Bill calls on taxi drivers to do security checks on Palestinians

MK Regev: Cab drivers should not be required to make up for failings of security services.

By BEN HARTMAN
Miri Regev 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Knesset)
Miri Regev 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Knesset)
The Knesset Interior Committee held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss a bill that would require taxi drivers in areas near the Green Line to ensure that Palestinians entering Israel have legal permits.
Committee head MK Miri Regev called the bill problematic, saying that cab drivers “should not be required to make up for the failings of the security services.”
The bill would require drivers to check whether Palestinian workers crossing the Green Line have permits.
Additionally, if workers were found to have entered without permits, their drivers would be required to prove to police that they were unaware. The bill would not require drivers working for public transportation companies to check Palestinian workers, only drivers of the private transit vans that are popular in the Seam Zone outside the Green Line as they are across Israel.
Avraham Fried, head of an umbrella group representing cab drivers, offered that the law be changed to apply only to drivers who have seen the workers enter Israel.
Israel Police and the security services have stepped up their efforts against Palestinians illegally residing in Israel in recent months, following a number of terror attacks within Israel over the past year.