Investigative Mission - Mafhoum · - Mr. Shawki Khatib, Mayor of Yaffia (Nazareth) ... - Mme Yael Dayan, MP in the Knesseth, ... The aim of the investigative mission must be clearly

Investigative Mission

International Federation for Human Rights

Report

Foreigners within :TThhee ssttaattuuss ooff tthhee PPaalleessttiinniiaann mmiinnoorriittyy iinn IIssrraaeell

n° 310/2July 2001

Introductionp.3

Chapter I. The Contextp.7

Chapter II. The Status of the Arab Minority in Israelp.12

Chapter III. A Minority within the minority : thequestion of the Bedouins

p.23

Chapter IV. Conclusions and recommendationsp.28

the status of Israeli Arab citizens

Claude Katz,Secretary General of the F.I.D.H.

Olivier De Schutter,Secretary General of the Human Rights League(French-speaking Belgium)

FIDH - P A G E 3

Presentation of the mission

The F.I.D.H. has appointed Claude Katz, Secretary General ofthe F.I.D.H., and Olivier De Schutter, Secretary General of theHuman Rights League (French-speaking Belgium), to amission to investigate the status of Israeli Arab citizens.

The mission took place in two parts. The first took place from21st to 24th December 2000 in Israel. It was especiallyconcerned with meetings held in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Nazarethand Uhm al Fahm. The second part took place from 16th to20th March 2001. This part of the mission took placesubsequent to the election of Israel's Prime Minister on 6thFebruary 2001 which led to the election of Mr. A. Sharon andto the appointment of a national unity government. In fact theIsraeli political situation previous to these elections inaddition to the tight timetable in the first half of the missionhave made it difficult to meet with Israeli politicians. It istherefore important that the FIDH mission reaches a totallyopposing view of the situation under investigation. Thesecond half of the mission furthermore allowed deeperinvestigation into the fate of the Bedouin minority in Israelwhich meant that several areas around Neguev were visited,especially Rahat, Laquiyya, Omer and Terabin.

The mission was mainly facilitated by the preparation carriedout by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) an FIDHmember organisation in Israel. Particularly worthy of thanksfor this are Vered Lidve and Risa Zoll. The part of the missionconcerned with the fate of the Bedouin minority (chapter IIIof the report) was made possible thanks to the aid ofHenriette Dahan (Betselem, FIDH member organisation), towhom the members of the mission would like to giveparticular thanks.

List of People with whom the Mission met

In addition to ACRI heads, the organisations and people metare the following:

- Mr. Azmeh Bishara, Balad party MP (National DemocraticAssembly - 2 MPs in the Knesseth) ;- Mrs. Mariam Mari Ryan, former lecturer at the University ofHaifa and director of the Acre Arab Women Association, which

was founded in 1975 and aims to promote increasing the roleof Arab women in Israel ;- Mr. Michel Warschawski, Mr. Jeff Halper and Mr. SergioYahni, from the Alternative Information Centre ;- Mrs Hedva Radovanitz and Mrs. Hadas Ziv, from Physiciansfor Human Rights ;- Mr. Shalom (Shuli) Dichter, co-director of the Sikkuyassociation - The Association for the Advancement of CivicEquality ;- Mr. Sammy Smooha, Lecturer in Sociology at the Universityof Haifa ;- Mrs Rina Rosenberg (Development Director) and Mrs.Gadeer Nicola (staff attorney), from the Adalah association(Justice) - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel ;- Mr. Ameer Makhoul, Director of Ittijah - Union of ArabCommunity Based Associations (coalition of 44 NGOs ofIsraeli Arabs) ;- Mr. Mahmoud Yazbak, Lecturer in Middle East History at theUniversity of Haifa and President of the Committee of Familiesof Martyrs (Nazareth), set up following the events in October2000, accommodated by the Ahali-Center for CommunityDevelopment, along with Mr. Hussam Abu Baker, Co-ordinatorof the Committee ;- Mr. Jafar Farah, President of the Mossawa association(Egalité) ; - The Advocacy Center for Palestinian Equality in Israel ;- Mr. Shawki Khatib, Mayor of Yaffia (Nazareth) and Presidentof the Local Committee of Elected Mayors (informal groupencompassing the elected Mayors in Israel's Arab towns) ;- Mrs Dana Alexander, legal adviser for the ACRI (Beersheva) ;- Mrs Amal Elsana Alh'jooj, Director of the Arab-Jewish Centerfor Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation (AJEEC) ;- Mr. Abel Al-Attaikh, Campaigns Manager for the BedouinCampaign for Equal Rights and Education and SocialServices ;- Mrs Henriette Dahan, from the Betselem organisation ;- Mr. Isaac (Yanni) Nevo, Lecturer in Philosophy at the BenGourion University ;- Mrs Shulamit Aloni, former President of the Meretz Party,former Minister for Education and Culture ;- Mr. Benny Shiloh, Specialist in Arab issues in the LabourParty, former adviser to the Minister's Committee on Arabaffairs ;

Foreigners within :The status of the Palestinian minority in Israel

Introduction

FIDH - P A G E 4

- M. David Azoulay, MP in the Knesseth, elected on the Shassparty list ;- Mme Tamar Goshansky, MP in the Knesseth, elected on theHadash party list ;- Mme Yael Dayan, MP in the Knesseth, elected on the 'OneIsraël' party list ;- M. Yehudit Naot, MP in the Knesseth, elected on the Shinuiparty list ;- Furthermore, one of the members of the mission was able tomeet with Mr. Elie Barnavi, Israeli Ambassador to France inParis on 9th May 2001.

Mandate

The aim of the investigative mission must be clearlyspecified. The mission looked at solely the status of IsraeliArabs, that is non-Jewish Israeli citizens residing in Israelduring the creation of this State in May 1948, or theirdescendants. Palestinians in Israel represent approximately18% of the overall Israeli population, made up mainly ofMuslims (76%), Christians (15%), and the Druze (9%).Despite enjoying Israeli citizenship and being therefore giventhe right to vote and the main political liberties, Palestiniansin Israel undergo some discrimination that has been noted bythe FIDH mission. This discrimination is a result of theexistence of certain laws favouring citizens of Jewishnationality*, either indirectly or directly, or, as is often thecase, as a result of the way in which public policies areimplemented.

As the mission's report will attempt to show, thisdiscrimination is linked to the very definition of the State ofIsrael, according to Zionist project policy, as a Jewish State.Furthermore, it is only possible to fully realise this by placingthis issue within the more general framework of Israeli -Palestinian conflict, and more specifically today, that of thePalestinian demands for auto-determination. However, theinvestigative mission has made the deliberate choice toadopt a restrained framework for analysis. The missionneeded to understand the status of the Arab minority in theState of Israel. It was not to make any decision on thelegitimacy of the Zionist project as such, nor was it to foreseea possible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whichthe FIDH mission had neither the mandate nor thecompetence for.. However, the concern about taking such arestrained approach stems from the beliefs of those takingpart in the mission that there are realistic possibilities ofimproving the status of the Arab minority in Israel within thevery limits of the parameters which make up the currentcontext - on one hand, that of a State defined as a national

home for Jews the world over, and on the other hand, that ofa conflict which has now lasted for more than threegenerations. The mission's report attempts to explore thesepossibilities from reports made on the scene. It takes intoaccount the context in which the issue of the Arab minority inIsrael is situated, without proposing to call into question thiscontext. Not to necessarily endorse it even by inevitability,but simply in the hope that the recommendations made bythe report, as stated in the rulings of international law onHuman rights that Israel has committed to respecting, mayappear to those they address as directed by a concern forpragmatism.

State of ratification of international Human rightsprotection instruments

Israel is party to the following international conventions :

- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified 3October 1991).

Israel is not party to the Optional Protocol to the InternationalCovenant which allows individual to submit individual casesthe Human Rights Committee in charge of supervising theapplication of the Covenant by the States Parties.

Neither is it party to the Second Optional Protocol to theInternational Covenant aiming at the abolition of the deathpenalty.

- International Covenant on Economic, Social and CulturalRights (ratified 3rd October 1991).

- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman orDegrading Treatment or Punishment (ratified 3rd October1991).

Israel has not accepted the Committee against Torture'scompetence under article 22 which allows individuals tosubmit cases of violation of the Convention to theCommittee. Neither has it recognised its competence underarticle 20 which allows the Committee against Torture tocarry out on the scene investigations of the basis of tortureallegations.

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofRacial Discrimination (ratified 3rd January 1979).

Israel has not accepted the competence of the Committee onthe Elimination of Racial Discrimination under article 14 of


FIDH - P A G E 5

the Convention which allows individuals to submit cases ofviolation of the Convention to the Committee.

- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminationagainst Women (ratified 3rd October 1991).

Israel has not ratified the Optional Protocol to this Conventionwhich allows individuals to submit cases of violation of theConvention to the Committee.

- Convention on the Rights of the Child (ratified 3rd October1991).


* The terms "citizenship" and "nationality" are used here as they are used in Israel.

Amongst the citizens of the State of Israel, there are five nationalities (leum) :

Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and Chrkes, the latter being less significant in

terms of numbers.

FIDH - P A G E 7

A. History of the Arab population in Israel

On the 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of theUnited Nations adopted a Partition Plan foreseeing thecreation of two States, one Jewish and the other Arab.Jerusalem would be given a special status outside thesovereignty of each of the two States. The Jewish authoritiesaccepted this but the Arab States refused considering it veryunfair as one third of the population would be granted 60% ofthe territory. The day after the declaration of the State ofIsrael on the 14th May 1948, Israel is invaded by militarytroops from Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan and Egypt. This firstwar comes to an end with the successive Armisticeagreements signed under the aegis of the UN in 1949 withLebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. In accordance with theseagreements, at that time the Israeli territory extended over20 000 km², almost four fifths of former Palestine underBritish mandatory rule.

However, no more than approximately 130 000 Arabs remainwithin Israeli borders against 850 000 previously. Recenthistoric studies and especially those today, carried out bythose we would call "new Israeli historians" such as BennyMoris, Tom Segev or Ilan Pappe, have shown that theirdeparture was largely caused by the attitude of the Israeli armyacting with impunity (expulsions, harassment, massacrescounted by Benny Moris to number 80 between 1947 and theend of 1948, especially that of Deir Yacine for terrorising thepopulation and inciting them to leave their land, etc…).

Today, Arabs living in Israel make up a population of around 1050 000, a little less than 19% of the population of the Stateof Israel generally estimated at 6 100 000. The Arabpopulation is mainly spread out over three areas: Galilee in theNorth, the little triangle in the centre and in Neguev.Approximately 100 000 people live in mixed towns (Haïfa,Jaffa, Acre, Lod, Ramallah), half a million in rural towns, ofwhich 135 000 are Bedouins living in Neguev and Galilee, andthe rest of this population live in villages which have nowbecome towns such as Tamra, Sakhanine, Taybe. Nazareth isthe only remaining Arab town after 1948. Within this Arabpopulation, the Druze number approximately 100 000, theChristians 150 000 and the Sunni Muslims are in the majorityof 800 000.

The examination of the status and the situation of IsraeliArabs in Israel involves an analysis of the characteristics ofthe Israeli State. The problem is that of the status given toArab citizens of various religious beliefs (Druze, Muslim,Christian) within a State which defines itself as fundamentallyJewish and democratic.

B. Foundations of the State of Israel

a) Legal organisation in terms of fundamental liberties

The State of Israel has never had a written constitutionprotecting fundamental liberties. A decision was madetowards this in 1948 instituting an elected ConstituentAssembly but it was never to draw up a written constitution. Inthe place of this written constitution are Basic Laws enactedby the Knesseth, the Israeli Parliament. Therefore theConstitutional framework of the State of Israel is based on thefollowing texts:- Declaration of Independence (1948)- Law of return (1950),- Law on Nationality (1952),- Law on the Israeli Parliament (1958),- Law on ownership of Land (Israel Lands) (1960),- Law on the President of the Israeli State (1964),- Law on Government (1968 revised in 1992),- Law on the State Economy (1975),- Law on the Army (1976),- Law on Jerusalem, Capital of Israel (1980),- Law on the Judicature (1984),- Law on the State Comptroller (1988),- Law on the Freedom of Occupation (1992 revised in 1994),- Law on Human Dignity and Liberty (1992).

Three other Bills are also being considered: the first on theguarantee of rights, the second on social rights and the thirdon freedom of expression and association.

All of these basic laws form the constitutional framework ofthe State of Israel.

The highest legal authority, the Supreme Court, plays anessential role in legal and constitutional issues. If previous to1995, the area of the Supreme Court's control was limited to


Chapter I. The Context

FIDH - P A G E 8

an examination of the laws voted in by the Knesseth for theirconformance with the limitative clauses of the basic laws,since 1995 this control has become real constitutionalcontrol over the legislative texts voted by the Knesseth inrelation to the basic laws whose superiority over ordinary lawsis openly affirmed.

