NY Times - Responding to intense criticism, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel y abruptly shelved a contentious pilot project introduced this week that prohibited Palestinians returning to the West Bank from riding on the same buses as Israelis headed to Jewish settlements.
The Israeli government’s turnabout reflected the acute domestic sensitivity over Israel’s image abroad, particularly given its new, narrow government dominated by right-wing and religious parties, and the growing frustration in the West over the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Opposition politicians in Israel joined Palestinians in dismissing the idea that the plan was justified because of security concerns, denouncing the plan as immoral and racist, and saying it smacked of apartheid. There was also criticism from some more conservative quarters, including Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, who welcomed the decision to halt a process that he said “could have led to an unthinkable separation between bus lines for Jews and Arabs.”
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian leader in the West Bank, said that the plan for segregated buses was particularly “blunt,” but that other forms of segregation were still in place, pointing to the existence of roads in the West Bank that are exclusively for use by Israelis. “This revealed the fact that Israel unfortunately has transformed the situation into a system of apartheid,” he said
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