‘Apartheid road’: RT tests notorious West Bank highway segregating Palestinian & Israeli drivers

There’s one more kind of segregation in the West Bank – a new road where Palestinian and Israeli drivers are separated by a large wall in the middle. Dubbed ‘Apartheid Road’, it makes some Israelis feel ashamed, RT has learned.

Israel has just inaugurated a 5-kilometer stretch of the road in the Israeli-occupied West Bank which leads to different directions. The eastern side of it connects Jewish settlements to Jerusalem while the western one is allocated to Palestinians to go around the contested city.

Israeli authorities claim the new highway will help ease traffic in the area and make Jerusalem more accessible for settlers. However, convenience for Israeli drivers comes at the expense of others, RT’s Paula Slier reveals.

There’s a large wall that effectively segregates Palestinian and Israeli drivers. Most car owners on the Israeli side of the road are settlers, whereas Palestinians can only use it if they have a special permit to enter Jerusalem.

Some Israelis expressed mixed feelings about the highway. “We need to find the way that both sides can use the same street evenly. It’s not fair, it’s not OK,” a young woman told RT. “For a better life, it doesn’t need to be like that. It needs to be something else,” a local man offered.

Shortly after the road was opened, the Palestinian Authority said it posed a challenge to “the credibility of the international community.”

According to them, it was “a shame on the international community to see an apartheid regime being established and deepened without doing anything to stop it.” 

Palestinians have long feared that the highway and other Israeli-run construction projects would see the West Bank being split into two halves, hampering efforts to build a future Palestinian state.

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