With regard to protection of Rights and Liberties, the Basiclaw of 1992 entitled "Law on Human Dignity and Liberty" isconsidered essential as it outlines a Declaration of HumanRights. This concerns the protection of a person's life, theirbody or their dignity. It states that everybody is free to leaveIsrael and that all Israeli citizens outside are able to enter. Itprotects property, personal freedom, private life andconfidentiality. It explicitly sets out that Human Rights mustbe interpreted "in the spirit of the principles contained in theDeclaration of Independence of the State of Israel" and thatits aim is to institute "the values of the State of Israel as aJewish and democratic State". It therefore associates twocontradictory principles but without real content and is asource of dispute since what is there here about theenactment by the Parliament (Knesseth), fundamental power,of a non-democratic religious law or contrary to a democraticlaw against the Jewish nature of the State? Furthermore, theFIDH mission highlights the shortcoming of this basic law of1992 which contains no clause on equality and does notguarantee Israeli Arab citizens protection againstdiscrimination. Recent jurisprudential developments(especially the Katzir judgment to be considered later) tendtowards this principle of equality but this is however statednowhere formally. This absence of formal and explicitguarantee of the principle of equality is, according to themission, a shortcoming which the State of Israel must quicklyresolve.

b) Israel: Jewish and Democratic State, de factocontradictions and contradictions of principle

It is necessary to point out here that the Zionist doctrineestablished by Theodor Herzl proposed the creation of a Statehome to a homogenous Jewish population. This element isobviously not without consequence on the situation of the Arabpopulation in Israel which, as discussed earlier (History), the"departure" of the majority of the Arab population from Israel in1948 was included in this doctrine and the arising problem isnow more relevant than ever before: the colonisation of theWest Bank and Gaza, apart from the expulsion of the Arabpopulation, is this not contradicting the original Zionist project?Furthermore, the demographic growth of the Israeli Arabpopulation is a source of constant concern for the state

authorities with regard to the concern for homogeneity of theJewish people within the Hebrew State. In fact we can see ahigh birth rate especially amongst religious Jews for reasons ofbelief, however massive immigration (one million people) fromformer Soviet Union countries1, together with a large influx ofimmigrant workers2, not only quashes the doctrine of Jewishhomogeneity of the Israeli people but openly exposes the issueof a Jewish minority in Israel.The idea of a Jewish State as aresult of the Zionist project materialised in the creation of theState of Israel in 1948. Strengthened by a secular movement,the Zionist movement dormant for centuries, the notion of aJewish State nevertheless strengthened by religious feelingdemanding that Israel have institutions in accordance with theTorah, meaning in reality in accordance with the Halachah(Jewish religious law).

In theory, the secularity of the Jewish State in principle ishighlighted by the Declaration of Independence stating that:"The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice andpeace in accordance with the ideal of the prophets of Israel:it will ensure the most complete social and political equalityfor all its inhabitants regardless of religion, race or sex; it willguarantee freedom to worship, of conscience, language,education and culture; it will ensure the protection of the holyplaces of all religions."

This statement of principle is strengthened by the positionheld by the Parliament in Israeli constitutional institutions,which as the Supreme Court has reiterated on severaloccasions, it is not religion but rather the law which governscitizens' lives and it is the Parliament which enacts laws.

However, Israel's lack of Constitution or Charter ofFundamental rights protecting civil and political rights hasnegative effects on the legal situation of Arabs in Israel. Ofcourse, Basic Laws like mentioned above have been voted in,but their antinomian nature has been noted and above all theIsraeli Parliament remains the sovereign legislative body.

It is precisely because of the Parliament's power that religiousChiefs made a quick choice, so as to influence the State'sevolution, to get organised into political parties constitutingan inescapable parliamentary power as linked to the systemof proportional representation without majority parties andthe need for alliances. This religious power today has 22 MPs,in total representing 18% of parliamentary votes.

Furthermore and contrary to the principle of democracy,despite the Declaration of Independence stating that allreligions are free to establish their respective means of


FIDH - P A G E 9

worship, all citizens do not enjoy freedom of religiousconscience. In fact, in Israel the Jewish citizens of Israel arebound to subjection to the Jewish religion, the State religion,imposed by religious law and jurisdiction. This confusionbetween the secular and the religious is all the more sobecause of the double membership of the status of everyindividual in Israel: citizen status and personal status. Inaccordance with the law, each Israeli belongs to a religiouscommunity and all issues purporting to personal status suchas marriage and divorce are determined according to thelaw specific to his/her personal status. So, the very idea ofpersonal status, that is a quality specific to the individual inaddition to hisstatus as a citizen, is in opposition to the ideaof equality of these citizens treated according to their birth.

With regard to the ambiguity of the very foundations of theIsraeli State, it is not surprising that conflict between Stateand organised religion permanently characterises social andpolitical life in Israel and this carries consequences whichseriously infringe the founding principles of any democracywith regard to discrimination against citizens. Therefore the1950 Law of Return, promulgation of one of the mostfundamental ideals of Zionism grants all Jews the right toemigrate to Israel and the 1952 Law on Nationalityguarantees nationality to all those who immigrate to Israelshowing the pre-eminence of the right to nationality based onparentage over place of birth even if naturalisation ispossible. One of the consequences of the 1950 and 1952 laws is theexistence of a register of the population which states whethercitizens are Jewish or not, this is once again a cause forcontroversy amongst the political and religious authorities.Each resident in the country is subscribed under 3 specificsections: one concerning citizenship, one concerning religiousbeliefs, the third concerning so-called "national" (Le'om)belonging in the sense of ethnic origin. On each Israeli'sidentity card is their nationality in terms of their ethnicity:Jewish, Arab, Druze or Circassian. Sometimes, if they cannotbe classified into one of these categories, an Israeli citizen'sidentity card would remain blank here.

This discriminatory practice is sometimes condemned. TheSupreme Court suggested that the legislator revise the law sothat the Le'om no longer appears on identity cards. Thelegislator has until now refused.

What is the meaning of a modern, liberal and democraticState with a national religion where belonging to this nationalreligion (nationality) is criterion allowing the right tocitizenship to be claimed? Of course, the FIDH mission has

noted the progressive and contradictory nature of certainclauses of the law and of Israeli jurisprudence in terms ofpersonal status noticing, for example, the existence ofmarriage contracts before a notary, or the recognition by theHigh Court of Justice of the right for a homosexual cohabitantto inherit from his/her deceased cohabitant. However, only acomplete separation of religion and State and for example theinstitution of civil marriage and divorce, as this does not existin legislation except on a patrimonial level, would allow thefull meaning of "democracy" to be restored.

So the issue of the Arab minority is asked within a society incrisis which was not only unable to define a national identitycrucible but especially one which is faced with thedisintegration of its identity and its cohesion characterised bythe multiplicity of community political parties3. whose onlyreal basis for cohesion until now seems to be the externalArab threat. Within such a society where they are consideredas "enemies on the inside" by part of the Jewish population,what can be the place of Arab citizens?

C. The Events of October 2000

Following a visit by Ariel Sharon on 28th September 2000 onTemple Mount - The Esplanade of Mosques for Muslims -, andthe brutal repression by the Israeli Army against Palestiniandemonstrators denouncing this visit as an act of provocation,on the 30th September the Follow up Committee for IsraeliArab citizens called for a general strike in all Arab towns on1st October 2000, coinciding with the Jewish New Year andfor demonstrations "to denounce the massacre" ofPalestinians. The usual spiral of violence accompanied thesedemonstrations: stones thrown by demonstrators at policeand Israeli border police and their response by firing rubberbullets (in theory) and tear gas. The history of confrontationsbetween demonstrators and Israeli police is as follows:

Period from 1st to 6th October 2000

Um El-Fahem: Following a demonstration on 1st October2000, the confrontations continue until 6pm; resulting in 3deaths and 30 injured, one of whom being the Mayor of UmEl-Fahem, Sheikh Ra'ed Sallah.

Arabeh (town in Galilee): On the 2nd October, a demonstrationdegenerates into confrontations with the police. 2adolescents are killed and many are injured.

Sakhnin: On the 2nd October, 2 demonstrators aged 23 and24 are killed after a demonstration protesting against the


FIDH - P A G E 1 0

confiscation of land on which Israeli military camps had beenbuilt.

Nazareth: On 2nd October, quelled demonstration, 20 injuredand a 21 year old killed.

Jatt: Confrontations between police and demonstratorscausing the death of a 21 year old.

Kofer Kanna: On the 2nd October, demonstration quelleddespite calls from heads of the Arab community for police tostay away from the procession: a young 19 year old man,taken to the hospital dies from his injuries.

Kofer Manda: 7 injured and a 24 year old dies following ademonstration.

Majd El-Krum: Large demonstration during which 10 peopleare injured.

Dir el-Assad: Several demonstrators injured.

Me'eliya :The police were kept away from the demonstration,it went smoothly and dispersed peacefully.

Taibeh & Tirrah: Confrontations between police anddemonstrators; 2 injured and several arrests.

Yaffa-Tel Aviv: The police prevent the demonstration fromtaking place, 7 people are injured.

Rahat (Negev): Police in helicopters use tear gas to dispersea large demonstration.

Tamrah: 20 demonstrators are injured.

Shefa'amer: A demonstration is organised on the main roadlinking Shefa'amer and Nazareth but the police do notintervene and the demonstration disperses peacefully.

Haifa: 6 demonstrators injured.

On the 7th October 2000 in Taibiria, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Hillel lafehand Hadera, mosques are attacked by Israeli Jewishextremists at the origin of the confrontations.

8th October 2000, day of Yom Kippur: In the morningapproximately 300 young Jews from Nazareth Elite, a newJewish town overhanging the Israeli Arab town of Nazareth,throw stones at houses and cars shouting: "Death to the

Arabs", who retaliate. The Israeli Jews withdraw. The police,who had refused to intervene to protect the threatened Arabpeople, following provocation from the Israeli Jews, finally dointervene between the communities but repress the IsraeliArab demonstrators during the day and part of the night until2am. Result: 2 deaths and about 20 injured Israeli Arabs.

9th October - 15th October 2000: In Kirayot, Haifa, Tamra,Hadera: Confrontations between Jewish and Arabcommunities.

In total 13 people have died, 700 have been injured and1000 have been arrested.

The analysis of the events in October 2000 seriouslyquestions the responsibility of the Israeli authorities first of allwith regard to the police. The brutality of the repressioncausing the deaths of 13 Israeli Arabs and approximately 700of them injured shows excessive use of force: in addition toprovocative and discriminatory behaviour, the police forcesresort to using live rounds of bullets. In fact, it has beenmentioned that in several towns when the police did notintervene, demonstrations took place and dispersed calmly.Furthermore and in particular in Nazareth on 8th October2000, one could question the strange passivity of the policeforces during violence by Jewish extremists towards the Arabpopulation and the unilateral repression of the Arabs by thepolice on this same day.

On a medical level and according to the "Physicians forHuman Rights" organisation with whom the mission met, therule of medical protection and secrecy has been violated, thelocal Israeli police forces hospital management to divulge theidentities of injured Arab citizens hospitalised followingdemonstrations. The consequence of this was that many ofthose injured did not go to hospital for fear of arrest andrepercussions afterwards. Some hospital chiefs questionedby the "Physicians for Human Rights" organisation and byACRI have admitted that they divulged the list of those injuredand hospitalised to the police but "by mistake" (eg Rambamhospital in Haifa) or, they refused to answer questions fromthe NGOs (Nahariya Hospital, Hamecq Hospital in Afula).

Furthermore and still according to the "Physicians for HumanRights" organisation, the police prevented the nationalambulance service (Magen David Adom. MDA) from accessingIsraeli Arab towns, on the pretext of being unable to guaranteetheir protection. Ambulances were delayed, diverted and evenbrutally immobilised by Israeli police preventing them fromtransporting the injured to nearby hospitals. Arab towns in


FIDH - P A G E 1 1

Israel have neither hospitals (apart from the town ofNazareth) nor ambulance services. Therefore during theevents of October 2000, MDA did not answer calls forassistance in Arab towns. Furthermore, when private clinics inArab towns requested the service of private ambulances, thiswas refused because Israeli forces would not allow thesevehicles to enter the towns. Therefore these private clinicshad to use private vehicles to transport the most seriouslyinjured to outside hospitals. Some local private clinics wereforced to treat seriously injured people without adequatemedical equipment.

Private clinics and private ambulances gave assistance in thefollowing towns: Um El-Fahem, Nazareth, Arabeh, Sakhnin,Tamra, Shefa'amer, Jadyadee-Meker.

