Transport Ministry warns: Opening Route 443 to Palestinians will jam Route 1

"Most Jews avoid traveling under PA control for good reason." Dima, the main reason should be that the road is not in israel. Everything else is incidental to this fact.

one is that in the united states, the supreme court DOES act similarly regarding laws it finds as "unconstitutional". so your call for a an israeli constitution would even further limit israel's ability to enforce its apartheid-like double standard...UNLESS you're proposing that it be written into your proposed israeli "constitution"; which would "officially" place israel in the same category as apartheid south africa, and remove any semblence of the free and democratic state it prefers projecting to the outside world. and two, your suggested solution of a "toll road" shows just how much your extreme views have caused you to lose touch with those of the western world in the post-nazi era.

B: "Failure of the High Court to consider as overriding the Legislative Intent behind the security road (443)" Brnd, when Israel started expropriating land for the expansion of Route 443 the Govt of Israel argued before its own supreme court that the LEGISLATIVE INTENT was so that this road was necessary for the needs of the Palestinians. Oh, yeah, and seeing as how we *are* widening this road then it will also be very useful for Israeli civilians too... That was the LEGISLATIVE INTENT behind the upgrading of Route 443 i.e. the road was going to be widened for the benefit of everyone. That's an important point to note, as is its corollory i.e. the subsequent closure of that road to Pals was an ADMINISTRATIVE decision, not a LEGISLATIVE one. To argue otherwise is to argue that the Government of Israel was lying to its own Supreme Court when that court asked why land had to be expropriated. And you don't really want to claim that, do you?

Paul, road access is open to all Israeli citizens, please do not invent problems, there are plenty of real ones. As for Americans building on Canadian soil, no need, Canadian roads are open. American traffic is rarely shot at on Canadian highways. Most Jews avoid traveling under PA control for good reason: plenty have been killed over the years.I guess you would say it is an expression of "the wrath of the oppressed". To me it is all organized murder.

orchestrated by the the Palestinian Terrorist Authority and welcomed under the pretext of "Justice for all" will simply be paid for in more innocent Jewish blood.

"Israeli Arabs have 100% access and freedom of movement on Road 443" First of all. Do not fool yourself into believing that israeli arabs have 100% access to ANYTHING in israel. They cannot even get permission to build homes with the ease israeli jews do. Secondly, even if it is an israeli road open to all israelis shouldn't it run through israel? Maybe Americans could relieve their traffic congection by building their roads inside Canada, would that be ok with you too?

But what about the Arabs who will no longer have to drive on Route 1?

Among her (Beinisch) many notable rulings as a Supreme Court Justice is a decision holding that parents cannot use corporal punishment. Even mild spanking, wrote Beinisch in 2000, “infringes on [the child’s] rights as a human However, the "price" for this victory was that Justice Uzi Fogelman, with a strong left-wing orientation, also became a Supreme Court judge – and it was ... www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/Preview.aspx?type=

There's already too much traffic on road 1: it's time to finish the high speed rail line and connecting light rail in Jerusalem ASAP!

Most of my friends and neighbors (in Modiin, Israel "proper") vehemently oppose the high court's decision on 443 because they are extremely fearful that any change in the status quo endangers them, their families, and their friends. When confronted with the fact that the status quo is intolerable for the Palestinians whose villages 443 bypasses, they quickly get exasperated. They don't know and don't want to know. They fear lives are at stake, and for them "lives" trump "rights." I say this not to excuse Israeli policies, but rather to point out that the most repressive of these are fueled primarily by fear, and not by bare ill-will. I'm talking about middle class moderates, not "right wing fanatics." These are people who just want to make a living, don't have an "agenda" besides safely and securely commuting to and from work. They vote, serve in the army, work hard, and have been drifting rightward for years. There will be no peace until their fears are allayed or conquered.

