Taxi drivers run the gauntlet in Jerusalem

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Hostility from some sections of the Jewish population in Jerusalem towards Palestinians is nothing new.

It is most evident in the ultra-Orthodox areas, where the bearded men are clad in black coats and hats and the women wear long skirts and headscarves.

Local media recently broadcast surveillance footage of dozens of teenage Jews ganging up on two Palestinians in the settlement of Pisgat Zeev in the east of the city which was captured by Israel in the 1967 war and then annexed.

Taxi driver Ezzedine Nassar will never forget the night last October he was hailed by three young ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem. They knew he was a Palestinian as soon as he opened his mouth.

They smashed his face in with a rock.

"They were...