The responsibility of the Israeli authorities in the events ofOctober 2000 has clearly been brought into question by Mrs.Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner forHuman Rights' report following her visit to Israel's occupiedterritory, Egypt and Jordan from the 8th to 16th November20004. The FIDH mission positively takes note of the Israeligovernment's decision to appoint an independentgovernmental investigative committee made up of 3members designated by the Supreme Court, whosecomposition guarantees impartiality, to investigate all theevents of October 2000 and awaits with interest hearing itsconclusions.

The mission also notes that all the Arabs they spoke to haveabsolutely condemned the repression by Israeli governmentalforces and believe they were treated not as Israeli citizens butas "enemies from within". These Arabs stated to the FIDHmission that they felt betrayed despite their continuously loyalbehaviour towards the State of Israel, as included in theirdemocratic rights and freedoms to demonstrate solidaritywith Palestinians living in occupied territory.

Footnotes :

1. Almost 40% of whom are not defined by religious authorities or are not defined

as Jewish.

2. Almost 8%, especially from countries in South East Asia and Central Europe.

3. Religious - Orthodox Shass party with 17 Oriental Jewish MPs and mainly

Moroccans, 2 Russian parties (10 MPs), a list for the Caucasus Communities, 3

religious and nationalist Arab lists (10 MPs).

4. High Commissioner's Report on her visit to Palestinian Occupied Territories, Israel,

Egypt and Jordan (8 - 16 November 2000) E/CN. 4/2001/114, 29 November 2000.


FIDH - P A G E 1 2

A. Access to the Political System5

Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Politicalrights states that without discrimination and unreasonablerestriction, everybody should be able to "take part in theconduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosenrepresentatives".

However, the Israeli political system excludes from electoralcompetition any grouping which may bring into question theJewish nature of the State of Israel, that is, contest that theState of Israel is the "Jewish State" (article 5 of the PoliticalParties Law; and article 7(a) of the Basic Law: Knesseth). Onseveral occasions Arab lists have been threatened with beingunable to present candidates for election because thecontent of their programme was suspected to lead tocontesting the State of Israel as the "Jewish State". Accordingto Supreme Court jurisprudence - fixed in 1988 in the BenShalom et al. V Central Elections Committee for the TwelfthKnesseth et al. case - if a political formation brings intoquestion either the demographic composition of the State ofIsrael as a State with a Jewish majority population, or thepreference given to Jews in the return to Israel, or even theexistence of privileged links between the State of Israel andthe Jewish Diaspora all over the world - these three elementsbeing the central elements of the definition of the Jewishnessof the State of Israel -, then this political formation may beexcluded from the election6. This jurisprudence, in particular,means that any discussion relating to the Law of Return isexcluded from political debate, as is also debate on the returnof the 1948 Palestinian refugees to Israel.

B. Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Rights of theArab Minority

According to article 27 of the International Covenant on Civiland Political rights, "In those States in which ethnic, religious orlinguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minoritiesshall not be denied the right, in community with the othermembers of their group, to enjoy their own cultural, to professand practise their own religion, or to use their own language".

Respecting this measure is particularly difficult in Israelbecause of the founding ideology of the State, Zionism, which

grants it the vocation of being the national home for Jews allover the world. The Jewish nature of the Israeli State, a naturewhich represents not only the sociological composition butalso, as stated earlier, because it is at the very foundation ofthe State, explains that on issues such as the calendar forholidays7, religion or language, the Arab minority struggle tohave their rights recognised. Judge Barak, who presides overthe Supreme Court wrote in this way: "The Jewish State is (…)the state of the Jewish people. It is a state in which every Jewhas the right of return. It is a state where its language isHebrew and most of its holidays represent its national re-birth. A Jewish State is a state which developed a Jewishculture, Jewish education, and a loving Jewish people. AJewish state derives its values from its religious heritage, theBible is that basis of its books and Israel's prophets are thebasis of its morality. A Jewish state is also a state where theJewish law fulfils a significant role (…) A Jewish state is a statein which the values of Israel, Torah, Jewish heritage, and thevalues of the Jewish Halachah are the basis of its values"8.

Religion

In terms of personal status, Israel has inherited the millettradition which during the Ottoman empire led it to give a fairlywide jurisdictional autonomy to different religiouscommunities. Therefore, the jurisdictions established in theRabbinic Courts Jurisdiction Law (Marriage and Divorce) 1953grant rabbinical courts exclusive competence in terms of themarriage and separation of Jews who are citizens of Israel orwho reside there. These jurisdictions apply Jewish law(halachah), which confines women to a wholly inferior role -not only can women not occupy a judicial function butfurthermore they cannot be heard as witnesses; the wife playsa purely passive role as much in marriage as in divorce (it isin fact the husband who "divorces" his wife and who maysometimes refuse to do so until forced to: this puts thehusband in a position to impose separation on own hisconditions).

More recently and because of this situation of women'svulnerability resulting in the exclusive competence of theRabbinical courts, civil jurisdictions have acquired a similarcompetence in the field of the personal status of Jews9.However this parallel jurisdiction does not exist to the


Chapter II. The Status of the Arab Minority in Israel

FIDH - P A G E 1 3

advantage of Arab, Muslim or Christian women who remainsubject to the exclusive competence of traditional religiousjurisdiction, with the resulting discrimination - not only withregard to men but at present, also with regard to Jewishwomen who by contrast, are to some extent given the choiceof judget. In 1998, proposed legislation was introduced by alarge number of the Knesseth's members with a view togranting Arab women the same choice as Jewish women10.The proposal meets with hostility from religious groups, justas much Jewish as Arab ones, who are represented inParliament. Those who the FIDH mission was able to questionon this are divided in opinion on the adoption of thislegislation.

Language

According to article 82 of the Palestine Order-in-Council 1922,legislation which is a legacy from British rule over Palestinebut which is still formally in effect Arabic is one of the officialState languages as well as English and Hebrew. However, inpractise it is the latter which is dominant: despite theapparent stipulation to the contrary in the 1922 ruling, lawsand decisions of justice are published officially only in Hebrewand it is only recently that some job vacancies in the publicsector or some tenders for public contracts have also beenpublished in Arabic. The priority of Hebrew is formallytranslated in the 1952 law relating to citizenship, article 5(b)of this law requiring of the candidate for Israeli citizenship abasic knowledge of Hebrew, but imposing no similarknowledge concerning Arabic.

Whilst jurisprudence protects the use of Arabic, it is in thename of guaranteeing freedom of expression rather than inthe name of the status of Arabic as an official languageaccording to the ruling in 192211. However, a development iscoming to light with regard to this. Recently, through issues ofroad signalling and signposts of street names the SupremeCourt of Israel was faced with the issue of equality of linguisticrights. In an appeal by Adalah against the Ministry ofTransport and Civil Works, the court ruled for the addition ofArabic on national road signs12.

Access to University Education

It is in the field of access to higher education and to certainprofessions that the dominance of Hebrew has the mostimpact. Although they represent a fifth of the State'spopulation, no Arab University exists in Israel13, and in theexisting universities, no lessons are given in Arabic. Therefore,obtaining a degree abroad is the only alternative for

Palestinian students in Israel, and hardly a satisfactory one,apart from the financial feassibility of this solution. In fact,access to some liberal professions in Israel is subordinate topassing exams which can only be sat in Hebrew. As for accessto Israeli universities, a student must pass an entrance examwhich not only measures competence by means ofpsychometric testing but also involves a sufficient knowledgeof Hebrew.

It is not only the linguistic obstacle and the inferior quality ofprimary and secondary education for children of the Arabminority in Israel which explain the gross under-representation of Arab students in Israeli universities inrelation to their demographic weight (6% of universitystudents are Arabs out of their total population which is threetimes greater); but furthermore, the cost of university studies(registration fees are fixed at about 4 000 USD per year) canbe an obstacle to going to university - this obstacle can onlybe overcome by Arab students obtaining student grants,which are subject to performance of military service (seebelow); finally the discrimination Israeli Arabs are subject toon the labour market including within qualified professions,can discourage those who would be prepared to invest inobtaining a university degree. Socio-economic discriminationin the primary and secondary education sectors and in accessto jobs, have a particularly visible effect on access touniversity education.

The representation of the Arab minority within the studentpopulation is steadily improving. The difficulties of accessexperienced by Arabs has led to the adoption of certainmeasures of encouragement, which sometimes result inpositive discrimination towards them. It must be stated that atthe moment it is not really the modalities of universityenrolment that are directly discriminatory against Arabstudents as such - although the linguistic requirements maystill be contested14. It is rather that the conditions for accessto university education reward qualities which are moredifficult to acquire for students in the Arab minority who sufferfrom a less beneficial atmosphere throughout their primaryand secondary studies. There are also the financialconditions, which can be overcome by grants,, but which Arabstudents do not have access to. It is therefore mainly inperipheral spheres to access to university as such - ineducation at lower levels and in granting social benefits - thatthe need for non-discrimination is evident: real equality ofaccess to university education will result from the struggleagainst discrimination in these other domains.


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C. Indirect discrimination

Even more worrying than open discrimination towards IsraeliArabs, which results from granting certain privileges to onlyJewish citizens of Israel, is the indirect discrimination thatthey must undergo, that is, the disadvantages which stemfrom the general structures of Israeli society. This indirectdiscrimination is in fact more difficult to identify because of itsvery nature: it is present mostly in practise rather than in therules; it can be attributed for the most part to the closeoverlapping between the State of Israel and the economicinstitutions, to the point that an observer noted that the Israelieconomy did not really correspond to the rules of the marketeconomy, the main decisions on an economic level beingtaken by governmental bodies - a characteristic which is ofcourse to the detriment of the Arab minority15.

The Lack of Funding for Arab Local Authorities

The fight against this discrimination, which is mainly situatedin the socio-economic field, requires more than simply makinglaws conform with the demand for equality: factualdifferences between the communities must be taken intoaccount by adopting certain programmes which aim to re-situate the Arab minority in the situation they would havebeen in if there had been no discrimination in the past16.Furthermore, the fight requires investment which could besignificant, as many of the disadvantages suffered by IsraeliArabs originate in the relatively little funds available to Arablocal authorities for basic services for their residents,especially in areas such as primary and secondary educationand basic health care.

This is the road that Prime Minister E. Barak's governmentchose to go down, albeit late, when they announced at theend of October 2000, a development programme worth 4billion ILS (455 million Euros) over 4 years. This is certainly aconsiderable amount, which we must put into perspectivehowever, taking three factors into account. Firstly, this amountonly compensates very partially for the structural inadequacyof investment in the development of Arab towns and thesuffering they consequently felt for many years. For example,in the budget for 2000, despite a budget of 13 billion ILSbeing allocated to town councils, only 500 million ILS wasgiven to Arab local authorities - approximately 4% of the total,for local governments providing basic social services to apopulation which, according to lowest estimations, represents12% of the overall population17. Secondly, the needs of Arablocal authorities were valued in 1999 at 14 billion ILS,following the discussion begun in 1997 between Prime

Minister Netanyahou's government and the NationalCommittee of Chairmen of Arab Local Authorities18. Finally,the implementation of this investment programme in thedevelopment of Arab local authorities still remains to be seen,despite being announced by the new government formed byMr. A. Sharon19. The findings of the FIDH mission shouldencourage progress in that direction.

All the facts show that it is the Arab local authorities whichhave the greatest needs in terms of development. Ten yearsago, a study showed that Arab municipalities received only2.3% of the total budget allocated to local governments20,whilst Arab towns represent 12% of Israel's overall population(see above for explanation of figure) ; per capita, the budgetfor Arab local authorities was then between 25 to 30% of theaverage budget per capita for Jewish local authorities; thebudget allocated to development is on average three timesgreater for Jewish local authorities than for Arab ones21. Thissituation has not greatly changed since. Therefore, (accordingto Sikkuy - The Association for the Advancement of CivicEquality, an Israeli association with Arab members but whichreceives large amounts of funding from the Jewishcommunity) whereas 78 Arab local authorities out of 82 facesocio-economic conditions termed as "very bad", only 29 outof the 183 Jewish ones do22. However, despite these facts,Arab local authorities have not been amongst the prioritydevelopment areas for which successive Israeli governmentshave granted their main investments. The Sikkuy associationnotes therefore that whilst the 18 communities with thehighest unemployment rate (between 11.5% and 27.5%) areArab communities, only one single Arab community (TelSheva) has been chosen as a priority development area in thegovernment's three year development plan, which targets 11communities for preferential treatment23.

