 If you've spent any time in Israel's capital city of Jerusalem, then you might have noticed that there's not just one bus company, there are actually four. In July of 2022, Superbus began running bus lines in Jerusalem. Thereby breaking the monopoly on bus services in the city that Israel's national bus operator Egid enjoyed until that point. However, up until then, Egid and its famous green and white buses was pretty much the only way to get around West Jerusalem by bus. Of course, as I've discussed in other videos, Jerusalem is a very peculiar city. Although these days there is no international border or armistice line dividing the city between countries as there once was, West and East Jerusalem remain very different places with different populations and national identities. To simplify things but only a little bit, East Jerusalem is the part of the city that lies to the east of the green line. The green line is also known as the 1949 armistice agreement. Many countries regard Israel's decision to extend the city boundary east of the green line after the Six Day War as illegal and unjust. However, the situation on the ground pretty much since then has remained that the city is united without any border or other obstacle running through it. The third and fourth bus companies that operate in Jerusalem are water popularly referred to here as the Arab bus companies. These are self-administered Palestinian bus companies that operate out of two bus stations located very close to one another and just outside the Damascus Gate. There are blue and white buses. These provide connectivity between one of these central bus stations and Palestinian destinations in the southern part of East Jerusalem, such as the crossing with Bethlehem and Beit Zafafa. And there are also green and white buses. These provide connectivity between the other central bus station and Palestinian parts of the city located in the northern part of East Jerusalem. Examples of these neighborhoods would be Beit Hanina and Ramallah, which is actually an entirely separate city. Israel is frequently charged with apartheid. In my opinion, the charge is almost entirely unjust. At first glance, the fact that there are two separate bus systems running in one city, one for Arabs and the other for Jews doesn't look that great. It's important to remember however that there's no actual segregation like that choice of words may suggest. Arabs can commonly be seen riding on Israeli-egged buses in West Jerusalem and there's nothing actually stopping Jews from using Arab buses in East Jerusalem, although for other reasons very few choose to do so. The two bus neighborhoods exist rather for practical reasons. Jews want to take buses to Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Arabs, specifically East Jerusalem Palestinians, want to take buses to places where they live, which are mostly Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. Relatively few on either side of the invisibly divided city want to visit the other place except maybe for work or to do some shopping. The origin of the so-called Arab buses actually traced their origin to the 19 year period between 1948 and 1967 when Jerusalem was divided by an armistice line and Jordan was in control of the east of the city or trans-Jordan that was then known. As I explained in my last video, during this time, Jerusalem functioned kind of like how Nicosia in Cyprus does today. A border ran through the city and for all intents and purposes it was basically like changing country. Ordinary Israelis and Jordanians were not able to cross between the two sides of the city. During this time period, what is today's Arab bus system in East Jerusalem effectively got going, providing informal transport connections between destinations on the Jordanian side of the city. Originally this bus network was pretty informal that was organized and controlled by a few Palestinian companies. Because it was effectively located in a different country however, Israel exerted essentially no control over the network. The situation continued like this even after the city was reunified in 1967. During the 1990s however, the system kind of began to implode upon itself. Different bus operators began fighting with one another over who could operate different routes and traffic in general throughout the city was congested. Some things in Jerusalem never changed. Seeing that the system of chaos benefited neither East Jerusalem Palestinians nor Jewish Israelis living in the west of the city, Israel decided to take control over these bus companies, forcing them to be regulated by the Ministry of Transport just like any other bus company in the country. Oddly enough, this has actually sort of been a resounding success. I travel somewhat regularly on East Jerusalem buses and they're comparable in quality to the agate buses operating in the west of the city and actually sometimes they're nicer. One advantage of these bus lines for non-Jewish residents of the city is that because the buses are intended for non-Jews they continue running even during the Shabbat and Jewish holidays when the ordinary agate buses in West Jerusalem don't operate. Today, the city of Jerusalem, home to only about 1 million people, actually has three different central bus stations. There is the well-known bus station for agate and super bus buses located on Yaffo Street and there is the two open-air bus stations for the Arab buses located near Damascus Gate. As I explained, one serving destinations to the north, the green and white buses and the other one serving destinations to the south, the blue and white buses. The two networks run in parallel but in some respects are interconnected. For one, the two bus networks often share the same bus stops and popular transport apps like Move It in Google Maps will show travel options using both networks. That's just about all there is to say on the matter information for this piece with source from Bloomberg and the Jerusalem Post. I hope that this video has been informative and perhaps even entertaining if you'd like to receive more videos about everything to do with life in Israel and other topics, do consider liking and subscribing.