NGOs' "apartheid road" rhetoric rejected
Following a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), on December 29, 2009 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the majority of the 443 highway must be opened to Palestinian traffic, which had been suspended due to security concerns. Nevertheless, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch rebuked ACRI for employing “apartheid” rhetoric in its opposition to the policy. In her ruling, Beinisch wrote that “the great difference between the security means adopted by the State of Israel for defense against terrorist attacks and the unacceptable practices of the policy of apartheid requires that any comparison or use of this grave term be avoided.” ACRI and B’Tselem had launched a campaign to boycott the 443 highway, calling it “kilometers of separation roads.”
In March 2007, a group of NGOS funded by the New Israel Fund — including Yesh Din, Bimkom, Machsom Watch, Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, ACRI, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) — petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice against an “apartheid order” to create an “apartheid road” in reference to a proposal to limit exploitation of Israeli cars traveling in the West Bank. Adalah has also utilized “apartheid road” terminology regarding road plans in Jerusalem.