This phenomenon is not new. Since the beginnings of the State,Israeli governmental development policies have in realityoperated systematic discrimination towards Arab localauthorities. Amongst the factors for discrimination is inparticular the fact that "certain Arab areas, moreunderdeveloped economically than others in Israel, areexcluded from the development zone"24. This phenomenonhad already been spectacularly brought to light by the reportdrafted in 1972 by an Arab Sociologist, Mr. Sami Jerisi,commissioned by the Israeli Ministry for the Interior to examinewhether Arab local authorities are treated differently and asvictims compared to Jewish ones: although the results of thisinvestigation were never officially publicised, the elementsdivulged within largely confirmed, and put figures on, thestructural discrimination suffered by the Arab people25.


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The lack of budgetary funding for Arab local authorities isincreased by the fact that part of their funds, concerning theoperational budget allowing provision of local services(education, social workers, help for those in need, publichygiene) are the product of local taxes amounting to obviouslyless as the socio-economic condition of the population is badand it is rare to find companies based there. Mayor ShawkiKhatib, who presides over the Yaffia local council, gave theFIDH mission examples of both Arab and Jewish areas ofNazareth, a town to which his local authority belonged:whereas in the Arab sector 88% of local taxes are paid byphysical persons residing there (and 12% by companies), inthe Jewish sector these figures are 30% (physical persons)and 70% (companies). These figures correspond with thoseprovided by Mr. Al-Haj and Mr. Rosenfeld in their 1990 studyof Israel's Arab municipalities, where they reject the Israeligovernment's argument that the low level of social andeconomic development in Arab municipalities is due to alower level of tax contributions made by the inhabitants inthese municipalities. Using a memorandum on the financialsituation of Arab municipalities presented to the Israeligovernment on 13 December 1985 by the NationalCommittee of Chairmen of Arab Local Authorities, theseauthors find that according to this Committee, "the argumentthat Arabs do not pay taxes is groundless. Property taxesmake up 18 percent of the budget in the Jewish municipalitiesand 15 percent in the Arab municipalities ; but in reality 12percent of municipal income is collected in this manner in theArab sector, compared with 11 percent in the Jewishsector"26. This does not therefore mean that residents in Arabmunicipalities pay less, that is, that they are in a situation ofgreater dependence on the State but rather that they haveless money, given the relatively low average socio-economicstatus of the people living there.

The fact that despite their great need, Arab municipalities havebeen systematically discriminated against in the formulation ofmunicipal development policies does not mean that thebackwardness in these municipalities is wholly due to thisdiscrimination. There are also reports of budget misuse on thepart of Arab municipalities, which some FIDH speakers wouldattribute to local politicians being tempted to favour familysolidarity over healthy management of public finances27.

It still remains that while discrimination is not the onlyexplanation for the backwardness of the Arab people, it is themain reason for it and for the difference in their socio-economic situation in relation to the Jewish majority. Onlyrecently has discriminatory implementation of publicdevelopment policies, to the detriment of Arab municipalities,

been punishable by justice, and highly significantly so, in thefield of education28. However, this recent tendency is yet to beconfirmed. We still lack sufficient distance from events toevaluate the consequences. However, what is needed, morethan the acknowledgement of a ban on discrimination, as thefacts of case judged by the Supreme Court in July 2000 show,is the implementation of "positive discrimination"programmes so as to compensate for underdevelopment inthe Arab community, especially in education and also indeveloping infrastructure and public health facilities, inrelation to the Jewish community.

Access to Employment within the civil service

The difficulties that the Arab minority faces when trying toaccess Israeli civil service are corroborated by these fewfigures. Arab citizens in Israel account for 18.6% of the globalpopulation. However, they constitute29:

- Within the administration of the Ministry of Environment:2.5% of the employees (10 out of a total 400)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Health, 6.3% ofthe employees (1.731 out of a total 27.330)- Within the administration of the Ministry for DomesticSecurity, 0.6% of the employees (1 out of a total 150)- Within the administration of the Ministry for Constructionand Housing, 1% of the employees (3 out of a total 300)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Education, 4.8%of the employees (118 out of a total 2700)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development, 4.2% of the employees (60 out of a total1410)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Science, Cultureand Sports, 4.3% of the employees (8 out of a total 185)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Justice, 1.7% ofthe employees (32 out of a total 1797) (within thejudiciary, 19out of 426 judges are IsraeliArab citizens, that is 4.5%)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Labour, 4.8% ofthe employees (170 out of a total 3525)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Religious Affairs,7% of the employees (42 out of a total 600 more or less)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Home Affairs,2.8% of the employees (41 out of a total 1500 more or less)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Transport, 0.9%of the employees (6 out of a total 640)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Tourism, 3.1% ofthe employees (5 out of a total 160)- Within the administration of the Ministry of Industry,Commerce and Trade, 0.76% of the employees (4 out of atotal 520)


FIDH - P A G E 1 6

- Within the administration of the Ministry of Communicationand Media, 0% of the employees (none out of a total 180)

These figures bear witness to the discrimination that IsraeliArab citizens suffer within the civil serviceeven more visibly ifwe take into consideration that nearly a third of the posts heldby Arabs within the civil service are in reality held due tospecific characteristics of the post (i.e. especially created forthe provision of services to the Arab communities within theDepartments of Finance, Religious Affairs, Education,Employment or Social Affairs). Furthermore, the situationwithin State-owned companies, numerous in Israel andimportant for the Israeli economy30, is not much better forArab citizens from the access to employment point of view.The National Electric Company, which employed in 1998,13.000 employees, only had six Arab employees within itspersonnel. According to the Company's board this wasbecause of the requirement for the applicant to produce asecurity certificate; these certificates are handed out withgreat parsimony to Arab citizens.

Recently (in December 2000) a law designed to ensure fairrepresentation of Arab citizens within State-ownedcompanies' Boards of Directors was passed31. Efforts havealso been made to employ more Arab citizens within the civilservice. These efforts consisting of a policy of outreaching,aiming for example at issuing in Arabic newspapers notices ofcompetitive entry examinations, should be increased.

Access to Employment within the Private Sector

Employment of Arab citizens, within the private sector, ischaracterised by de facto exclusion from a large number ofcompanies on the one hand (according to a study publishedin 1998 half of the industrial companies had no Arabemployees in their workforce32), and by strong segregationagainst Arabs, on the other. They are over-represented in thesecondary sector (holding precarious and less well paid jobs),at the lowest level of the professional hierarchy and indeclining sector companies. Professional segregationincreased from 1967 onwards, due to the arrival on the Israelilabour market of numerous workers from the OccupiedTerritories of The West Bank and Gaza, causing overallreductions in the Israeli Arab salaries33. To discrimination inemployment access, we must add discrimination in payment,partly caused by the professional segregation that Arabcitizens suffer, but also constitutive of a distinctdiscrimination. The average pay per hour of a Jewish womanis 28% higher than that of an Arab women, 47% of thisdifference cannot be explained by objective factors

underlining real inequalities in payments. The average pay perhour of a Jewish man is 33% higher than that of an Arab man,41% of this difference cannot be explained by objectivefactors34.

If lack of funding for Arab municipalities constitutes one of theexplanations for Arab citizens' low employment rates, makingit even more difficult for them to acquire skills welcomed byemployers35, the lasting presence of anti Arab racism isanother explanation. Opinion polls indicate that a third ofJewish youths declare themselves to be racist or to hateArabs; two thirds declare to be opposed to the granting ofequality of rights to the Arabs, and would support the banningof Arab representatives from the Knesseth36. Within theJewish population in general, in 1994, 60.1% of thepopulation confirmed being opposed to any legislationforbidding discrimination towards Arabs within theemployment and labour sector; and 68.2% of the Jewsdeclared that they would find it unacceptable to be placedunder the authority of an Arab at their workplace37.

The weakness of legal protection against thesediscriminations allow these attitudes to grow, in most casesunpunished. The decisions of the Supreme Court of Israelwith regard to equality only constitute a partial solution. Onthe one hand, these decisions only impose non-discriminationon State organisms and not on individuals (i.e. tenants andemployers). However, no law offers guarantees againstdiscrimination within the private sector, excludingemployment (due to the existing Equal EmploymentOpportunities law) and more recently, access to bodies opento the public38. On the other hand, as they don't manage toraise the value of equality to a constitutional level, thesedecisions impose respect for the non-discrimination rule onlyin case of lack of a text legalising difference in treatment.

With regard to recruitment in the private sector, among theessential causes of indirect discrimination Arabs suffer is thelargely used "National Service Completion" as employmentcriteria39. It is even used for jobs for which no suchrequirement is relevant. Moreover, to our knowledge,authorities within the Enforcement division of the Ministry ofLabour and Social Welfare in charge of monitoring the Law onEqual Opportunities, have never taken steps to forbid the useof this criterion. It is however clear that this criterion isgenerally only used to exclude Arabs, the requirement ofnational service serves to partly hide, and quite badly,discrimination based on national origins. This example is onlya sign amongst many others of the lack of effort thatenforcement officials from the Enforcement Division of the


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Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs give to the EqualEmployment Opportunities Law to render it efficient.

The Land Issue

Already a decisive issue in the British Mandate Palestinebefore the creation of the state of Israel, the distribution ofland in Israel has always depended on demographic andstrategic interests. Before 1948 the acquisition of land byJews was considered a preparation for the creation of anational Jewish homeland in Palestine40. After 1948, thisassimilation between the sovereignty of the State of Israeland the Zionist Institution's control over the distribution of theland continued. Not only did the policy that only the Jewishpopulation could use the land acquired by the Jews continue,but in addition, the creation of the State of Israel allowedthem to use another instrument, which of course had notbeen available to the Zionist movement under BritishMandate: land confiscation by the State of land owned byprivate individuals. Overall, to the old aim of affirming Jewishpresence in the land of Palestine in order to facilitate theestablishment of the Jewish State of Israel were now addednew aims: the management of owned land, largelyguaranteed since the creation of Israel by State institutions.On the one hand this fulfilled the needs of the Jewishimmigrants benefiting from the Law of Return and on theother helped to establish Jewish control over the largestamount of land possible, including those areas, such asGalilee or the Negev dessert, with a majority Arab population.This issue is pivotal in the relations between the nationalcommunities within Israel. It is not by chance that the eventssurrounding the observance of the "Land Day" the 30th ofMarch 197641, followed the government's decision toexpropriate 20.000 dunams of land, with over 6000 dunamsbelonging to Arabs, in order to ensure development inGalilee42. This has been the most important issue for Israeli-Arabs, since the creation of Israel43.

Therefore, what we are witnessing is a carefully orchestratedpolicy, co-ordinated at state level, to colonise the land in theinterior of the State to the detriment of the remaining Arabpopulation.

In Israel, 93% of the land is owned by the State, by the NationalJewish Fund (Keren Kayemet Leisrael) or by the DevelopmentAuthority; only 7% of the land is privately owned (4.2% byArabs, 2.8% by Jews). The management of land owned by theState is carried out by the Israel Land Authority (ILA) on behalfof the three bodies, the State itself (80%), the Jewish NationalFund (10%) and the Development Authority (10%).

This ownership system therefore gives a large part to Stateowned properties. In virtue of the 1960 Basic Law: IsraelLands, the land which is the property of the State, of theJewish National Fund or of the Development Authority cannotbe handed over to individuals as their full property; what weincorrectly define as constituting land transfers are in realitytransfers with a long duration lease of 49 years, or 99 years,though this is rarer. The management of this property isinfluenced by different organisations linked to the Zionistmovement and which existed before the founding of the Stateof Israel44. It is here that we can see the source of theconsiderable discrimination that Arab citizens in Israel sufferwith regard to access to land property. This discrimination isalso based on massive expropriation of Arabs residing in themandated Palestine.

In particular, this took legal form with the adoption of theAbsentee Property Law in 195045. This law declared as'absentees' all the Palestinians who left Israel during the warof 1948, including those who later returned to their villagesand even those who migrated within the country, that isPalestinians who remained within the frontiers of Israel (asset out on the 19th May 1948), if the migration had been toareas occupied by enemy armed forces: according to the law(section 1) in fact the 'absentee' is usually the Palestinian who"left his ordinary place of residence in Palestine (a) for a placeoutside Palestine [before 1st September 1948] or (b) for aplace in Palestine held at the time by forces which sought toprevent the establishing of the state of Israel or which foughtagainst it after its establishment". This is how the category of'present absentees' appeared, that is people expropriated oftheir lands due to internal migration during the war of 1948.More than 75.00046 Arabs are estimated to have been legallyexpropriated of their lands in this way during the period thatimmediately followed the declaration of independence47.

