Last update - 00:00 10/12/2006
Arab High Committee: Israel must revise its land legislation
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
A new dossier published last week by the Israeli Arab High Committee calls for a thorough revision of Israel's construction and lands legislation in order to rectify what it considers to be radical discrimination favoring the Jewish public over the needs of the Arab population.
The paper calls on the State of Israel to refrain from enforcing construction and planning laws on the Israeli Arab population as affirmative action that would balance lands distribution between Jewish and Arab communities.
In the paper, the High Committee calls on the state also to overhaul its land administration bodies. The long-term vision of the paper calls for the extraction of the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund from involvement in land distribution and legislation procedures, since non-Jewish representatives are excluded from participating in either body.
The paper concludes that Israel's policy seeks to appropriate the lands into Jewish hands. The High Committee calls on the state to change its policies on lands and construction planning "to apply to Israeli citizens and not only to Jewish residents."
According to estimates, the Arab sector is soon to have the most pressing need for lands in Israel, while its impact on land-related decision making is close to zero. The number of Israeli Arabs will have doubled by 2020, while each Arab citizen would be allocated a mere 275 square meters.
Figures presented by the High Committee indicate that Israeli Arabs hold 3.5 percent of the total area of Israel. A third of these lands, however, are not within the jurisdiction of local Arab councils.
In order to achieve its goal, the paper says, the Arab public must change the course of its struggle. "Escalating the struggle may raise new questions regarding the status and welfare of Palestinian Arabs under the Israeli ethnocratic regime," the paper said.
Dr. Thabet Abu-Ras of Ben Gurion University in the Negev composed the chapter in the paper concerning construction planning. Thabet warns that the Arab public will eventually turn to rioting as lands shortages will worsen in Arab communities, including in the Bedouin public.
"No other country in the world owns 93 percent of its lands," the document says, adding "lands are not sold by the state but are leased for 49 years, while ownership remains in the hand of the state."
According to Abu-Ras Israel has allocated less than a single percent of its lands to the Arab public, and even this allocation was for Bedouin communities and to neighborhoods of discharged soldiers.