Israel opens ‘apartheid road’ cutting Palestinians from Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: A newly-opened highway into Jerusalem divides Israeli and Palestinian drivers into separate lanes with a wall, leading Palestinians to label it an “apartheid road”.
Route 4370, which winds for several kilometres northeast of Jerusalem, consists of two separate two-way roads divided by a wall topped with fencing.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who attended the road’s inauguration, called it “an example of the ability to create shared life between Israelis and Palestinians, while meeting the existing security challenges.”
He was referring to incidents of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which in recent years have included sometimes deadly car-rammings, stonethrowing and stabbings.
Israeli officials say the road will ease heavy traffic in the Jerusalem area for residents of settlements in the West Bank, which is a Palestinian territory that has been occupied by Israel for more than 50 years.
The long-term goal is to provide Jewish settlers with another route to allow them to access Jerusalem more directly, said Aviv Tatarsky of Israeli NGO Ir Amim, which opposes Israel’s illegal programme of settlement expansion in occupied Palestine.
Many residents of nearby Jewish-only settlements work in Jerusalem.
But Palestinians travelling between the north and south of the West Bank would have to change course and some Palestinian villages would find themselves further isolated from Jerusalem, said Tatarsky.
Mohammed Abu Zaid, administrative director of the local council for Al Zaim, a Palestinian village on the other side of the wall, fears that the journey from his village to the city will be lengthened by some eight kilometres if the project is completed.
Palestinians and Israelis often share roads in the West Bank, although some are reserved exclusively for Israelis.
But a Palestine Liberation Organisation official joined others who have called it “the first apartheid road” and voiced fears it could create a precedent.
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