A new road with separate lanes for Israelis and Palestinians between Jerusalem and the West Bank has sparked protests. Demonstrators held up Palestinian flags and a poster saying „No to apartheid“, „No to annexation“, near the road today. Pictures showed policemen in scramble with demonstrators.
Israel opened the two-lane expressway for Israelis and two for Palestinians in January. In the middle is a wall several meters high. „That’s just for security reasons, it’s not for apartheid reasons,“ said a spokesman for Israel’s Minister of Public Security, Gilad Erdan, at that time. The construction cost 150 million shekels (about 36 million euros). According to „Haaretz“ the street is known as „Apartheid Street“.
Bennett urges annexation of part of the West Bank
There are many common roads in the West Bank for Israelis and Palestinians, said Erdan’s spokesman. However, Israelis are only allowed to enter major Palestinian cities with Israeli special permission. Palestinians, in turn, may only enter Israeli settlements with Israeli special permission.
Israel had conquered in 1967 in the Six-Day War, inter alia, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There live today more than 600,000 Israeli settlers in more than 200 settlements. The Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett of the New Right Party is constantly pressing for the annexation of large parts of the West Bank. The Palestinians want the areas instead for their own state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as the capital.
