Sir, – It is deeply regrettable that a positive development for 30,000 or so Palestinians, who travel to Israel for work each day, has been reported in such a negative manner (“Israel to run separate buses for Palestinians”, March 4th).
The facts are that new transport lines have been established, which will facilitate easier travel to and from Israel. Until now, Palestinians doing so had no direct line from their residences to the border crossing; therefore, they had to pay for expensive taxi transport or walk a long journey or travel to an Israeli community in the West Bank and take a bus, all of which was highly inconvenient.
The new transport lines allow Palestinians direct transport from their towns and villages to the border crossing. Under any circumstances, this would be seen as a positive development; regrettably it has been implied that these arrangements amount to segregation. – Yours etc,
NURIT TINARI-MODAI,
Deputy Ambassador of Israel,
Embassy of Israel,
Pembroke Road,
Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.
A chara, – Mark Weiss (“Israel to run separate buses for Palestinians”, March 4th) reports that Palestinians will be “asked” to travel on separate bus lines to Jewish settlers as they travel to work from the West Bank into Israel. This follows complaints from settlers who, according to human rights activists, have forced some Palestinian off the “mixed” buses.
Mr Weiss fails to point out that under international law, the settlers are illegally living in the West Bank, yet have succeeded in getting the Israeli government to provide “designated” bus lines for Palestinians.
If it sounds like apartheid, looks like apartheid, feels like apartheid, it is apartheid. – Is mise,
ORLA O’NEILL,
Sunnyhill,
Kilcullen,
Co Kildare.