Even if it is the most notable law facilitating land transfers tothe benefit of the State after its founding, the 1950 AbsenteeProperty Law has not been the only one contributing to thisprocess. In 1953 the Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts andCompensation) Law set out that essentially all property that iscertified to not be in possession of its legal owners ("property(…) was not in the possession of its owners), and that hadbeen requisitioned either for security purposes, for militaryuse, or for development purposes - to establish Jewishsettlements, could definitively be expropriated. As is alsounderlined for example by Ian Lustick48, this law allows aposteriori legalisation of the de facto expropriations that tookplace during the conflict of 1948 and the years thatimmediately followed.


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The current system of housing ownership, which grantsenormous importance to the State of Israel and to theorganisations closely associated to the Zionist project, wereinherited from these laws, even more than from thesystematic acquisition of land by Jews before theestablishment of the State of Israel.

As the FIDH's mission witnessed it by visiting the surroundingareas of the village of Uhm al Fahm (Arab town of 35.000inhabitants), the land occupation policies conducted by theILA, but also following the initiative of the Jewish Agency, itsSettlement Department in particular which the state hasentrusted with the task of developing infrastructure andbuilding new housing areas for the Jewish population,consists of monopolising the largest perimeters possible,even with a limited number of Jews, in order to limit as muchas possible the expansion of the Arab localities.Consequently, the Arab village of Uhm al Fahm cannot expandfurther than its current perimeter despite the needs of itspopulation, meanwhile the surrounding Jewish population,literally scattered around like a belt surrounding the village, isno more than 11.000 inhabitants49.

It is only by keeping this context in mind that we can measurethe importance and considerable potential, of the decisionadopted in March 2000 by the Supreme Court with regard tothe Katzir case50. This town had been established in 1982 onstate-owned lands managed by the Jewish Agency. TheSupreme Court, confronted with a situation where an Arabcouple, who wanted to acquire some land in Katzir in order tobuild, found their petition rejected, due to the desire topreserve the Jewish nature of the Katzir settlement, ruled thatthe State of Israel could not delegate to the Jewish Agencythe distribution of the lands of Israel, from the moment thatthis private organisation was guilty of discrimination towardsnon-Jews. The ruling constitutes first a prohibition, inprinciple, for public authorities to treat citizens differentlydepending on their nationality or religion. Quoting the UnitedStates Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education rulingthat put an end to segregation towards black people inAmerican schools in 1954, the Court classed asdiscrimination the simple fact of separating communitieswithin specific perimeters ("separate is inherently unequal").This discrimination is not excluded, according to the court,simply because, if some areas are reserved for Jews othersare reserved for Arabs. The ruling declares that what the Statecannot do directly, that is discriminate against the Arabminority in the country, neither can it do indirectly, byassigning the task of sharing the lands to a privateorganisation, in this case the Jewish Agency, with a policy

consisting of sharing in a discriminatory way. In conclusion,the court forbids the State of Israel to transfer the landthrough a the Jewish Agency "for the purpose of establishingthe communal settlement of Katzir on the basis ofdiscrimination between Jews and non-Jews"

The Court specifically took care to clarify that their decisionwas based on particular surrounding circumstances, and thatthe ruling could not be interpreted as a condemnation on allforms of communities founded on national or religiousbelonging. Nevertheless this clarification does not underminethe following principle: for the first time to our knowledge, theSupreme Court decided to penalise open discriminationtowards the Arabs, and rejected that the difference oftreatment presented in Court could be justified by the Jewishnature of the State of Israel. Even if it is too early to evaluatethe consequences which may result from the decision,especially when its implementation still seems quiteproblematic one year later, this step forward still deserves tobe underlined.

Discrimination resulting from the advantages linked to thecompletion of National Service

Among the sources of discrimination that Arabs in Israel suffer,there is the one that results from the link certain regulationsestablish between the completion of National Service within theIsrael Defence Forces (IDF) and the granting of certain socialbenefits. Even if Palestinians are formally supposed to doNational Service in the armed forces, with the exception of theDruzes (9% Arab minority) they are discouraged by their owncommunity, and the exemptions requested by them areautomatically granted by the Israeli authorities.

Even more than the Palestinians, who do not wish to serve inthe armed forces of a State that even if it is theirs, is stillperceived with hostility by their community and by the exiledPalestinians with whom they feel solidarity, the Israeli armydoes not want to run any risk, or what can be perceived asone. The risk perceived being to have amongst its rank an file,people who could betray the cause of the State's defence, andintroduce insubordination when the Israeli army is assumingnational defence missions, such as law enforcementmissions, especially in the Occupied Territories of The WestBank and the Gaza strip. The exemption of Palestinians fromNational Service suits both parties; however, it also bringsabout two difficulties.

First, due to this exemption, Arab citizens of Israel are in factexcluded from an institution that cements the national unity


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of their State. National Service has in fact a central role in theIsraeli State's life, that has continually faced external threatssince its creation. It is carried out for 3 years in the case ofmen, and for one year in the case of women. ThatPalestinians, with the exception of the Druze, are exempt isclearly not helping the integration of the Arab minority withinthe state, furthermore, the army constitutes an importantperiod for the young Israelis, which determines many laterstages of their life; a clear example of this is the overrepresentation of people with a military career within theIsraeli political class.

Second, linked to National Service are a series of socialbenefits denied to the Palestinians because they do not carryout National Service. These benefits concern access tomortgages, partial payment of registration fees for some ofthe professional training courses organised by the State,grants and student accommodation51. There is a specific lawaiming at supporting the integration of former army recruitsinto civilian society (Absorption of Former Soldiers Law 1994).This law, which in particular consists of grants for finishingsecondary level studies with a view to later access touniversity or professional training, as well as mortgages orloans for the creation of companies, cannot by definitionbenefit Palestinians including those who may have the sameneed. Even if it does not specifically constitute discriminationto grant specific benefits to those who have completed theirNational Service, in order to recompense the sacrifice madefor the nation, one can fear that the extent of these benefitsgoes beyond what is justifiable on such grounds. When this isthe case, the National Service criterion only serves tolegitimise the difference of treatment to the detriment of theArabs, which has no reasonable or objective justification.Suspicions surrounding the granting of benefits linked to thecompletion of the National Service stem from the fact that,until recently in any case, haredi students of yeshiva(orthodox Jews), exempt from the Service for religiousreasons52, were not consequently deprived of the benefitsotherwise granted to those who had fulfilled their militaryservice in the Israeli armed forces53.

Is it conceivable to allow the Arab minority of Israel, includingthose who have not completed National Service, (a majority),to benefit from advantages subordinate to this service? TheIsraeli population overall considers that the advantageslinked to the Service are legitimate. Nonetheless, as long asthe State of Israel maintains conflictual relations with its Arabneighbours in the Middle East and as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not solved, it will remain inconceivablethat the Palestinians integrate the forces of the Israeli army,

despite the former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's efforts54.However, a proposed replacement national communityservice, (proposed in 1998 by the Prime Minister B.Netanyahou)55 also received a particularly cold reception bythe representatives of the Arab minority56. They view theimposition of compulsory National Service as unacceptable:what do they owe to a state that treats them as second classcitizens upholding discriminatory practices that make themfeel foreign in their own land? Even the proposal of avolunteer civilian service seems impossible: such a proposalcould create splits within the Arab minority, when they shouldpreserve their unity in order to obtain the lifting of thediscrimination they consider they are subjected to . Even theidea of making the recognition of the right of non-discrimination between Arabs and Jews (with regard to thebenefits mentioned) subject to any service rendered to thenation is highly questionable: should not the recognition ofequal rights precede the demand of a counterpart instead ofbeing subordinate to it ?

Footnotes :

5. This paragraph is very similar to the report submitted by the Association for Civil

Rights in Israel (ACRI) to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights in July

1998: Comments on the combined Initial and First Periodic Reports Concerning the

Implementation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),

July 1998.

6. E.A. 2/88, Ben Shalom et al. V. Central Elections Committee for the Twelfth

Knesseth et al., P.D. 43(4) 221.

7. Official holidays (article 18A of the Law and Government Ordinance 1948)

correspond to the Jewish calendar. However, according to article 7(b)(2) of the Work

Hours and Rest Day Law 1951, Muslim, Christian or Druze employees can choose

their weekly day of rest.

8. Aharon Barak, The Interpretation of Law, vol. 3, Jerusalem, Nevo Publ., 1994, pp.

338 and 332 (Hebrew original; Eng. translation. in Adalah Rev., vol. 1, Fall 1999, p.21).

9. In practise however there is an overlapping of competences: definitive jurisdiction

over a matrimonial case is for the first judge obtained, whether this be by the

husband or the wife.

10. Initiated by an Arab MP from the Labour Party, Nawaf Massalkeh, the proposal

gained the support of 54 members of the Knesseth when it was introduced in 1998.

11. Re'em Contracting Engineers Ltd. v. The Municipality of Nazareth Illit, et al.,

(1992) 47 P.D. V 189.

12. H.C. 4438/97, Adalah, et al. V. Ma'atz et al., February 1999.


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13. There is a total of 7 universities in the country. Officially, the refusal to set up an

Arab university is justified by the belief that there are already sufficient universities.

In reality, this refusal could also be explained by the fear that a Palestinian university

would be a constant source of unrest amongst the Arab minority (interview with

Lecturer S. Smooha, December 2000). Lecturer Mahmoud Yazbak, lecturer at the

University of Haifa and President of the Martyr's families committee set up following

the events of October 2000, was questioned on this point and stated that setting up

an Arab speaking university would not be appropriate in the current context : as

there was a risk the university would not receive adequate funding to maintain

sufficient operation and would offer a second rate education to Palestinians who

would attend it.

14. But even this requirement, overtly discriminatory as it may be towards the Arab

minority, must be seen in its context. Paradoxically, it is more readily justifiable today

when it has become an obstacle to university education also for those coming from

a recent wave of immigrants, which it was not in the past. In fact, in the last ten

years, this condition is disadvantaging immigrants from Russia (or, in a more

marginal way, other regions of the world) and no longer affects only the Arabs;

therefore it now appears less suspect. However, it is essential that intensive

programmes for learning Hebrew for the benefit of new immigrants to Israel, should

be as easily accessible to Arabs in Israel.

15. A. Haidar, The Arab Population in the Israeli Economy, Tel Aviv, International

Center for Peace in the Middle East, 1991, p. 4.

16. For the recognition of legality in principle, in the Israeli legal system, of

affirmative action policies (in the case in point to women's benefit): H.C. 453/94,

Israeli Women's Lobby v. The Government, judgement 48 (5)529.

17. It must be remembered that some Israeli Arab citizens reside in towns which are

not recognised by Israeli authorities, which excludes them from being included in

these statistics relating to funding allocated respectively to Jewish and Arab

municipalities in Israel; others reside in predominantantly Jewish towns.

18. Set up in 1974, this Committee of Chairmen of Arab Local Authorities has played

a decisive role by forcing Israeli authorities into dialogue on the inequality of

resources available to Jewish and Arab municipalities in Israel. The Committee did

not limit its efforts to dialogue, its members put pressure on the Israeli government

using sometimes spectacular means of protest, especially in 1991, 1994 and 1999.

On this committee see M. Al-Haj and H. Rosenfeld, Arab Local Government in Israel,

Westview Special Studies on the Middle East, Boulder, Co., Westview Press, 1990,

chap. 5, pp. 155 ss. This body is probably the most credible representative of the

Israeli Arab minority today. Al-Haj and Rosenfeld write: " given the domination of

political circumstances at the highly centralized state level in mainly Jewish national

terms, the transfer by the Arab population (…) of key political questions to the local

level and local leadership headed by a roof organisation - the National Committee -

represents an important indigenous Arab political development in Israel " (p. 184).

It is therefore worthy of note that the Committee is sometimes termed the "Arab

Parliament" in Israeli political vocabulary. One of the changes aiding the existence

of the Committee since 1974 and especially since the events of March 1976 was the

appropriation by local decision-makers, of national issues which interest all Israel's

Palestinians .

19. Apart from the first amount, the figures cited in this paragraph were provided to

the FIDH mission by Mayor Shawki Khatib, who presides over the Yaffia local

council. Other sources give quite different figures: the Sikkuy organisation estimates

that in 1999 "only 8% of the government's budget were allocated for the Arab

municipalities, which represent and provide services to 12% of the country's

population " (Sikkuy's Report on Equality & Integration of the Arab Citizens in Israel

1999-2000, Sikkuy - The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, June

2000, p. 52). However, observers do agree on the diagnosis, unanimously agreeing

that: the budget per person for Arab municipalities is grossly below the budget per

person for Jewish municipalities.

20. M. Al-Haj and H. Rosenfeld, Arab Local Government in Israel, Westview Special

Studies on the Middle East, Boulder, Co., Westview Press, 1990, p.187.

21. M. Al-Haj and H. Rosenfeld, Arab Local Government in Israel, op. cit., p. 153.

22. Sikkuy's Report on Equality & Integration of the Arab Citizens in Israel 1999-

2000, Sikkuy - The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, June 2000,

p. 51.


