Freedom Ride Against New Apartheid Travel Ban

Freedom Ride Against New Apartheid Travel Ban

Next Friday, January 19th Palestinian, Israeli, and International activists will form a caravan of cars against the Apartheid decree prohibiting Israelis and foreign nationals from driving Palestinians inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Inspired by the freedom rides of the early 1960s which helped end Segregation in the American South, Israelis and Internationals will transport Palestinians in their cars on a settler-only road, risking arrest and punishment in defiance of this racist law.

On November 19th, the Commanding General at Israeli army Central-Region command, Ya'ir Naveh, issued an unprecedented decree forbidding Israelis and foreign nationals from driving Palestinians in the West Bank. The decree implements the Israeli policy of racial separation in the boldest possible manner. For the first time ever, it imposes legal penalties on members of different nations meeting each other in the private realm.

The decree is the peak of targeted and deliberate institutional discrimination that was designed to strengthen the rule of one national grouping over another - the precise legal definition of the crime of Apartheid.

But the burden is even heavier, as even during the Apartheid regime in South Africa, no such ban was implemented.

This coming Friday, January 19th, on the day this racist decree comes into force, a group of activists including the newly founded Coalition to End the Occupation and the Popular Committees Against the Wall and Settlements in the Ramallah region, will join together in a caravan of cars to cry out: "We will not participate in Israel's Apartheid regime in the Occupied Palestinian Territories!"

International and Israeli activists will gather at the El-Al terminal at the Northern railway station in Tel Aviv and leave in a caravan of vehicles, gathering Palestinians from the Ramallah area and driving them to the weekly demonstration in Bil'in.

The action is supported by the following Israeli groups: Gush Shalom, Ta'ayush, Sons of Abraham, Olive Tree Movement, Balad, Anarchists Against the Wall, Yesh Din, Yesh Gvul, Coalition of Women for Peace, Hadash, Maki, Banki

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