Arab, Jewish groups to petition High Court against town admission panels
Arab, Jewish groups say panels used to prevent socially undesirable minorities from joining communal towns.
By Yoav Stern Tags: Israeli ArabSeveral Jewish and Arab human rights organizations are to jointly petition the High Court of Justice on Sunday morning to dissolve the admissions committees for communal towns in Israel.
The petition is directed against the Israel Lands Administration and the admissions committee of the communities in the Misgav region.
The is being submitted by attorney Suhad Bishara of the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, on behalf of an Israeli Arab couple whose application to live in the communal town of Rakefet was rejected.
Joining the petition are the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, the Sephardi Democratic Rainbow, the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights, and Kol Aher BaGalil - A different voice in Galilee.
The petition argues that every Israeli citizen has the right to choose a place of living within the state "with no arbitrary restrictions whatsoever," in any community built on state land.
"The right to choose a place to live is derived from the right to personal autonomy. Thus, any injury to this choice is an injury to the individual's dignity, equality and freedom and as such contradicts the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom," it states.
This is the first time Jewish and Arab organizations with different missions and disparate target audiences have come together to submit this type of petition. The common factor among all the organizations is their claim that small communal towns make inappropriate use of the right, granted to them by the ILA, to reject as "socially unsuitable" the applications of Israelis seeking to purchase a building lot within their jurisdiction.
According to the High Court petition, social unsuitability is used to turn down members of various groups within Israeli society because they are not "normative in accordance with the perspective of the committee members."
There are 49 communal towns ("yishuvim kehilati'im") in Israel. The petitioners claim that there are almost no Arabs, homosexuals or Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern descent) in these communities, despite a judicial ruling according to which state lands are to be divided in an egalitarian manner.
The petition states that "social status, personal status, political views, sexual orientation, color or ethnic or national origin" cannot be used to reject an application for admission.
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Guess what! the court system wants to protect their own right to keep anything authentic away from the court. Notice there are no really observant jews on the courts, aside from the usual token "uncle tom" Besides those who are petitioning do not want Jews between the river and the sea. The court will settle for there being no Judaism.
Talmudic Law passed the inspection of a high- ranking Roman Jurist for it's equity and balance. pity that the supreme court here achieves neither such a standard nor any test for sanity or connection with reality. Perhaps you meant your nickname sarcastically?
with a "justice System" like this, we need to ask the government to ensure the supreme court is included in any land transfer to the philistines
Gays, Arabs, minorities and the disadvantaged. that will do the supreme court system a little good
About time the courts had a little variety too.
Typical Arab hypocrisy. Look at how well integrated the Arabs are in Baghdad and Beirut.
How about the fact that there are no Haredim or datim in these towns?
If administering the law equally to all persons without fear or favor isn't your idea of a judicial system, you are going back to the Middle Ages. I suppose your position is that it is abhorrent for a gentile state to discriminate against Jews but mandatory for a Jewish state to discriminate against gentiles.
Local communities have a right to filter the undesirable personalities or individuals they would have live in their communities. Israel is not an uber individualistic society...it was re-established on communalism and kibbutzim... thus to a certain degree a community has an absolute involuablle right to discriminate in who they want living inside their communities!!! The post zionists that want to create an individualist society ythat makes no value judgements would have israel be a hebrew speaking portugal, but it is a jewish state and therefore the rights and priviledges that guarantee this state and its smooth governance!!!
The Israeli High Court has time and time again proved that it can be relied upon to uphold freedom for minorities in Israel, and this time will be no different. Congratulations to all the groups for bringing this suit and I am sure they will be successful. The Israeli High Court will ensure that the Jewish State stays democratic.
Israel cant have a Nonjewish legal system. Period. I believe in human rights and personal freedoms. I support gay rights, womens rights, free speech, etc. The Israeli Supreme Court does much that I admire. Thus it pains me to have to say this. The Israeli legal system, especially the Supreme Court, has been intentionally Nonjewish - secular. Sadly, in the context of todays global ideological forces, Israels Supreme Court drifts into Antijewish. Its intolerable for the Supreme Court of a Jewish nation-state to be Antijewish. Hopefully, the Jewish nation-state can resolve its tension with its Antijewish Supreme Court, wisely. Israels legal system must be Jewish. Israeli Jews must find ways to enforce rights and freedom from within the Jewish legal system.