<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[HRW: New laws marginalize Palestinian Arab&nbsp;citizens]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p class="headline_meta"><abbr class="published" title="2011-04-01">1 April 2011</abbr></p>
<p>By Human Rights Watch, <a href="http://www.HRW.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.HRW.org</a> – 30 March 2011<br />
<a title="New Laws Marginalize Palestinian Arab Citizens" href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/03/30/israel-new-laws-marginalize-palestinian-arab-citizens" target="_blank"><br />
</a></p>
<p><strong>Measures Threaten Discrimination; Chill Freedom of Expression</strong></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-19114" title="HRW - Human Rights Watch" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.israeli-occupation.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/hrw.jpg" alt="HRW - Human Rights Watch" width="150" height="150" />Two  new Israeli laws affecting Israel’s Palestinian Arab residents  would  promote discrimination and stifle free expression, Human Rights  Watch  said today. One would authorize rural, Jewish-majority communities  to  reject Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and other “unsuitable”   applicants for residency, and the other would chill expression regarding   a key moment in the history of Palestinian citizens, Human Rights  Watch  said. “These laws threaten Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel  and others with  yet more officially sanctioned discrimination,” said  Sarah Leah  Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.  “Israeli  parliamentarians should be working hard to end glaring  inequality, not  pushing through discriminatory laws to control who can  live where and to  create a single government-approved view of Israel’s  history.”<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The Knesset passed both laws on March 23, 2011. One  officially  authorizes “admissions committees” in about 300  Jewish-majority  communities to reject applicants for residency who do  not meet vague  “social suitability” criteria. The measure anchors in  law a practice  that has been the basis for unjustly rejecting  applications by  Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel as well as members  of socially  marginalized groups such as Jews of non-European ancestry  and  single-parent families.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The second law would heavily fine any  government-funded  institution, including municipalities that provide  health and education,  for commemorating the “Nakba” – the Arabic term  to describe the  destruction of Palestinian villages and expulsion of  their residents  after Israel’s declaration of independence – and for  expression deemed  to “negate the existence of Israel as a Jewish and  democratic state.”<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The “admissions committee” law requires anyone  seeking to move  to any community in the Negev and Galilee regions with  fewer than 400  families to obtain approval from committees consisting  of town  residents, a member of the Jewish Agency or World Zionist  Organization,  and several others. The law empowers these committees to  reject  candidates who, among other things, “are ill-suited to the  community’s  way of life” or “might harm the community’s fabric.”</p>
<p>There are more than 300 such small communities in the Negev and  Galilee,  either small cooperative “kibbutzes” with some shared  property, farming  communities called “moshavs,” or small rural  “community towns,” on land  leased by the state. These communities  already have admissions  committees established under regulations of the  Israel Land Authority,  the state agency that leases them their land.  But the committees and  screening procedures had not been specifically  authorized under national  laws.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>Although Palestinian Arabs are in the majority in  the Negev and  Galilee, the state has never allocated lands to allow  these Israeli  citizens to establish small communities there. All of the  towns and  communities to which the new law applies were established  for and have a  majority of Jewish residents.</p>
<p>Parliamentary statements indicate that the law’s sponsors intended it  to  allow majority-Jewish communities to maintain their current  demographic  makeup by excluding Palestinian Arab citizens, an act of  discrimination  on the basis of their race, ethnicity, and national  origin.</p>
<p>One of the law’s sponsors, David Rotem of the Yisrael Beiteinu  (Israel  Our Home) party, told the Knesset in December 2009 that such a  law would  allow towns to be “established by people who want to live  with other  Jews.” In a radio interview that month, Rotem said the law  would codify  screening procedures so that Jewish Israelis could  “establish a place  where everybody is an army veteran, a Yeshiva  alumni, or something of  that sort.”</p>
<p>Another sponsor, Yisrael Hasson of the Kadima party, said in December   2010 that “the bill reflects the Knesset’s commitment to work to   preserve the ability to realize the Zionist dream in practice in the   state of Israel” through “population dispersal,” which the government   had begun “thirty years ago … [with] a string of small communities in   the Galilee and Negev.”</p>
