Israel Attorney General Calls for Explanation on Palestinian Bus Ban
Israel’s attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, has called for an explanation of a proposed order that would prevent Palestinian workers from riding Israeli buses.
On Tuesday, Weinstein ordered Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to explain the new guidelines, which will effectively ban the workers from the buses they ride to their homes in the West Bank.
The new rules, announced Sunday and slated to take effect in December, mandate that Palestinian workers return to the West Bank only through the Eyal crossing, near Kalkilya in central Israel, and continue on to their homes from there.
Government officials insist that the proposed order was issued for security reasons alone.
“The decision will not prevent Palestinians from going to work and continuing to make a living,” an employee of the defense minister’s bureau told Haaretz. “No one is stopping the Palestinians from continuing to work inside Israeli territory and reaching their destinations. The opposite is true. This is purely a security-related matter.”
Jewish residents of the West Bank and their local governments have waged a vociferous campaign over the last few years to prevent Palestinians who work in Israel from using Israeli public transportation in the West Bank. Among their reasons, they cited a lack of room on the buses for Jewish residents of the West Bank and Jewish female passengers saying that they have been harassed by the Palestinian laborers.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30