This Friday, January 4th, Human Rights activists will meet at a mass demonstration against the system of Israeli Apartheid being imposed upon the Palestinian people. They will protest the network of apartheid roads which dissect the West Bank and which Palestinians themselves are blocked from using.
Tel Aviv meeting point : Arlozorov train station, El Al Terminal at 11:00 To sign up please contact Ilan Shalif. Best by e-mail to ilan@shalif.com with your mobile phone number in it (essential) or phone 03-6482749 or 052-4655520 (Not by SMS please)
Jerusalem Meeting point: Liberty Bell Park parking lot at 10:30
To sign up please contact Yoav Lehan 054-5280992
* Please dress in a way that will respect local residents *
Road 443 is one of the main throughways of the West Bank . Its overall length is 25.5 KM, 14 out of which run through the heart of the West Bank, with two additional ones in the No-Man’s Land. From the year 2000 on Israel started restricting Palestinian movement on the road, with the restrictions turning into complete prohibition of Palestinian movement in 2002, practically making the road into a Jewish-only one.
443 is one of the most prominent and upsetting apartheid roads in the West Bank. Approximately 40,000 Israeli citizens travel on it on a daily basis. The majority of them are not settlers but merely commuters traveling from Tel Aviv and Modi’in to Jerusalem on a better, shorter road, with less traffic. It is safe to assume that the vast majority of them are unaware to the fact that they are traveling through the Occupied Territories, and in a road Palestinians are allowed on. In many parts the road is surrounded by a wall, decorated by picturesque murals, blocking the Palestinian villages victimized by the road even from sight.
Road 443 is, needless to say, not the only apartheid road in the West Bank. 312 KM of West Bank roads are nowadays forbidden for Palestinian use. The system of apartheid roads (which also include an inferior, separate road system for Palestinian use) – together with the checkpoints and roadblocks, the wall, the siege and curfews, separate Palestinians from their lands, their workplaces, universities and each other – creating an intolerable reality lacking any real freedom of movement. The system of separation divides the West Bank into fragmented enclaves, practically destroying Palestinian economy, sovereignty and any option for a normal life.
The Palestinian Popular mobilization against apartheid,
The national committees against the wall and settlements,
The councils of the villages Beit Sira, Safa, Beit Likya, Kharbata AlMasbach, Beit Ur El Tachta and Beit Ur el Foka,
The Coalition against the Wall & the Occupation:
Gush Shalom,
Coalition of Women for just peace,
Ta’ayush,
Alternative Information Center,
Yesh Gvul,
ICAHD,
Students Coalition – Tel-Aviv University,
Anarchists against walls.