The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has presented the United Nations with a highly critical report on Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens.

The report was presented on February 1 in preparation for the meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva next week.

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Adalah's appeal is part of a wider effort by Arab organizations to internationalize the discussion around the relationship between Israel and its Arab citizens. Adalah expects the report to serve as a basis for the committee's discussion and thus put intentional pressure on Israel to change its policies.

The report outlines several issues that Adalah claims violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), on which Israel is a signatory.

One of the report's claims is that Israel enacts laws and enters into agreements with institutions that exclusively allocate land to Jews.

The report also claims that the laws conditioning certain social and financial benefits on military service, discriminate against most of Israeli Arab population.

An additional issue presented by the report is Israeli legislation allowing severe interrogation methods against detainees suspected of security offenses, most of whom are Arabs.

The report also claims the people responsible for the deaths of 13 Arabs from Israel Police fire during the events of October 2000 were not put on trial.

Further claims in the report are that Israel prevents its Arab citizens from marrying Palestinian partners if they wish to reside in Israel; the state exercises extreme discrimination in the budgets it allots Arab towns; Arab citizens have been evacuated from their Negev homes under the claim that the homes were illegal, and standards for accepting Arab students into higher-education institutions are discriminatory, among others.