By Nureddin Sabir

Editor, Redress Information & Analysis

It’s official: in the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East” apartheid applies even to people of different races standing next to each other while hitchhiking.

According to Avigdor Shatz, the chief security officer at Binyamin Regional Council, “Palestinians are not supposed to stand next to Jews at the same hitchhiking stop, certainly not in Beit El”.

Beit El is a Jewish squatter colony.

A report by Mairav Zonszein, published in +972 magazine, says it all:

The settler media outlet Arutz Sheva reported (Hebrew) a highly “irregular” occurrence on Wednesday morning, in which a Palestinian stood next to Jewish Israelis at a hitchhiking stop near the West Bank settlement of Beit El. Avigdor Shatz, the Binyamin Regional Council’s chief security officer in the area, was quoted as saying: “Palestinians are not supposed to stand next to Jews at the same hitchhiking stop, certainly not in Beit El.” Shatz admitted that the law does not actually bar Palestinians from standing at the Givat Asaf hitchhiking stop, named after the illegal outpost nearby. “It is not defined as Israeli territory since it is outside the settlement.” However, he said it was an “irregular” and “strange” incident, and warned Israelis to keep their distance and to call the police and report such incidents. “We will get forces there to examine the suspect. Usually it is nothing.” I guess in apartheid Israel, it’s news when a Palestinian dares to stand next to Jews.

You would have thought if apartheid was wrong in South Africa, then it must also be wrong in Israel – or anywhere else in the world. Not, it would seem, when it comes to the “chosen people”.