Driving Access Based on the Color of Your License Plate

While Americans may be scaling back on their ‘joy rides’ with rising gas prices this summer, Palestinians never had the chance in the first place.  Visualizing Palestine released this infographic last week detailing the segregated road system Israeli occupation has implemented, and many of the roadblocks faced, in the Palestinian struggle to secure food, education, and a means of living. By the end of 2011 there were 529 physical obstacles to Palestinian movement in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and in 2010 there were 65 permanently staffed checkpoints, 22 “partial” checkpoints (staffed on an ad hoc basis), and 418 unstaffed obstacles (roadblocks, earthmounds, earth walls, road gates, road barriers and trenches).

More than just ‘annoying,’ invasive and time-consuming checkpoints, in addition to the many unstaffed obstacles in the West Bank, make daily access to schools, agricultural lands and health services severely complicated if possible at all. Many students and teachers miss school due to complications at checkpoints or the unexpected “flying” checkpoints established on an ad hoc basis. Indeed, even decisions on pursuing university studies are thoroughly analyzed with the realities of transportation to and from classes.

One of the considerable obstacles to Palestinian movement is the continued construction of the 430 mile-long separation barrier or “The Wall” around East Jerusalem and inside of the West Bank, compelling more than 200,000 Palestinians from 70 villages to take detours between two to five times longer than the direct route to reach the closest city. When completed, approximately 85 percent of the barrier’s route will run inside the West Bank rather than along the Green Line, isolating 9.4 percent of the West Bank including Jerusalem. The continued illegal construction of the Wall places nearly 6,500 Palestinians in the ‘Seam Zone,’ between the Wall and the Green Line, where they are required to obtain permanent resident permits from Israel simply to continue living in their homes on Palestinian territory. And with the lack of health and education services available in the Seam Zone, they must pass through barrier checkpoints every day to reach workplaces and essential services. Even residents of the West Bank must pass through these checkpoints to reach their agricultural fields on the other side of the wall.

Severe restrictions are placed on the entry and exit of Palestinians into and out of Jerusalem and Gaza, requiring permits for even the simplest occasion and severely limiting any such movement.

Israel has decided to ignore the universal human right to travel and freedom of movement as dictated by the United Nations in 1948, and its commitment to the Oslo Accords to recognize Gaza and the West Bank as a “single territorial unit” allowing freedom of movement between the two parts. While international law does permit certain curtailments of movement for reasons of security, Israel’s security guise does not excuse the massive collective punishment heaped on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank and the continual isolation of Palestinian Jerusalem. No excuse validates the use of discrimination and segregation of roads based on ethnicity to prohibit people from living their lives the best way they can.

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