Public transportation in Israel is well developed and includes both an extensive network of bus lines and a (slowly) expanding train service. The system allows people to travel to their work and to their study, and takes every week thousands of soldiers home from their bases and back. However, going to the beach on Saturday morning, visit family or friends, or going to the hospital, the system will let you down. Public transportation in Israel does not operate over the weekend and not on holydays.
This absurdity has its roots in something that is called the “Status Quo”, an agreement from 1947 between David Ben Gurion (who later became Israel’s first Prime Minister) and Jewish religious leaders, which in fact rules the lives of Israelis through religious coercion. It includes rules regarding burial, marriage etc. but also the demand that there will be no public transportation on the Sabbath, except in places where it already existed (which is hardly anywhere) before the agreement was reached. This “agreement” was never set within a law framework and has been maintained through political coercion by the religious parties in the Knesset. In 1990, it was set in the regulations that the Transport Minister has the authority to make decisions in the matter, but for the same reasons of political coercion, it never came to actual public transport over the Sabbath.
For many people, Public Transportation is the only means they have of moving from one place to the other, which in fact means that the ban on public transportation forces these people to remain home on their day off. Of course for those that are sufficiently well off to be able to afford a car, this problem does not exist and the result is simple: over the weekend or holydays, the traffic density increases significantly, air pollution increases, more accidents happen and the economic cost is overwhelming.
This whole hot-potato issue again came up recently, and this time in connection to the light rail system that is being built in the Tel Aviv metropolis and which is supposed to start operations somewhere in November of this year. In an attempt to force the issue (and maybe spurred on by the fact that there will be elections in six weeks), the Minister of Transportation, Merav Michaeli, came up with two decisions, that are intended to both regulate Public Transportation as well as actually make it happen. Regarding the light rail system in Tel Aviv the minister claims to have reached an agreement with the operator and after evaluation of financial and operational implications the light rail will start operating on the Sabbath. It is Michaeli’s provocative to make this decision. However, anyone coming after her to the Transportation office will be able to use the same provocative to undo it.
The second decision that Michaeli brought forward, is one that has been discussed many times but was never implemented: to transfer the decision to run Public Transportation on the Sabbath to the local authorities with as main logic that the local authorities are in a much better position to judge what their population needs and desires. This proposal was brought before the government and unanimously approved. Again, a next government can easily rescind this regulation because of coercion by potential coalition partners.
Already both decisions drew sharp condemnation from both the religious parties and the Likud as well (to support their coalition partners). Bezalel Smotrich, an ultra-right wing fascist who never seems to be able to control his mouth, called the decisions “a trampling on the holiness of the Sabbath”, “serious damage to the Jewish character of Israel”, while calling Michaeli a failed Minister and vowing to revoke the orders as soon as elections are over and they will join the government. Smotrich further promised that he will do anything he can to prevent Israel to become a State of all its citizens led by the progressive left and terrorist supporters (a reference to an Arab party in the current government).
For Smotrich, as well as leaders of other religious parties such as Shas, their worldview is more important then what the majority of the public wants. A convincing majority has many times shown in public opinion polls that they want public transportation and even modern religious people are of the opinion that Public Transportation is necessary in modern Israel.
If the Jewish Character of Israel is dependent on coercion than maybe we would be better off without this “Jewish Character” and we could definitely do without the so-called proponents of the Jewish Character, who are no more than fascists and racists.
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