Palestinian Freedom Riders

I'm really impressed and inspired by this action and the brilliant historical links they're drawing on with the civil rights movement in the US. Just like then, most people don't really consider the apartheid which is going on until it's made so obvious - despite the fact that prominent people of genuine integrity like Desmond Tutu and former US President Jimmy Carter and so many others have described it as such. Here's a great little one minute youtube clip as a taster.


Rather than me write lots about it, check out this blog which has lots of stuff on it and the links on the right hand side of my page like the Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestine Monitor for more coverage.


Some more great coverage here too and some words about it which I've borrowed from the occupiedpalestine wordpress blog:

Palestinian Freedom Riders to Challenge Segregation By Riding Settler Buses to Jerusalem: November 15, 2011

Palestinian activists will reenact the US Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides to the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public transportation in the West Bank to travel to occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli public transportation headed from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 60′s.

Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience.

The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel’s attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Several Israeli companies, among them Egged and Veolia, operate dozens of lines that run through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. They run between different Israeli settlements, connecting them to each other and cities inside Israel. Some lines connecting Jerusalem to other cities inside Israel, such as Eilat and Beit She’an, are also routed to pass through the West Bank.

Israelis suffer almost no limitations on their freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory, and are even allowed to settle in it, contrary to international law. Palestinians, in contrast, are not allowed to enter Israel without procuring a special permit from Israeli authorities. Even Palestinian movement inside the Occupied Territories is heavily restricted, with access to occupied East Jerusalem and some 8% of the West Bank in the border area also forbidden without a similar permit.

While it is not officially forbidden for Palestinians to use Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, these lines are effectively segregated, since many of them pass through Jewish-only settlements, to which Palestinian entry is prohibited by a military decree.

Briefly out of Hibernation

This blog is supposed to be in hibernation (and my current travels and adventures are over here on this other blog), but this action going on right now needs all the publicity and support we can muster. Please check out the info below from Avaaz (an excellent internet-based movement), watch the video and please sign the petition or do whatever else you can.


Here's the direct link, and here's some background....

From: Avaaz.org <avaaz@avaaz.org>
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Dear friends,

In the next few hours, history could be made in Palestine. A small number of brave Palestinians will brave attack and arrest to commit a forbidden act -- they will board a public bus.

Lacking their own state, Palestinians are forbidden to use buses and roads reserved for non-Arabs - part of a host of race-based rules that US President Jimmy Carter has called "apartheid". 50 years ago, blacks in the US challenged these rules by simply and non-violently refusing to follow them. In a few hours, Palestinians will take the same approach, and their actions will be live webcasted by Avaaz teams at the link below.

As diplomats stall in the fight for a Palestinian state, the Palestinian people are taking the fight into their own hands, one public service at a time. And they're doing it with the simple, elegant and unstoppable moral force of non-violence in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The Palestinian spring begins right now - click below to watch it LIVE, register support, and give these brave activists the global solidarity and attention they urgently need to win:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_freedom_riders/?tta

Non-violence is the game-changing force in this long standing conflict. Boarding buses is a symbolic act, but so was Gandhi's salt march, and Rosa Park's own 'freedom ride' on a segregated bus in the US. Just as non-violent protest was able to topple dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, so can it finally free the Palestinian people from 40 years of crippling military oppression by a foreign power.

There are many dangers. Israel has been arming the extremist settler population, a tactic which is likely, if not intended, to provoke awful violence that will draw the news cameras away from the brave acts of non-violence. Even the Palestinian authorities are pushing back on the action which they fear will start a democratic protest movement that they cannot control. But these few brave Palestinians have had enough, and if we stand with them now, we can help them ignite a flame that will burn its way all the way to a free and peaceful Palestinian state:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_freedom_riders/?tta

We have no idea what will happen in the next 24 hours. Maybe the authorities will crush this brave action. Maybe it will spark into a massive conflagration. Maybe it will sow the first seed of an unstoppable movement with tremendous integrity. But we can watch it live, and lend our voices to the effort. And maybe one day, we can tell our grandchildren that we were there when Palestinians boarded the buses that would ultimately take them to freedom.

With hope and determination,

Ricken, Alice, Emma, Alice, Raluca, Pascal, Diego and the rest of the Avaaz team

Sources:

I Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Set on Freedomhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/clarence-b-jones/i-woke-up-this-morning-wi_b_1087407.html

Freedom Riders: 1961 and the struggle for racial justicehttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/books/review/19foner.html

Palestinian Freedom Rides echo the Civil Rights Movementhttp://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3888-freedom-rides

'Freedom Rides' to Resume in Palestinehttp://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=17242