2000, Sikkuy - The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, June 2000,

p. 51.

24. I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority, Univ.

of Texas Press, Austin and London, 1980, p. 186.

25. I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority, op.

cit., pp. 186-188.

26. M. Al-Haj and H. Rosenfeld, Arab Local Government in Israel, op. cit., p. 127. See

also pp. 141-143, where the authors reveal developments after 1985 which on this

level, tend towards greater convergence between Arab municipalities' revenue

structures and those of Jewish municipalities.

27. This is the point of view expressed by M. David Azoulay, Shass party MP; a similar

opinion is expressed in Sikkuy's Report on Equality & Integration of the Arab Citizens

in Israel 1999-2000, Sikkuy - The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality,

June 2000, p. 51.

28. See. H.C. 2814/97, Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education, et al. v. The

Ministry of Education et al. : in the decision made in July 2000 in this case, the

Supreme Court ratifies the commitment by the Ministry for Education to devote 20%

of its budget to Arab schools between 2000 and 2005. In the course of the case,

the Minister for Education admitted that the academic enrichment programmes in

place since the 1970s (Academic Enrichment (Shahar) Programs) favoured Jewish

schools to the detriment of Arab ones.


FIDH - P A G E 2 1

29. Data collected from Sikkuy's Report on Equality & Integration of the Arab

Citizens in Israel 1999-2000, Sikkuy - The Association for the Advancement of Civic

Equality, June 2000, pp. 11-45.

30. A. Haider, The Arab Population in the Israeli Economy, Tel Aviv, International

Centre for Peace in the Middle East, 1991, P.3 .

31. In 1998, amongthe 1059 members of boards of public companies there were

only 15 Arab citizens. Among the first 101 state-owned companies, only 10 had at

least one Arab citizen within the Board of Directors.

32. Study conducted by professor B. Volkinson (Michigan Univ.) with R. Even Stein,

Golda Meir Institute for Research into Work and society Univ. de Tel Aviv (Haaretz,

27 mars 1998).

33. A Haider, The Arab Population in the Israeli Economy, Tel Aviv, International

Centre for peace in the Middle East, 1991, p. 82.


2000, Sikkuy- The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, June 2000,

p. 32. See also The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Comments on the Combined

Initial and Second Periodic Reports of the State of Israel Concerning the United

Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) submitted to the

United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, November

1998, p. 34.

35. Generally speaking, it cannot be disputed that the weakness of the social-

economic status of the Israeli-Arabs constitutes an obstacle to their capacity of

access, under conditions of equal opportunities, to the labour market. However, the

relative importance of the different handicaps continues to be a matter for

controversy. For example a study conducted in 1989 questioned the existence of a

link between discriminations that Israeli-Arabs suffer with regard to access to

landand their opportunities to find a job: R. Klinov, Arabs and Jews in the Israeli

Labour Force, Working Paper no 214, Jerusalem, Department of Economics, Hebrew

University of Jerusalem, July 1989, p. 10.

36. Study conducted forthe Ministry of Education by the Carmel Institute for Social

Research, 1994, results published in the Memad Issue 8, December 1996; and

research by N. Keren, H. Zelikovitz and Y. Doron, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and

Kibbutzim Seminar College.

37. These figures have been supplied by N. Levine-Epstein, Mr. el Hal and Mr.

Semionov, the Arabs in Israel in the Work Market, Floresheimer Institute for Policy

Research, Jerusalem 1994, p. 50.

38. An opinion poll conducted in December 1997 concluded that 60% of the Israeli

citizens would not lease an apartment out to an Arab citizen (Yediot Aharonot, 16

December 1997; quote: The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Comments on the

Combined Initial and second periodic reports of the State of Israel Concerning the

Implementation of the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural

rights (CESCR), quoted above, p. 40).

39. This criterion is also used by several regulations for identifying the beneficiaries

of several social benefits ; we will return to this question later.

40. D. Kretzmer, The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel, Boulder-San Francisco-

Oxford, Westview Press, 1994, chap. 4, pp. 49 ss.

41. Riots broke out following the general strike organised by the Arab population in

protest to the expropriation of their lands. Police repression caused six victims

among the Arabs of Israel. The event is now commemorated yearly by the Arab

population. 1976 marked the turning point when Israeli Arabs started to mistrust

the Israeli State; this has now been spectacularly reinforced by the events of

October 2000.

42. Rekhes, Israeli's Arabs and the Expropriation of Lands in the Galilee, Tel Aviv,

Shiloah Institute, 1977.

43. In this sense, I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State, Austin, Univ. of Texas Press,

1980, pp. 12-16, quoted by D. Kretzmer, op. cit., p. 70.

44. Even though the Jewish National Fund only owns 10% of the lands, the

management of which is entrusted to the ILA, half of the Israel Land Council seats, the

ILA's executive body, are reserved for representatives of the Jewish National Fund. This

organisation was constituted by the 5th Zionist congress held in Berlin in 1901 as a

body of the World Zionist Organisation, with the aim - set out in a law in 1953 (Jewish

National Fund Law) - of acquiring lands "in the designated area [this is the territory of

Israel and the territory under Israeli government control] for the purpose of settling

Jews on the said lands and property". This means, as also underlined by ACRI, that a

public institution serves as an instrument for a Zionist policy, openly favourable to a

solely Jewish population of Israel, and which does not hide the discrimination towards

the Arabs of this State of which it is guilty. See The Association for Civil Rights in Israel,

Comments on the Combined Initial and Second Periodic Reports of the State of Israel

Concerning the Implementation of the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social

and Cultural Rights (CESCR), pre-quoted, p. 44.

45. See I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority,

Univ. of Texas Press, Austin and London, 1980, pp. 173-176

46. Ian Lustick estimates that 81.000 Non-Jews residing in Israel in 1949 were

victims of this situation. See I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of

a National Minority, op. cit., p. 174.

47. D. Kretzmer, op. cit., p. 57.

48. See I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority,

op. cit., p. 175: "…the purpose of this law was to legitimise the massive land

transfers that had taken place from 1948 to 1952 and to preclude legal attempts

by Arab residents to take advantage of loopholes in the laws or the absence of due

process in order to press their claims in the courts".


FIDH - P A G E 2 2

49. It is this land management policy which puts forth a deliberate confinement of

the Arab population and which openly favours Jewish over Arab candidates for land

acquisition that explains the number of illegal constructions in Israel, still

threatened with demolition. The co-director of the Sikkuy organisation, M. Shalom

Dichter, estimates at around 20,000 the number of illegal constructions.

50. H.C.6698/95. Summary in English available at www.court.gov.il/

mishpat/html/en/system/index.html

51. Asa'd Ganim, "State and Minority in Israel": the Case of the Ethnic State and the

Predicament of its Minority, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21 (1998), p.428, quote:

Adalah -The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Legal Violations of Arab

Minority Rights in Israel. A report on Israel's Implementation of the International

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, March 1998, p.

89. See D. Scharfman, Living without a Constitution. Civil Rights in Israel, M/E

Sharpe, New York, 1993, pp. 82 - 84

52. On this regime, G. Weiler, Jewish Theocracy, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 1976, pp. 201 -

202. This exemption accorded to the yeshiva students and to women declaring

themselves practitioners of Orthodox Judaism dates from a 1949 law (Military

Service Act). The National Service Act of 1953, which intended to impose on women

exempt from military service for religious reasons an alternative civilian service, has

never been implemented due to political obstacles.

53. A December 1998 Israeli Supreme Court decision, explained no doubt by recent

increases in National Service exemptions, fearing the existence of discriminations

within the obligation of the National Service, prompted the Israeli legislator to

regulate the exemption situation. These exemptions had been until present granted

at the discretion of the Israeli Ministry of Defence. To our knowledge, the legislation

that the Supreme Court would like to see enacted has still not seen the light of day.

54. In August 1999, he announced his intention to open recruitment centres for the

IDF (Israel Defence Forces) in Arab localities. Recent events seem to have made this

more impossible than ever.

55. The issue of National Service imposed on the Israeli Arabs has been haunting

Israeli politics for the past few years. See. Not. Ori Stendel, The Arabs in Israel, op.

cit., p. 192, on the formulation of this proposal in 1990.

56. See the minutes of the round table organised by Adalah the 28 November 1998,

on Prime Minister B. Netanyahou's proposal to create a compulsory 3-year national

community service for those Israeli citizens exempt from National Service: J.

Kernochan & E. Rosenberg, "A Critique of Equal Duties, Equal Rights", Adalah Rev.,

vol. 1, Fall 1999, p. 28.


FIDH - P A G E 2 3

A. General Presentation

The Neguev Bedouins represent a population of around130.000 people, spread along a curved stretch of land thatruns from the new city of Rahat, North of Beersheva, toKseifeh, near the Dead Sea and the Jordanian frontier. Untilmore or less 1950, this population followed a semi-nomadicway of life, characterised by migrations between the centreof Palestine and the border of the Neguev dessert,according to the season. Since then, this semi-nomadismhas been abandoned. However the Bedouins havemaintained (those who could at least) a way of life whichcould be defined as pastoral, including breeding and small-scale farming incompatible with concentration in urbanspace. It is exactly this way of life that today appears to beincompatible with the Israeli authorities who favour a morerational use of the land.

The Bedouins were ignored during the Israel independencewar of 1948, during which a significant number (around 80%)fled to the Sinaï, to the Gaza Strip, or to Jordan. However theNeguev Bedouin minority that remained in Israel foundthemselves confined, from 1953, to the region located to theeast of the Beersheva-Hura-Hebron line, identified as an"enclosure zone" (ezor ha-siyyag). They were forbidden entryto the rest of Neguev, considered to be a military area by theauthorities. At the same time, the lands traditionally used bythe Bedouin tribes were taken over by the Israeliadministration application of Land Acquisition (Validation ofActs & Compensation) Law 1953 (making possible theregistration of all lands not occupied by their owners in 1952as State-owned property), and especially of the Land RightsSettlement Ordinance 1969 (according to which- mawat,literally " dead land " -, that is, not exploited and situated atmore than 1.5 miles from the nearest village, became State-owned property). This last law was interpreted in a veryunfavourable way with regard to the Bedouins, as part of theirland was considered to be unexploited as it was notcultivated, even if it was used as pasture for flocks. Moreoverthe Bedouin tents were not regarded to be neighbouringvillages, according to this law. Thus they legitimised importantland confiscations to the detriment of the Bedouin populationwho lead a pastoral way of life and lived in tents.

From 1967-1969 a second phase of the Israeli policy vis-à-visthe Bedouin population began which consisted ofencouraging their relocation to urban centres and villages:rather than constituting forced sedentarisation, the bedouinpopulation in fact was already leading a sedentary life by largeas they had abandoned nomadic ways, this policy should bedefined as forced regrouping58. The Israeli authoritiesjustified this course of action by declaring it was necessary inorder to facilitate supplies of water, electricity, health andeducation to Bedouin populations spread over large stretchesof land. According to the Arab Association for Human Rights(HRA), the intention in fact was to make the lands left behindby the Bedouins, available for the continuing colonisation byJewish settlers as well as "to domesticate" the Bedouineconomy by supplying cheap labour for the Jewisheconomy59. The first of these " townships " was Tel Sheeva,recognised in 1967. The Israeli's authority's initial intentionformulated in 1967, was to re-group within these urbancentres the whole of the Bedouin population, then 90.000people, in fact less than half the population was confined andin such a way re-grouped.

With this in mind the Government created urban centres,"planned" to receive the Bedouin population, as the city ofRahat (30.000 inhabitants today), created in 1972 andvisited by members of this mission. They also recognisedcertain populated communities, such as the recentlyrecognised town of Laquiyya (recognised in 1992, 8.000inhabitants) or the village of Daragat (a village regroupingfellaghas, granted a health centrein 200160). Today there areseven Bedouin populated towns that benefit from officialrecognition in total, (Rahat, Laquiyya, Hura, Tel Sheeva, SegevShalom, A'roer, Kseifeh). This recognition allows thesecommunities to benefit from basic social services, andespecially health, energy and education infrastructures61.Even so at times it is necessary to make use of justice tooblige the authorities to comply with their commitments62. Intotal, it is estimated that 58.000 Bedouins have beenrelocated in these recognised towns; the rest of the Bedouinpopulation, that is about 72.000 people, remains in the socalled "un-recognised villages", between 40 and 50 regroupsignificant numbers of Bedouin families.


