Traffic signals in the service of a racism!!!

  Mike Odetalla

Just a few days ago, reports began surfacing about the traffic lights and how they are managed by the Israelis to favor Jewish drivers. Even Al-Jazeera did a story about this not too long ago. Below is my original piece that I did after returning home from Palestine in 2007 and which I submitted to many sources, even Al-Jazeera at the time, but no one would touch it and as a matter of fact, I was ridiculed for "noticing such trivial things" by people who were supposed to be on "our side"…

Mike

         

Traffic signals in the service of a racism

Mike Odetalla

11-2007

Recently, while back home in Palestine (I have just returned a couple of days ago from the Jerusalem area), I was once again astonished by the depth of Israeli racism, a racism that permeates throughout Israeli society, whereby "innocent looking" traffic signals are enlisted into the service of the Jewish State and its racist ideology!

Traveling along the main road that runs North-South and used to connect Jerusalem with Ramallah and the rest of the west Bank, but which is blocked by a number of Israel road blocks, checkpoints, and the infamous Israeli Apartheid Wall, the bus I was traveling in came to a crawl along with the rest of the Palestinian traffic headed south towards Jerusalem's old city. We languished in traffic for 15 minutes before finally arriving at the main traffic junction whereby Israeli traffic heading in and out of the Jewish only colonies of Psgat Zeev and Neve Yacouv (both built on lands stolen from my village of Beit Hanina) intersects with Palestinian traffic heading in and out of Jerusalem.

While waiting at the traffic signal, I soon began to realize why Palestinian traffic was squeezed to a crawl and why Jewish traffic was moving briskly. The traffic signals regulating Jewish settler traffic stayed "green" for up to 6 times LONGER than it did for Palestinian Arab traffic at the same intersection, which means that Palestinian Arab drivers waste more time waiting at red lights than Jewish drivers…I was told by the driver and others that this was the norm at ALL intersections where Palestinian traffic and Jewish traffic intersect each other…Another "perk" to make life easier for "god's chosen people" at the expense of the natives!

Although a "minor" detail, it is but just another mechanism that is not "easily noticed" by outsiders to discriminate against the indigenous natives of the Holy Land…Like I said, it seems that every time I return home to Palestine, I learn another lesson in cruelty and racism which the outside world has chosen to ignore…

 Mike Odetalla..."A seed in the eternal fruit of Palestine"

"Come, I'll tell you about Palestine"  www.Hanini.org

My Home Town: http://www.beithanina.org/
http://www.palestinecalendar.org/
http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/
http://www.alnakba.org/
http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/
http://www.palestineremembered.com
http://www.al-awda.org

Charities for Palestine that I support:

www.pcrf.net/ The Palestine Children's Relief Fund

http://www.irw.org/ Islamic Relief USA

www.anera.org/ American Near East Refugee Aid

"The ink of the scholar is holier more than the blood of the martyr"-  Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)