Freedom Riders In Palestine

This next Tuesday Palestinian activists will attempt to board Israeli settler buses traveling to East Jerusalem. Their actions will mirror the historic American Civil Rights movement fifty years later. They are protesting many things, the most prominent being the segregation of roads in the occupied territories. Did you know that in the West Bank and East Jerusalem there are separate roads - one set of roads for Jewish Israeli citizens and one set of roads for Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The reason I make this religious distinction is because any Jewish person in the world is welcomed by the Israeli government to come and live (and sometimes even paid by the Israeli government) in these settlements and by default to use these roads, just because he or she is Jewish. This is discrimination. Spread the word - this symbolic action is important because it takes a very important and emotionally provocative period from the US recent past and demonstrates the parallels between the injustice then and now. I pray for safety for the activists, and that their nonviolent actions will provoke questions and challenge people to look more closely at the current situation in the occupied territories. Here is a link to more info about the civil disobedience planned for next Tuesday.