Totally false reporting of new travel regulations for Palestinian Authority workers in Israel has force Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to freeze the program.
Israel launched on Wednesday a three-month pilot program that requires Palestinian Authority workers to return to their homes through the same checkpoints they used when leaving their homes for work in Israel.
After work, they were to board buses to four checkpoints in Judea and Samaria, where they will go through thorough security checks before boarding a different bus to take them to their villages, where Jews do not live.
But that is not the way Israeli media have reported the program. Editors and broadcasters whipped out the “Apartheid” label, which is a lie.
After arriving at the checkpoints in buses used by Jews as well, the Arabs cannot continue on the same buses because they do not arrive in their towns. Instead, after inspections, the Arabs board different buses to take them home.
Haaretz headlined, “Israel begins separating Palestinians, Israelis on West Bank buses.” Al Arabiya wrote a similar headline, “Palestinians banned from riding buses with Israelis.”RTE in Ireland was a bit more accurate with the headline over the exact same AFP article “Ban on Palestinians sharing some buses with Israelis.”
Former Likud Cabinet Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a close friend of Prime Minister Netanyahu, tweeted:
The decision for separate buses [sic] is a mistake and causes grave damage to settlers in Judea and Samaria and to the image of Israel in the world.
If there is one legitimate reason for freezing the program it is because the new regulations will lengthen the time it take Palestinian Authority workers to return home. Claims that it will take the Arabs “six hours” to return home are highly questionable, but there is no doubt that the procedures will mean much longer travel times.
But that is not the reason Netanyahu panicked.
Does this media re-writing of the truth sound familiar?
It should.
Two years ago, the Israeli government added new bus lines to serve Palestinian Authority towns.
Since Jews cannot live in those Arab villages without leaving in a coffin, there is not much demand by them to use the local buses
But the local and foreign media had a field day disseminating a total lie, as described below by The Jewish Press’ Lori Lowenthal Marcus.
The original article was published here and follows.
‘Palestinian Only’ Buses in Israel: The Big Lies are Back
The headlines roll out, the journalistic warfare continues, and the Jewish State once more is cast in the starring role of “evil, Apartheid empire.” This time the story is that Israel is forcing the Arab Palestinians to ride separate buses from the ones Jewish Israelis ride.
The reality is exactly the opposite – there are no “Palestinian only” buses. Instead, with its new bus routes, Israel is reducing crowded buses, attempting to relieve ethnic tensions and security concerns, and is assisting Arab Palestinians enter Green Line Israel to work. But we’ll get to the facts – which exonerate Israel from “Apartheid” charges – in a minute. For right now you can rest assured that despite efforts to cast the Arab Palestinians in the role of Rosa Parks, a closer fit would be to cast the purveyors of this latest attack as peddlers of the Big Lie.
First, the hysteria:
One headline, from the magazine formerly known as Newsweek, and now known as – more accurately – the Daily Beast, “West Bank Buses Only the Latest in Israel’s Segregated Public Transport,” and one from the uber-leftist +972, “Israel’ new ‘Palestinian only’ segregated bus line,” and even the Israeli news media outlet YNetfans the flames: “Ministry launches ‘Palestinians only’ buses.”