suspension of a plan to separate Palestinian and Israeli passengers on
buses travelling through the West Bank, few hours after the plan was
put into effect.
Netanyahu ordered that the plan should be shelved after Palestinians
and human rights groups said the move was "racist'' and amounted to
apartheid. He ordered the Defence Minister, Moshe Yaalon, to freeze
the suspension. However, the Israeli lawmakers had also slammed the
move.
Yaalon said the three-month pilot plan, under which Palestinian
travellers would not be allowed on buses being used by the Jewish
settlers, was due to security reasons. He said the decision was taken
as a result of the demand made by the Yesha Council of Jewish
settlements in the West Bank that they fear for their lives whenever
Palestinians board their buses.
The opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, of the centre-left Labour Party
said the plan was a stain on the face of the state and it was a
miserable decision. Under the plan, Palestinians working in Israel and
who had entered into Israel would have been required to return to the
West Bank through the military checkpoint and the new rules would have
made their travel times significantly longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment