A Personal Diary: "Car license plates"

Occupation Diary
(15 November 1995)
Car license plates

Licence plates for Israelis

The standard licence plate for cars registered inside Israel is yellow. This includes everyone with an Israeli ID card, i.e. Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. This licence plate does not show which area the owner of the car lives in. "Of course!" you may say, "why would it?" The answer to that is found below...

Licence plates for Palestinians

The photo on the right shows a licence plate for a Palestinian resident in the town of Ramallah. The symbol surrounded by a white rectangle on the left, that looks like an upside down "L", is the Hebrew letter "Reysh" or "R" for Ramallah. This enables Israeli soldiers at checkpoints to be able to tell the origin of the car at a glance from 50 yards away, and if the car should be in the area they are currently checking.

The next photo on the right shows a licence plate for a Palestinian living in the area around the town of Ramallah. The difference is the "R" is bordered by an orange rectangle. Again, this allows Israeli soldiers to control the access of cars and their occupants to and from different areas. Similarly, there are different Hebrew letters for Nablus, Bethlehem, Hebron, etc. Gaza cars have a completely different colour plate - white - perhaps a reflection of the view of Gaza as an even more threatening region.

NB: For a more recent diary entry on the post-redeployment change of licence plates by the Palestinian Authority, check out Palestinian Police prepare their new cars.

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