<p>“Realization of these goals obliged us as legislators to ensure the   existence of a screening mechanism for applicants to these communities,”   he said.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>Late in negotiations over the law, legislators added  a clause  that nominally forbids committees to discriminate on the  basis of race,  religion, gender, nationality, or disability. However,  the law’s  exclusion criteria threaten to do exactly what is supposedly  prohibited,  allowing admissions committees to mask discrimination under  the vague  criteria that a candidate is “unsuitable” to the community’s  “social  characteristics,” Human Rights Watch said.</p>
<p>Israeli opponents of the law argued that it would effectively bolster   the legal and political standing of admissions committees and allow  them  to bypass a previous Supreme Court ruling against discrimination  in  property rights. In the case that led to that ruling, a village  rejected  an Arab-Israeli couple because the village was established on  land that  Israel had leased to the Jewish Agency, which did not lease  land to  non-Jews. Most of the land in Israel is state-owned and leased  for 49-  or 98-year periods.</p>
<p>The couple petitioned the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2000 that   allocating land to citizens solely on the basis of their religion   constituted prohibited discrimination, including cases in which the   state first leased land to third parties that would not then lease it to   non-Jews. However, the court limited the ruling to the specific case   and stated that it might not make the same ruling in unspecified   “special circumstances.” The village committee then rejected the couple   because they “did not fit its character.” After further legal action,   the couple was able to lease the land in 2007.</p>
<p>The law states that each community’s unique “characteristics” will be   “codified,” and that rejected candidates are entitled to an  explanation.  However, in a February 2011 Supreme Court hearing  regarding two couples  whom admission committees rejected, the  petitioners argued that many  small rural communities are not designed  exclusively for particular  social groups with unique ways of life, such  as ultra-Orthodox religious  communities. The chief justice stated that  the town in question “does  not have any unique characteristics,” and  called the screening process  an “invasion of privacy.” But the court  has yet rule in this case.</p>
<p>In a petition to the Supreme Court against the new law that has yet  to  be ruled on, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a   nongovernmental group, cited court cases brought by Palestinian Arabs   and other families whom village acceptance committees rejected because   they did not “socially fit.” In one case, a kibbutz justified its   rejection of an Arab-Israeli couple because its admissions criteria   required residents to be eligible for membership in the World Zionist   Organization and to have served in the Israeli army. Few Palestinian   Arab citizens of Israel perform military service.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>Another village committee requires applicants to  embrace the  values in the village’s charter, including “Zionism” and  “Jewish  tradition.” Other communities rejected Jews of North African  and Middle  Eastern descent and a disabled veteran. In these cases, the  parties  compromised or the court ordered the committees to re-evaluate  the  application, with the result that the courts have not explicitly  ruled  the committees’ actions to be discriminatory.</p>
<p>In an affidavit submitted by the civil rights group, the former   chairperson of one acceptance committee stated that the committee often   rejected applicants on the basis of committee members’ personal   preferences, and that in most cases the evaluation process merely rubber   stamps a decision to reject applicants.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>As originally drafted, the law would have applied to   communities across Israel, but after a compromise, the final law,  which  passed after 2 a.m. on March 23 by 35 to 20, applies only to the  Negev  and Galilee regions. Longstanding Israeli policy seeks to  “Judaize the  Galilee,” and Israeli officials have promoted plans to  encourage  large-scale Jewish immigration to the Negev. In 2010, several  rabbis in  the Galilee, who are government officials, campaigned for  Jewish  Israelis not to rent apartments or sell land to Arab-Israelis;  and the  Knesset gave preliminary approval to a parliamentary inquiry  into  alleged purchases of Israeli land by “foreign governments” for the   benefit of Arab-Israeli citizens. Arab citizens of Israel have sought  to  move into Jewish communities in part because of a lack of housing  for  Palestinian Arab citizens. While Israeli planning authorities have   established hundreds of Jewish towns and villages, Israel has not   allowed Arab citizens to establish any new towns since 1948, except for   seven communities that the state planned for Bedouins from the Negev,   whom the government urged to relocate from their traditional lands or   forcibly evicted from them.