group they have not been able to sway in their favor is Israel's Ha'aretz, often one of the coolest and most honest publications on the face of the earth.

Palestinian cars line up at the Huwwara checkpoint leaving Nablus. Nearly 600 Israeli checkpoints exist in the occupied West Bank. (C. Seitz/JMCC)

Cameras are for Taking Pictures

It was a Ha'aretz article about Route 505 that really drew the wrath of CAMERA:

Before you know it, you're on the best road between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean - Route 505, well-lit and with the highest-quality asphalt, wide shoulders and clear signage. This road cuts east through the West Bank and reaches the Jordan Valley. The fences on either side, separating it from the lands of the Palestinian villages in the area, make it an exemplary apartheid road - for Jews only. And you can fly along at 140 kilometers per hour, from one Jewish settlement to the next.
- An oud to Nablus - Ha'aretz

CAMERA wrote: While major media outlets such as the Associated Press, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and CNN.com have all corrected the "Jewish-only roads" falsehood, only Ha'aretz refuses to do so.

Israel's Racism

Palestinian drivers challenge Israeli-only roads in the West Bank Mondoweiss (Photo: Haitham AlKhatib)

Isn't it interesting that the only media agency that refuses to play ball is also the only one located in Israel?

Israel's political defenders claim that all people in Israel have the same rights, yet for all intents and purposes, it is absurd to consider that Palestinian Israelis have the same rights as Jewish Israelis.

Even dark-complected Jewish Israelis suffer discrimination, and volumes of material have been written that reveal this from a Jewish point of view.

Palestinians are attacked and killed, detained, assaulted, molested, every single day and there is almost no recourse at all. Most people who are Jewish in Israel do not approve. The Palestinians are continually suffering under Israel's extreme right.

As Israeli born and raised Gilad Atzmon cites in his April 2011 article, Attack on Unarmed Arab Prisoners Released by Israel's Channel 2 - Salem-News.com, Israelis don't just punish Palestinians disproportionately, they actually raid otherwise peaceful Palestinian prison populations as documented by Israeli press, even killing inmates in real life- as part of their 'training'. No Israeli prisoners are ever subjected to such madness.

Most Americans have no idea that university students last April protested against 'Administrative Detention' in Tel Aviv.

Since 1967, approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested and detained under Israeli military orders. This number accounts for close to 20 percent of the population in the occupied Palestinian territories.

If you really want to know about the disparity in the way Israel treats Palestinians versus Israeli citizens, children in this case, you must read Murdering Babies is 'Permissible' When They're Palestinian - Alison Weir Salem-News.com, that is, if you have the guts to really know how your tax dollars for Israel are spent.

Make no mistake, Israel does not extend equality to the Palestinians, even if they say they do. The most glaring example is a law called 'administrative detention' that allows Israel to arrest and hold Palestinian people without charges as long as they want.

In fact for all of its talk about 'equal law', Israel fails to mention that laws drafted into their legal framework today are negated by rules established shortly after the creation of Israel that make very clear that Israel is a Jewish state and all Jews will be given preference over all non-Jews. The proponents of Israel can argue until they are blue in the face but the fact remains. Israel was set up to be a one religion government.

Besides, Israel routinely illegally seizes (steals) Palestinian homes, land and crops, and places them beneath the blade of an Israeli bulldozer in order to build new religious 'settlements' which are actually colonies, on land owned by other people.

Violations of International Law

As Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, explains, Israel's sale of Palestinian refugee property violates Israeli and international law.

The massive transfer of land inside Israel was executed primarily through two main laws. The first is the Land Acquisition Law (Validation of Acts and Compensation) – 1953, pursuant to which 1.2 - 1.3 million dunams of land were expropriated from the Arab population. The second law is the Absentees’ Property Law – 1950 under which all of the property owned, possessed or used by the Palestinian refugees was transferred to the State of Israel. Assessments by Israel, Palestinian institutions and UN agencies as to the extent of the properties taken pursuant to this law range from around 2 million dunams to 16 million dunams of land.
- Adalah Launches New Internet-Based Interactive Map and Database on Land Expropriations by Israel - Salem-News.com

There is therefore little sense of equality for Palestinians, whose family land was seized by the formation of Israel. Its deadly 1967 war during which it attacked neighboring countries much the way the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, led to Israel stealing millions of acres of land from Palestinians. The map shows the literal progression of Israel's borders from the time it was formed in 1948 through today. Millions of Palestinians became refugees due to Israeli aggression.

Over Controlling a Population

The separate systems of legal justice and the roads created and maintained for use only by Israelis, are just the tip of the iceberg. Israel is guilty of literally countless crimes against the Palestinians. Even with the unending support of the U.S., Israel can not defend itself by simply denying charges forever. There are reasons the roads became Jewish only and there is a reason why Palestinians have attacked Israelis over the years, and that is mostly revenge when you boil it down. Israel has used too heavy and too discriminatory of a hand in handling its political affairs.

