Revealed: Arab cabbies banned from driving BG Airport staff

Dimi Reider By Dimi Reider May 21, 2012 | Edit

Turns out that the Arab cab driver – any Israeli cab driver who happens to be Arab – is deemed so much a security risk simply by virtue of his excessive Arabness that he can’t be allowed to drive staff to and from Ben Gurion Airport. We learn this from an urgent letter sent today by the Association for Civil Rights Israel (ACRI), to the director of the Israel Airport Authority, Yaakov Ganot, demanding he cancel forthwith a directive issued from the office of the director of Ben Gurion Airport to a cab company servicing the employees of Israel’s main international hub.

The directive, signed by the airport’s transportation director Shuki Shemer, quite simply bans the company from employing “drivers from minorities, including all routes.” Palestinian citizens of Israel  are commonly referred to as “minorities”, a euphemism comparable in sophistication to using “coloureds” instead of “blacks” in American discourse.  The letter (Hebrew, .pdf) is so refreshingly blunt in its unmitigated racism it merits a full translation, with loving preservation of the officious clumsiness of the original:

30 April 2012

To: Moni Siton Transportation LTD

RE: Employee transportation 

Complaints have been recently received from members of the security and border control staff concerning the employment of drivers from minorities along the Jerusalem route, Malcha Cabs and Yisrael Cabs.

According to a decision by the director of the security department, you should not employ drivers from minorities, including all routes.

Regards,

Shuki Shemer

 

ACRI’s attorney Tal Hassin stressed (Hebrew) that the directive is illegal, being in explicit violation the Basic (constitutional) Law on Freedom of Occupation and the law on equality of opportunity in employment. I can only add to that that the IAA and Ben Gurion Airport are not private companies but state authorities. As Noam often says, if you don’t like the word “apartheid”, you’re welcome come up with a new term that will describe our situation with all its precious exceptionality – and nefariousness – thrown in.

 

Dimi Reider

Dimi (Dmitry) Reider is an Israeli journalist.  His work has appeared in The New York Review of Books,  The New York Times,The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Haaretz,  Jerusalem Post, and  Index on Censorship. "Dimi's Notes" has been quoted and referenced by the following publications:

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