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s state planning bodies have approved “expansions” for   Jewish towns, rezoning adjacent agricultural lands for residential   construction. An Israel Lands Authority administrative decision from   1993 granted local residents and their children “preferred access” to   the newly expanded residential areas, and authorized the towns to create   admissions committees to review outside applicants. By contrast, Human   Rights Watch has <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/08/israel-grant-status-long-denied-arab-village-central-israel" target="_blank">documented</a> <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/03/08/israel-stop-discriminatory-home-demolitions" target="_blank">cases</a> in which Israeli planning authorities consistently rejected the   petitions of Arab-Israelis to rezone “agricultural” lands for   residential purposes.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>In 2007 the United Nations committee that oversees  states’  compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of Racial   Discrimination recommended that Israel examine the role of admissions   committees, “ensure that state land is allocated without discrimination,   direct or indirect,” and “assess the significance and impact of the   ‘social suitability’ criterion in this regard.” Under the convention,   Israel is obliged to prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination in all   its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction   as to race or ethnic or national origin, to freedom of movement and   residence, and to housing.</p>
<p>“Countries should seek to end the segregation and negative treatment  of  minority communities, yet Israel is moving in the other direction,”   Whitson said. “A state that deliberately promotes the residential  rights  and privileges of one ethnic group while diminishing those of  another  is practicing illegal discrimination, pure and simple.”<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The Knesset passed, 37 to 25, the law that allows  the  government to penalize any state-funded institution that  commemorates  the “Nakba,” the Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” and  referring to the  historic episode in which hundreds of thousands of  Palestinian residents  of what is now Israel fled and hundreds of  villages were destroyed  during the conflict after Israel declared  independence in 1948. The  penalty could also be imposed on an  institution that “denies the  existence of the State of Israel as a  Jewish and democratic state,” an  action the law does not define.</p>
<p>Palestinian Arab members of Israel’s parliament, community leaders,  and  civil society groups have frequently stated their view that  definitions  of Israel as a “Jewish state” marginalize and exclude them.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The law, formally an amendment to the Budget  Principles Law,  enables the finance minister to cut government funding  to such  institutions by three times the amount that the institution  spent on the  “illegal” activities. The law does not distinguish cases  in which  institutions spent non-government funds on such activities.  The finance  minister would need the approval of other budgetary  officials to cut the  funds.</p>
<p>The law does not define “institution,” but states that it applies to  any  state-funded entity. Entities at risk include not only  municipalities,  but also theaters and schools that stage plays or  screen films about the  Nakba or cultural organizations that hold  “coexistence” activities for  Jewish and Arab Israeli students to  commemorate both Israel’s  independence day and the “Nakba” as a form of  mutual learning.</p>
<p>“This effort to punish the peaceful expression of opinions by  Israelis  who receive state funding is an insult to Palestinian Arab  citizens of  Israel and a threat to freedom of expression,” Whitson  said. “Since when  does the Israeli government have the right to tell  Israeli citizens  what they’re not entitled to say about history?”<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The Nakba law’s threefold financial penalty  threatens to harm  the rights of citizens – for example, by cutting  federal funds that  municipalities need to provide health, housing,  education, and other  services, Human Rights Watch said. For example,  according to an  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development  report on Israel,  local governments are responsible for providing basic  social services  but receive 75 percent financing from the central  government to procure  those services. The predictable result of the  law’s severe penalties and  the vagueness of the acts and institutions  that could be penalized is  that it will broadly chill freedom of  expression by preventing various  institutions from commemorating the  Nakba at all, Human Rights Watch  said.<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>“The government is telling Arab-Israeli  municipalities and  other institutions that if they don’t shut up about  the Nakba and  anything else that bureaucrats may deem anti-Israeli,  they’ll have to  shut down programs and services for lack of funds,”  Whitson said.  “Democracies shouldn’t quash expression even if it’s  unpopular, and in  this case, what’s unpopular to some legislators is  central to the  historical narrative of a million and a half citizens.”</p>
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