+972Mag wrote in January 2012:

There are hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank that are used to control and restrict Palestinian freedom of movement. According to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, there were 522 roadblocks and checkpoints in 2011 throughout the West Bank, and four out of the five roads that lead into the Jordan Valley are not accessible to Palestinian vehicles
-Palestinian 'car protest' in West Bank challenges road segregation - 972mag.com

In January 2010 Ha'aretz wrote:

Less than a week after Israel's highest court ordered the state to lift its ban on Palestinian motorists from a highway that stretches into the West Bank, left-wing activists are denouncing new plans on Tuesday to build a road on West Bank land which they claim is intended for use by Israelis only.

According to an Army Radio report, planning officials are diligently laying the groundwork for Highway 20, an artery which will connect Highway 443 - the road which has remained off-limits to Palestinian traffic since the outbreak of the second intifada - with the northern neighborhoods of Jerusalem, including Pisgat Ze'ev.

Officials at Peace Now slammed the plan for the road, which they say will be built on privately owned Palestinian land to be condemned for the project and will cater solely to Israeli motorists.
- Rights group slams planned 'Israelis only' highway in West Bank - Ha'aretz

What must be remembered is that most of the Jewish or Israeli roads in reference, stem from the existence of 'settlers' and not a single settler is not Jewish.

Wikipedia's page states:

Critics of Israeli policy say that "a system of control" in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including Jewish-only settlements, separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens, military checkpoints, discriminatory marriage law, the West Bank barrier, use of Palestinians as cheap labour, Palestinian West Bank enclaves, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied territories resembles some aspects of the South African apartheid regime, and that elements of Israel's occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law. Some commentators extend the analogy, or accusation, to include Arab citizens of Israel, describing their citizenship status as second-class.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "Arab Israelis are citizens of Israel with equal rights" and states that the "only legal distinction between Arab and Jewish citizens is not one of rights, but rather of civic duty". However a number of official sources acknowledge that Arab citizens of Israel experience systematic discrimination in many aspects of life. Israeli High Court Justice (Ret.) Theodor Or chaired the Or Commission, which noted that discrimination against the country's Arab citizens had been documented in a large number of professional surveys and studies, had been confirmed in court judgments and government resolutions, and had also found expression in reports by the state comptroller and in other official documents. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticised in 2008 what he called "deliberate and insufferable" discrimination against Arabs at the hands of the Israeli establishment.
- Israel and the apartheid analogy - From Wikipedia

So yes, the roads do indeed exist. In May 2010, Israel's conservative newspaper, The Jerusalem Post wrote:

The IDF will open Route 443 to Palestinians this week as it puts the finishing touches on a new set of security measures along the key highway.

Under orders from the High Court of Justice, the road, which links Jerusalem with Modi’in and Tel Aviv, will officially open to Palestinian traffic on Friday, after almost eight years of being used solely by Israeli drivers.
- Route 443 to be opened for Palestinians - The Jerusalem Post

So CAMERA would have us believe what? They flatly deny the existence of roads that are Jewish-only... that Palestinians can not use, yet the High Court of Justice ruled that a section of road "officially open to Palestinian traffic". Somebody's taking crazy pills and it isn't me. CAMERA is a dishonest political broker and simply another obvious arm of the Israeli Zionist govt.

According to Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ), and an article written by Jonathan Cook in Nazareth in May 2010:

"...Israel has reserved an increasing number of main roads in the West Bank for Israelis so that Jewish settlers can drive more easily and quickly into Israel, making their illegal communities more attractive places to live." The roads are designed to provide alternative routes to connect Palestinian communities, often by upgrading circuitous dirt tracks or by building tunnels under existing routes
- US Funds Israel's Apartheid Roads Plan:Settlers Benefit from Israeli-Only Routes - ccun.org

Saudis do Same Thing

As for the road to Mecca, it is blocked for Jews and that is just as wrong and bad as anything else under discussion.

Of course the noteworthy aspect here is that Saudi Arabia, and Israel are both allies of the United States, and as polarized as their religions are, the Saudi Wahhabis and Israeli Zionists are friends also.

The Saudis simply weren't in the way of Israel's ambitions and the love of money and power allows each to live without tormenting one another - all at the Palestinians' expense. Nearly all of the supporters of Palestine hold this view of the Arabs who do nothing to aid the embattled, occupied Palestinians.

The discrimination toward Jews in Saudi Arabia and their being blocked from visiting Mecca is a sad reality, another dirty trick and act of outright discrimination, from the folks who brought you the Burqa, and lots of oil.

The road of racism is packed with religious outcries and most who know anything about Islam or Christianity or Judaism know that the biggest message is peaceful coexistence, it is man's flawed interpretation that leads to our biggest problems and disasters. Israel needs to give the Palestinians a break.

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

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With almost 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

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