Last update - 00:00 10/05/2007
Housing Minister slams communities employing selective entry policy
By Zafrir Rinat and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents
Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit, who heads the Israel Lands Administration (ILA), on Thursday slammed the policies of communities which have a selection process for potential residents.
The selection committees only exist in small communities, most of which are in the Galilee and Negev. They decide who can move into a community and who cannot.
Speaking at a conference on the future of Israeli land, at Technion University in Haifa, Sheetrit criticized the committees, saying that as these communities are on state-owned land, they must be available to everyone.
He also expressed the belief that such committees must be dismantled. He said that anyone who successfully applies to live on state-developed land should be allowed to move into the community.
"We must develop the moshavim and kibbutzim, because they are growing older. The state has invested a lot in these communities' infrastructure, and they need some young blood," Sheetrit said.
These committees have been heavily criticized in the past, as they have been accused of not accepting Arabs and homosexuals.
Attorney Suha Bishara of the Arab human rights organization Adalah, told the conference that, "these committees are an apparatus to filter out not only Arabs but also Ethiopian immigrants, lesbians, single mothers and Sephardi Jews."
In the past, the ILA permitted acceptance committees in larger communities as well, but today the committees are only in communities with fewer than 300 families.
Although the High Court of Justice prohibits the rejection of candidates for being Arab, many Arabs are still refused entry while the committee claims that it is due to "personal unsuitability."
Sheetrit attacked the agricultural unions that are behind these acceptance committees. "These unions treat the residents like serfs even though they do not own the land," he said.
"These unions control some of the committees and I cannot accept that. Sometimes you need to bribe them with tens of thousands of dollars. While I call upon people to come and complain about this trend, most are afraid to do this."
ILA director Yaakov Ephrati expressed opposition to Sheetrit's view, saying that communities must continue to have the right to choose their residents, even if it is based on national or racial criteria.
"If a community has a certain character, I accept that. I will not force them to take in people who do not fit the character of the community just as I will not force a Circassian community to accept someone who isn't Circassian. I think this is legitimate behavior."
Efrati also said there had not been any open bidding for new lots in the Bedouin village of Rahat recently, because the Bedouin prefer to choose their neighbors.
Adallah said that Sheetrit's statement was "positive" but added that it is planning to petition to the High Court of Justice in the next two weeks demanding that the committees be disbanded.
"It is unacceptable that the ILA passes state land to private hands who then decide who gets to enjoy the land and who doesn't," Adallah told Haaretz.