Chapter III. A Minority within the minority : the question ofthe Bedouins57

FIDH - P A G E 2 4

The consequences of the adopted policy for the Bedouinpopulation can be summarised as follows : whilst thepopulations that accepted relocation within recognisedcentres have had difficulty overcoming destructuration, andsee the traditional way of life threatened, the population inthe un-recognised villages suffer, due to this non recognition,terrible violations of their basic economic and social rights.The two following sections will deal with each of theseconsequences separately.

B. The Recognised "townships"

The situation in Rahat, a Bedouin city that the FIDH missionvisited, is a typical example of the consequences that therelocation policy can have. The socio-economic situation ofthe population in Rahat is particularly precarious andmoreover, extreme poverty, is visible to any observer. Rahatdoes not have any industrial production activity. The only jobsthat exist are within the education sector or in municipalpublic utilities63. Unemployment rates are very high64.Women, who enjoyed certain recognition within the traditionalBedouin society have not been able, even after a generation,to find their place in this new society that resulted fromrelocation. Within traditional structures they had both apolitical (in relations with other tribes) and economic (asproducers) role, at present their role is too often confined tothe private home environment and their role as an economicagent is that of a consumer65. Furthermore, Bedouin familiesfrom different tribes have been regrouped together in Rahat,having at times antagonistic relationships between themcreating a climate of hostility. The socio-economic situation ofthe city can be attributed at least in part to the discriminationit suffers with regard to the investments that the Israeliauthorities66 carry out in comparison to Jewish settlements ofthe same size. In a more general way it can be explained bythe relative disinterest that the Israeli political class hastowards the Bedouins, whose regulation is not a priority, noteven for the most progressive parties in the political scene.

The situation in Rahat is not an exception. According to theNational Insurance Institute's figures for 1995-1996, Rahatfigured last in the 201 towns recognised by Israel on a socio-economic index basis, moreover it was immediately precededby the towns of A'roer and Tel Sheeva, respectively 200th and199th. The 7 Bedouin towns recognised at the time were,according to this scale, amongst the 15 poorest towns of thecountry67. Between 65% and 75% of the Neguev Bedouinpopulation today lives below the poverty line68.The youth'slevel of education, quite large in a society with one of thehighest birth rates in the world (annual population growth of

5.5%, average age between 12.7 and 16.9 within the Bedouincommunities, average age between 21.1 and 37.6 for theJewish communities of Neguev), is clearly lower than thenational average. In Israel, the number of people withuniversity diplomas is 100 in every 1000, this rate drops to 2per 1000 for the Bedouin population69. The refusal of politicalrights facilitates and perpetuates this socio-economicdiscrimination: only 2 out of the 7 recognised Bedouinpopulations elected their own council in 1998, the localcouncils of the other 5 towns were appointed by the Israeligovernment.

C. The " Un-recognised "Villages

The consequences of the Israeli non-recognition policy ofcertain Bedouin communities, around 45 un-recognisedvillages are scattered to the East and North of Beersheva,have been described by the Human Rights Committee in itsconclusions on the application of the International Covenanton Civil and Political Rights in Israel presented on the 28 July1998 ; this Committee expressed its deep concern about "thediscrimination faced by Bedouins, many of whom haveexpressed a desire to continue to live in settlements in theNegev not recognised by the Israeli Government and notprovided with basic infrastructure and essential services"70.

A clear example of this deplorable situation is the village ofTerabin, adjacent to the Jewish village of Omer and fallingwithin its municipal territory. The FIDH mission has been ableto visit these two villages, and to realize the contrast betweenthe opulence enjoyed in Omer and the extreme deprival inwhich the inhabitants of Terabin live.

The Terabin village groups around 1000 Bedouins, they havebeen living here since 1963 after two successive relocationsfollowing their expulsion from the land they inhabitedaccording to tradition, but they were unable to keep this asthey did not possess formal property deeds. Around 10% ofthe active population of Terabin has a job outside the village,the other inhabitants receive a minimal state allowance. Only10% of the Terabin children go to school : they are deniedaccess to schools in Omer, as well as to the schools in TelSheeva. These communities fear having to share theeducation budget between too many children, this budgetdepending on the number of school age children officiallyliving in the town. As Terabin is not recognised - and will notbe in the immediate future, the land where these people areliving has been promised to the Omer inhabitants with a viewto expanding their settlement in the future - these inhabitantsdo not have a school nor a health center within the village.


FIDH - P A G E 2 5

Moreover they are only linked to a main access route wherepublic transport goes by thanks to a dirt track, this factconstitutes an significant hindrance to the mobility of theinhabitants who must walk. According to law, connection totelephone networks or distributors of electricity or gas isforbidden71. Their electricity is supplied by a local generatorand they only have access to water thanks to an internaldistribution system a few hours a day. Several negotiationshave taken place between representatives of the Terabincommunity and Israeli authorities, with a view to moving thecommunity to another town which would make theirrecognition possible; these negotiations have until nowstumbled due to the mistrust amongst Bedouins, mistrustreinforced by certain propositions of relocation given theirunacceptable nature72, or due to the will between thechiefs, of a few members of the Terabin community, toreturn to the lands originally occupied by their people, fromwhich the community was expelled nearly half a centuryago. This desire to return explains the refusal to acceptalternative solutions.

To the deprival of social and economic rights that result fromthe absence of official recognition of their village, as for theinhabitants of Terabin and others non-recognised localities,we must add the vulnerability of the title deed they have onthe lands they occupy, and the legal insecurity of the housesthey build. Until the beginning of the 90s the destruction ofillegally built houses was frequent, especially as reprisalsfollowing acts of delinquency attributed to the inhabitants.According to figures given by an Arab NGO (Association ofForty), the HRA mentions that, still in 1998, 370 illegally builtconstructions were destroyed by the authorities. Even if thispractice has not been officially abandoned and even if it findslegal basis in the Law of Planning and Construction 1965,these forced demolitions ceased after the appeal launched bythe Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) to the GeneralAttorney of Israel. The ACRI underlined the absurdity ofdestroying constructions built without legal authorisationwhen those to blame did not have in reality any satisfactoryalternative. The destruction threat still exists today, andcontributes to maintain this state of insecurity on theconstructions built in the un-recognised villages.

Since the creation in 1978 of the "Green Patrol", specialpolice group in charge of enforcing rulings relating to townand country planning, intimidation has only increased: thisbody ensures the forced destruction of illegally constructedbuildings, destroys crops sowed on the lands with noestablished ownership, and at times confiscates flocksgrazing on lands that do not belong to their owners; It seems

that it is after the creation of this police unit that intimidationgrew to the size we are denouncing today.

Overall, the exercise of political rights at a municipal level isimpossible for the inhabitants of the un-recognised villages.Many of these villages are not integrated within the municipalboundaries on which in fact they depend. Even in the casewhere they are, their inhabitants are not allowed to exercisetheir right to vote if they do not have an officially recognisedresidence.

It does not seem that this situation is going to improve in theshort term. The planning committee that adopted the Neguevregion's development plan for the next 20 years was accused byOrganisations for the defence of Human Rights of havingdivided the region's population, in a development annex, intothree categories (Jewish urban population, Jewish non urbanpopulation and urban non Jewish population) ignoring thefuture of the inhabitants of the un-recognised Bedouin villages.Later they simply used a semantic alternative (the identifiedcategories are now two: on the one hand urban population,non-urban population on the other), and did not revise thestatistic projections relative to the different populationcategories. ACRI appealed before the Supreme Court againstthis regional development plan, disputing the fact that they donot take into account the situation of the Bedouin populations:the appeal is still pending (March 2001).

It is in fact by judicial remedies that the organisations for thedefence of Human Rights hope to improve the situation of theBedouin populations spread around the un-recognisedvillages of Neguev, after not being able to mobilise thepolitical parties on this question. In this way, in December1997, Adalah appealed before the Supreme Court on behalfof 121 Bedouins and 3 NGOs, demanding that the Ministry ofHealth establish Health Centres in 12 of the largest non-recognised Neguev villages. The distance from the existingclinics makes it very difficult, especially for Bedouin women,to access any type of preventive medicine. This is not only dueto transport difficulties but also to the social rule of notallowing Bedouin women out of the village without beingaccompanied by a male relative. The absence of local clinicsnow has the added consequence of perpetuating womensubordination and acceptance of their dependence on men.On the 27th of October 1998, the appeal concluded with anamicable arrangement, the government accepted theprinciple to create 6 clinics instead of the 12 demanded73. InAugust 1999, Adalah, acting on behalf of 7 organisations,introduced an appeal demanding the maintenance of socialservices to a population of around 60.000 Bedouins living in


FIDH - P A G E 2 6

the un-recognised towns, these services had been halted dueto budget restrictions. The successful appeal managed tomaintain the existing services and also achieved thecommitment from the Ministry for Employment and SocialAffairs to create 11 supplementary social worker posts forthese populations between 2000 and 2002. Still, theBedouin towns are very far from the advantages enjoyed bythe Jewish towns of Neguev74.

According to the UN Human Rights Committee, "members ofBedouin communities should be given equality of treatmentwith Jewish settlements in the same region, many of whichare also dispersed and populated by small numbers ofpeople"75. It is in fact the discrimination that they suffer,compared to the Jewish population in Neguev, that theregion's Arab interlocutors denounced with most strength.The Israeli authority's argument, according to which it wouldbe impracticable to supply the small Bedouin communitiesdisseminated around a large number of un-recognisedvillages with basic social services such as water, electricity,telephone, road infrastructures, public transport, sewers, ishowever undermined by the fact that Jewish settlers in thesame geographic space and as spread out as the Bedouinsare enjoying these services.

The immediate recognition of the un-recognised Bedouinvillages, larger than a minimum population level , seems toconstitute the first and indispensable step towards theelimination of this discrimination. This recognition wouldmean supplying these villages with minimum infrastructures(education, public transport, telephones, water andelectricity) allowing their inhabitants to enjoy decent livingconditions. Such a recognition would also bring about :

- an interruption of the current destructuration of thetraditional Bedouin society, whose members are under greatpressure to accept relocation within urban centres wheretheir identity is being sacrificed and what makes impossiblethe continuation of the pastoral way of life which someBedouin communities have managed to maintain until now;

- Bedouin women's emancipation, whose currentsubordination is perpetuated by the lack of access to certainbasic social benefits, notably to hospital structures or, in thecase of young girls, to education. The isolation of the un-recognised villages, both voluntarily chosen by the Bedouincommunities (who refuse the relocation proposed) andsuffered by them (as the authorities themselves refuse themaccess to basic social services), favours in fact thecontinuation of women's subordination within the traditional

structures, the preservation of which, desirable as traditionalstructures may be in other aspects, cannot justify thecontinuation of this subordinated status.

The recognition of the existing populating communities doesnot constitute a maximal demand, although the least we canexpect given the current situation - and it seems that on theother hand this is the way the Israeli authorities areprogressively going76. However we must remember that theBedouin community's demands to return to the lands theywere pushed away from are still at times quite energetic.Legitimate as these demands may be, they seem unrealisticgiven the current situation, as the expropriated lands havebeen exploited for other purposes creating a situation thatnow seems irreversible.

With regard to the recognised "townships", an urgentinvestment program is needed, not only to improve socialservices, the supply of which was supposed to be thejustification for the relocation in urban communities from1969, but also to improve, with industrial investments orfiscal incitements for those companies who would accept tosettle in the areas concerned, the socio-economic situation ofthese communities and to also reduce the unemploymentrate. The situation is such today that a real positivediscrimination programme in favour of these communities istruly necessary, in order to compensate the consequences ofpassed discrimination and to facilitate the adaptation ofthese relocated Bedouin groups to this new type of existence.

Footnotes :

57. They represent around 12% of the Arab minority in Israel, whose status is the

topic of this report. We have not been able to examine in detail the living conditions

of the Bedouins in Galilee, who represent, according to variable estimations,

between 25.000 and 40.000 people.

58. See R. Shamir, " Suspended in Space: Bedouins under the Law of Israel ", Law

& Soc. Rev., vol. 30, n°2, 1996, p. 231. For general information on this policy. Also

I. Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority, op. cit.,

pp. 196-198.

59. Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), " Struggle of the Unrecognised

Villages ", sheet n°3, 1999, p. 2 (where the " relocation policy " is presented as

having two aims: " To concentrate the Bedouin and make their traditional lands

available for settlement programs for Jews only; to domesticate the indigenous

Bedouin economy and create a chief source of wage labour for the Jewish

economy").

60. Within the Bedouin society, hierarchy separates the medeni (town dwellers), the


FIDH - P A G E 2 7

fellaghas (who work the land to which they are in consequence attached), and the

Bedouins as such (who, on the contrary to the fellaghas, refuse in principle this

attachment to the land). In addition, the " Bedouin " character of the Daragat village

is sometimes arguable: some of our interlocutors recommended to classify the

village as Arab. However, we should note that categories, especially those of

fellaghas and Bedouins in a strict sense, are closely intertwined in fact, as the

example of the village of Tel Sheeva shows.

