ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relatively uncharted case of the Palestinian Freedom Riders in the West Bank. It sheds light on the references made to the U.S. Freedom Riders, but unlike their case the Palestinian activists were not just seeking desegregation of settler buses. While criticizing the two-tier transportation system and the “checkpoint regime” of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the activists also staged the action to point to the manifold hardships of Israeli occupation in general. In this context, the Freedom Riders’ strategic use of traditional and social media, on the one hand, pointed to the limitations in covering their action and serving as a shield of protection. On the other hand, it allowed them to reach out to an international community and to generate an “affective public.” Digital media helped in forging creative links of transnational solidarity between white, Black, and Palestinian protesters, in which the freedom to move was only one pressing issue.
