An amendment to the Planning and Construction Law that was submitted to the Knesset on December 18, 2006 proposes restricting "the establishment of hostels for protected persons, including people with mental disabilities and drug users, in any area zoned for residence." It would, among other measures, limit residences for protected persons to three per building, or restrict the "increase of protected persons' residences in the same area or the establishment of such hostels in the proximity of educational institutions and the like."

The protected persons mentioned in the amendment include individuals who are dealing with psychiatric disorders, people who are recovering from drug abuse, people with developmental disabilities and victims of sexual assault. Hundreds of thousands of people in Israel fall into these categories. According to a report compiled by the Justice Ministry's Commission for Equal Rights for People with Disabilities, there are 1.36 million people with disabilities living in Israel (24 percent of the population). Of the 600,000 with severe disabilities, about 240,000 are of working age, 175,000 are minors and 185,000 are 65 or above.

Disabilities affect all sectors of Israeli society: men and women, married and single, Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, observant and non-observant. Each of these groups has a significant number of people with disabilities.

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In accordance with Israel's policy of anti-institutionalization, most of the people who face disabilities live in the community, in an effort to integrate them into all aspects of life. This trend toward community integration has been accompanied by significant legislative developments. Chief among these was the passage of the Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law (1998), whose purpose is to protect the dignity and freedom of persons with disabilities, to give the force of law to their right to equal and active participation in society in all spheres of life, and to provide for their special needs to enable them to live with maximum independence, in privacy and in dignity.

Recently, however, we are witness to a disturbing phenomenon: Parts of Israeli society, now including its elected representatives, are using various and sundry means to limit the housing options in the community of people with disabilities. The amendment to the construction and planning law is one example of this, in its attempt to impose conditions on residences within the community on people based on their disabilities or their sociomedical condition. In addition, for some months now we have seen resistance, sometimes violent, by residents to community living for people with disabilities and to the renting of apartments for female victims of sexual assault.

This resistance has been expressed through demonstrations, arson attacks on hostels, civil suits and threats. Unfortunately, this resistance ultimately pays off, since in most cases the residents succeed in preventing the establishment of residences for people with disabilities. "Considerations of the public good" win out over the human rights of the protected persons.

Do we want to create "leper colonies" to which we ship everyone who is different? Are the wonderful mutual relationships that exist in a number of places between people with disabilities and their neighbors liable to become a rarity?

The state, in cooperation with the relevant organizations, could turn the fear and alienation of some parts of Israeli society of these precious people into empathy and a desire to give and receive equal opportunities.

Amir Tal is the director of Behevra Tova, a nonprofit association aimed at increasing public awareness of and reducing the social stigma associated with psychiatric illness.