Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled a controversial pilot programme which would have banned Palestinian workers from travelling on Israeli buses in the West Bank, after widespread condemnation that it was a policy of apartheid.
Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon had approved a three month pilot scheme of the programme on Tuesday, and claimed that it was necessary to prevent a terror attack in Tel Aviv.
The scheme had the support of the Samaria Regional Council and settler leaders, but had been criticised by many other Israeli groups, who protested against the apartheid-style policy.
Zahava Gal-On, leader of the secular and left-wing Meretz party, condemned the policy. He said:
“This is what apartheid looks like. There is no other polite definition, that could fall more pleasantly on one’s ears.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who heads the Zionist Union party, called the policy an “unnecessary humiliation” that would “tarnish Israel’s name and reputation” around the world, and had “no bearing on the country”s security”.