61. Infrastructures are still however clearly insufficient. According to a document

presented by the Association for Support & Defence of Bedouin Rights in Israel to

the UN's Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (" The Situation of the

Bedouin in the Negev ", July 1995): " Roads were paved to half their width (only 4

meters) with a pavement on only one side. Electricity supplies only go to those

neighbourhoods where the populating thereof had been completed. (…) There is no

drainage system and the occupants had to use cesspits. The municipality is

responsible for emptying the cesspits. Israeli building laws prohibit building without

an infrastructure, but in the case of a township the government requested a waiver

and it continues to sell plots without drainage systems for housing " (p. 5). An author,

generally favourable to the Israeli authorities, also pointed this problem out: Ori

Stendel, The Arabs in Israel, Sussex Academic Press, 1996, p. 62.

62. See Adalah's legal recourse to oblige the Ministry of Education to create 400

nursery places for the Bedouin children: Adalah obtained in October 2000, the

creation of 200 places (H.C. 8534/99, The Parents Committee in Sage Shalom, et

al. v. The Government-appointed Council in Negev Shalom et al.).

63. Association for Support & Defence of Bedouin Rights in Israel for the UN's

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (" The Situation of the Bedouin

in the Negev ", July 1995), p. 7.

64. This figure of 63% employment seekers was mentioned to the FIDH mission, in

response to a question to local interlocutors. Other figures are available: even if still

quite high they do not reach such proportions. The Association for Support &

Defence of Bedouin Rights in Israel quotes an unemployment rate of 15% in Rahat,

also estimating that 40% of the active population does not have a permanent

source of income nor existence security (report for the UN's Committee on

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (" The Situation of the Bedouin in the Negev ",

July 1995), p. 7).

65. It is the desire to improve this role that the Bedouin Campaign for Equal Rights

and Education and Social Service initiatives are carried out, for example training

women in the traditional techniques of embroidery or facilitating their

independence, mainly professional, by organising the provision of nurseries. The

aim is to give Bedouin women means to become active within the new Bedouin

society that relocation has caused.

66. This is the opinion expressed by M. Isaac 'Yanni' Nevo, Professor of Philosophy

at the University of Ben Gourion, who fights for the recognition of rights of the

Bedouin minority within the Jewish community of Omer.

67. Figures quoted in: Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), " Struggle of the

Unrecognised Villages ", sheet n°3, n. 1.

68. A. Abu Saad, Bedouin Society Towards the Year 2000, paper presented at the

Bedouins of the Negev conference towards the year 2000, the Centre for Research

of the Bedouin Society and its Development, Ben Gurion University and others, beer

Sheva, Heychat Hatarbut, March 1999, quoted: Sikkuy's Report on Equality and

Integration of the Arab Citizens in Israel 1999-2000, June 2000, p. 48.

69. Sikkuy's Report on Equality and Integration of the Arab Citizens in Israel 1999-

2000, June 2000, p. 49.

70. Human Rights Committee, sixty-third session, Concluding Observations on the

initial report of Israel (CCPR/C/79/Add.93), adopted on 28 July 1998, issued on 18

August 1998, § 14.

71. Article 157 A (1981) of the Planning and Construction Law.

72. It was proposed to the Terabin community to relocate in Dudayin, south of

Beersheva, in a place where until now was situated a rubbish dump. Propositions

aiming at encouraging relocation within existing urban centres meet the Bedouins

refusal, not because of abandoning nomad life - Bedouin sedentary life is already a

fact - but because of abandoning a pastoral way of life and having to mix with other

tribes.

73. The execution of the agreement is very slow. In February 2001, 5 of the

promised 6 clinics were built; two only very recently, and only following Adalah's

threat to lodge an appeal against the government for not respecting its

commitments.

74. H.C. 5838/99, Regional Council of the Unrecognised Villages in the Negev, et al.

v. Minister of Labour and Social Welfare et al., September 2000.

75. Human Rights Committee, sixty-third session, Concluding Observations on the

initial report of Israel (CCPR/C/79/Add.93), 28 July 1998, § 14.

76. Thanks to an appeal by Adalah, the Israeli Supreme Court constrained the

Ministry of Interior to authorise the residents of a un-recognised village (Husseniya)

to put as their legal residence the name of their village on their identity document.

The appeal was based on the right to take part in elections, the right to receive post,

and the right to maintain a community (" the right to be we ") (H.C. 3607/97,

Mohammed Sawa'ed and al. v. Ministry of the Interior and al.).


FIDH - P A G E 2 8

Conclusions

The mission would first like to emphasise that taking intoconsideration its objective - the status of Israeli Arabs, - it isnot to judge, or, a fortiori, to question the founding politicalproject of the State of Israel, but nonetheless should note thatthis political project, by instituting a "Jewish State", bearsinherent discrimination towards the non-Jewish population.Further, the mission acknowledges that the question of thestatus of Israeli Arab citizens is directly correlated with theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict and its resolution. The mission nowintends to formulate its conclusions and recommendationswithin the limits of these two parameters. The missionconsiders, in fact, that even if these parameters constitutesignificant obstacles to the creation of a status that wouldallow the Arab population to enjoy full citizenship in Israel andto become fully integrated in the Israeli society, this statuscan however evolve positively, in the current situation. Theabsence of fundamental reforms in the State of Israel and adefinitive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should notprevent the immediate adoption of concrete measures thatwould improve the situation of the Arab citizens, as proposedwithin the framework of recommendations of this report.

The mission observed that Israeli Arab citizens suffer muchtotally unfounded legal and empirical, discrimination. Thisdiscrimination is both direct, - the result of using national orreligious allegiance as a differentiating criterion, and indirect,- considering the impact that the use of other criteria has onthe Israeli Arabs, less obvious, but still particularlydeleterious. Amongst the direct discrimination, the clearest iscaused by the Law of Return - any Jew can immigrate intoIsrael, however Arab immigration is made particularly difficult,even if it is for family regrouping. Other obvious discriminationrelates to caused by access to civil jurisdictions in claimslinked to employee status, and to delegating to Zionistorganisations the management of Israeli state-owned land.Amongst indirect discrimination, we must especially stress -even if slight improvement has been seen recently - the smallbudgets allocated to Arab municipalities despite theirsubstantial needs , effects linked to the dominance of Hebrewin public life, as well as the advantages linked to completionof service in the Israeli armed forces, be it through access toemployment or social benefits.

These discriminations contravene the internationalcommitments taken by the State of Israel. They constitute inparticular violations of the Universal Declaration of HumanRights, the International Covenant on Civil and PoliticalRights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social andCultural rights and the International Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Theseviolations have been noted and condemned by the UnitedNations Committees responsible for monitoring theapplication of these conventions by the States Parties77.

The mission also condemns the repressive and brutal attitudeof the Israeli authorities in October 2000 during the Arabpopulation's legal demonstrations expressing naturalsolidarity with the revolt of the Palestinians living in theoccupied territories. This repression shattered the trust ofArab citizens in the institutions of their State, andstrengthened their Palestinian nationalist feeling. Thisaccentuated the evolution of what began in 1976 (The LandDay, March 1976) and continued as of 1987-1988 (firstIntifadah, which strengthened solidarity between thePalestinians of Israel and the Palestinians of the Gaza Stripand the West Bank). The repression suffered by the Arabs ofIsrael since October 2000 risks widening the gap between theState of Israel and this part of its population, moreover theArabs resistance justifies a posteriori the distrust of whichthey have been victims since 1948 by a large part of theJewish Israeli opinion and Israeli administration whichconsider them as a "cinquième colonne" (spies).

Considering these conditions, the FIDH mission invites Israeliauthorities to rapidly implement the recommendations listedhereafter, which are vital to restoring trust between the Araband the Jewish population in the State of Israel.

The mission, however, knows that in any case the question ofthe status of the Israeli Arab citizens and their integration intothe State of Israel cannot be satisfactorily solved without thedefinitive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, andwithout fundamental reflection on the definition of Israel as aJewish State.


Chapter IV. Conclusions and recommendations

FIDH - P A G E 2 9

Recommendations

In compliance with the preceding observations andconclusions, the FIDH mission hereby formulates ninerecommendations for the attention of the Israeli authorities.These recommendations can be followed immediately or in theshort-term future. They can be implemented, in fact, withoutwaiting for a definitive solution to the Israeli-Palestinianconflict, within which lies the issue of the status of the IsraeliArabs, and independent of necessary reflection on the Zionistpolitical project on which the State of Israel is founded. Themission heads consider that much of the discrimination thatthe Arabs of Israel suffer cannot be justified by the project ofbuilding Israel as a Jewish state, independent of anyjudgement that one might make on the legitimacy of theproject itself: in other words this project too often serves as apretext for legal and de facto discrimination, the elimination ofwhich, in reality, would not lead in any way to challenging thefounding of the State.

The following recommendations aim at eliminating the mostnotable discrimination against the Arab minority.

- Complete the guarantees of the 1992 Basic Law: HumanDignity and Freedom, by adding a guarantee againstdiscrimination, so that the value of equality be recognised as aconstitutional value, and enable the Israeli legal system torefuse to apply discriminatory laws.

- Immediately align the status of non Jewish citizens with thatof Jewish citizens with regard to the choice of jurisdiction (civilor religious) before which rulings are pronounced on claimsconnected to personnal status.

- Remove all mention of national belonging (leum) on identitycards.

- Study the possibility of founding an Arabic speaking universityin the country, granting it the means to develop and to offer ashigh quality Arabic university education as the Hebrewspeaking Universities. Immediately strengthen Arabdepartments within the existing universities by granting thenecessary budgets.

- To fight against indirect discrimination exercised against theArabs of Israel resulting from the criteria based on completionof military service, either by granting social benefits or accessto employment, both in the private and in the public sector.Three measures should be adopted simultaneously: 1)Prohibition of using military service as a criteria both within the

public and private sector. 2) Limitation of the number of socialbenefits linked to the completion of the military service to onlythose advantages strictly connected to the necessity ofcompensating the sacrifice that this service represents: onlythe advantages that the1994 Absorption of Former SoldiersLaw recognised can continue to be granted, and theseadvantages should also be given to people who carry out analternative civil service. 3) Creating the possibility for Israelicitizens exempt from military service to carry out an alternativecivil service that would grant the same advantages as to thosewho carry out military service within the armed forces.

- To further professional integration of Israeli Arab citizens,increase efforts regarding the recruitment of Arabs within theIsraeli public bodies. This may include carrying out "affirmativeaction" programmes similar to those adopted in favour ofwomen and validated by the Israeli Supreme Court. In theprivate sector, reinforce legislation forbidding discrimination inemployment, by facilitating the reversal of the burden of proofwhere presumption of discrimination may be pleaded, and byincreasing the means available to for the Enforcement Divisionof the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to monitor respectof laws relative to equality of employment opportunities.

- To forbid all authorities in charge of managing state-ownedproperty to grant occupancy rights using discriminatory criteriabased on nationality or religion, directly or indirectly, thusgiving the right to free choice of place of residence to all Israelicitizens, without discrimination, (articles 12 and 26 of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).

- In order to respect and recognise the Bedouin population'sright to their specific way of life (article 27 of the InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights), as well as basic socialand economic rights, duly respecting the commitments of non-discrimination (article 2 § 2, of the International Covenant onEconomic, Social and Cultural Rights), notably in the domainsof housing, health and education (articles 11 to 13 of theInternational Covenant on Economic, Social and CulturalRights): 1) immediately recognise the existing Bedouinvillages, not yet recognised, and supply basic services (water,electricity, clinics when the population reaches a minimumnumerical level); 2) officially end forced relocation in townshipsas well as the destruction of homes built without permits, inany case, at least for existing building; 3) draw administrativeborders around the municipalities in order to ensure therepresentation of the Bedouin communities within thedecision-making bodies of the municipalities to which theybelong.


FIDH - P A G E 3 0

- Abolish article 5 of the Political Parties Law, as well as article7(a) of the Basic Law: Knesseth, and authorise politicalgroups who question certain defining elements of the Jewishnature of the State of Israel to stand for election, withoutprejudice to the possibility of forbidding political formationswhich aim at destroying rights and freedoms recognised ininternational human rights laws (article 5, § 1, of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; article 30of the International Declaration on Human Rights).

Footnote :

77. See Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial

Discrimination (CERD/C/304/Add.45, 30 March 1998) ; Concluding Observations

of the Human Rights Committee (CCPR/C/79/Add.93, 18 August 1998). See also :

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination

Against Women (A/52/38/Rev.1, Part II, paras.132-183, 21/07/97).


P A G E 3 2

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