Only half the article was translated! In the Hebrew original http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1141542.html there was a response by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Here it is: בתגובה לדברי נציג משרד התחבורה, אמרו באגודה לזכויות האזרח כי כאשר הופקעו אדמותיהם של הפלסטינים באזור לצורך סלילת הכביש בתחילת שנות ה-80, קבע בג"ץ כי "שטח כבוש אינו שדה פתוח לניצול כלכלי על ידי המדינה הכובשת". לדברי האגודה, "דבריו של נציג משרד התחבורה רק מחזקים את החשד כי מדובר בכביש לצרכי נוחות. על מדינת ישראל ומשרד התחבורה בכלל זה, לדאוג לצרכיה של אוכלוסיית ישראל בתוך גבולות המדינה". "When the lands were confiscated in the 1980's, the High Court stated that an Occupied Territory is not an open field for exploitation by the occupying power." ACRI adds that "the Ministry's words strengthen the suspicion that this is a convenience highway. The State of Israel including the Transportation Ministry should take care of the needs of Israelis by solutions inside Israel's borders.

Yes I am sure. Like I said, Israeli Arabs have 100% access and freedom of movement on Road 443. Once again ARABS. Therefore, you have only enforced my point. The closing of 443 has nothing to do with dominating anyone. Even Palestinians had access to 443 for years. Only after a slew of civilians being randomly murdered(BTW, I think an Arab was also murdered on this road by terrorists) was access restricted. I'm not saying Israel is perfect. They aren't. No country is. But apartheid it is not.

how about just having route 443 open to palestinians? perhaps removing israelis would reduce the volume of traffic.

Chris, the Rome Statute defines apartheid as : 'inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime'. Are you sure this wouldn't apply to Israel?

They have no legal business on the wrong side of the Green Line anyway.

Response #2 is endemic of some Arabs. First it is admitted that the Israelis built the road & then he ends his comments in BOLD to "give us our road back". Hey, I thought it was the Israelis' road? Other commenters throwing the work "Apartheid" around cheapen its meaning. Note that prior to 2001 Road 443 was open to everyone. Only after numerous terror attacks which resulted in the murder of innocent men, women and children was the ban on Palestinian traffic implemented. It was not a race issue, Israeli Arabs travel the road freely.

...we shouldn't have built the damn road on territory, which is not legally ours. We have no future east of the green line.

Fantastic -- let's all be racist, using other people's land, no less, so that we don't have to sit in traffic. Without in the least condoning violence against Israelis, it seems to me that if Israelis are worried about getting attacked while driving through a foreign country (and yet don't want to sit in traffic on our own roads), perhaps the right response is to build more roads in our own country.

Here it's traffic congestion. Or what about those Jewish communities who are allowed to vet people in live in them and can therefore ban all Arabs? The really sad thing is that ten years ago, Israel at least used to pretend not to be racist. Now, judging from what you read on Haaretz, that pretence has pretty much stopped.

I was shocked to learn that we are talking about the so-called the only democracy in that part of the world,and at the same time there are different roads for different people ..is this the old south Africa ????

Make it a substantial toll fee. Toll collection stations can be security points. Toll refunds paid by mail to addresses in Israel only. Remaining (non-refunded) tolls pay cost of added security. Cutting the connector road to Ramallah further eliminates incentive for non-Israeli use of what was intended to be a security by-pass of Arab roads, not a convenience for travellers to Ramallah - or terrorists escaping to Ramallah after attacking motorists. Failure of the High Court to consider as overriding the Legislative Intent behind the security road (443) - security vs. convenience -is a continuing and major flaw in the Court's operation, why Israel needs a constitution to shape and limit the Court's authority and mission, not the current hodge-podge of outdated British and Turkish laws. The tyranical operation of the Court, in effect making up "laws" instead of only interpreting them, is anti-democratic, and not seen, for example, in the US.

So let's see - most interstates in the US are pretty crowded in the East. We can just selectively discriminate and ban folks from out West or some other stupid excuse. Is there are any racist bigoted position too low for the Israeli government to espouse as the occupation drones on.

Somethings might not be clear to you. First you take half the land of our village, and create a physical barrier between the village and its remaining agricultural area. then you stop us from using the road you built there, without our acceptance, and now you are whining about traffic jams on route 1? in another world this would be considered a joke. WE WANT OUR ROAD BACK.

In a civilized country the public includes every inhabitant, citizen or not, of any gender, race, color or creed, including visitors. Any law which does not comply is deemed unconstitutional and there exist international courts to deal with the complaints.