The Local Preparatory Committee
of Palestinian NGOs in Israel
Statement submitted to:
World Conference Against
Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance
It is incumbent upon One of the most significant
challenges forthe international community to ensure is ensuringthe
principles of human dignity and liberty for
all
peoples. This has been a historical challenge,
particularly for peoples who became
national minorities in their own homeland through colonialism and dispossession acquisition of their
land. As a result of such dispossession acquisitions, the
rights of national
minorities and indigenous groups to sovereignty and self-determination have been denied, and
these groups have lost control over long-held natural resources, notably
land. In many instances, the dispossessor acquirerdevelops
mechanisms to protect his ethnic superiority over the indigenous populations,
and which their
superiorityleads to deep racism against them. This has also been the experience of the Palestinians in Israel.
Historical background
The Al-Nakba (the catastrophe) of the
Palestinian people created multiple tragedies: hundreds of thousand of
Palestinian refugees whowere expelled from or forced to flee their homeland, and those
who remained in the newly-established Jewish State
of Israel and
became a national minority in their homeland. Those who remained in the newly established State of Israel
became citizens of the State, and now comprise approximately 20% of the
population. They are a part of the
Palestinian people who also live in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the
Diaspora. Arabic is their native
language, and they belong to different religious communities.
In 1947, the Palestinians
comprised about some
67% of the population of Palestine. As a direct
result of the establishment of the State of Israel, at least 780,000 of the
pre-1948 Palestinian population (based on UN statistics) were expelled or fled in fear of
massacres and became refugees in the Arab states and beyond. Palestinians were prohibited from
returning to their homeland, in violation of Article 13 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and UN General
Assembly Resolution 194. Furthermore, over five hundred Palestinian villages and
towns, as well as national infrastructure and institutions, were destroyed, and
Palestinian culture was repressedlost,
although Articles 1.2 of both the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) prohibits such
destruction. Of the 158,000
Palestinians who remained in the new state and became citizens, approximately
one-quarter were drivendisplaced
from their homes and villages, and became internally displaced personsrefugees. As a result of the war, the Palestinian
community populationin
Israel found itself severely weakened.
They lacked political as well as economic power, as their leadership,
professionals, bourgeoisie, and middle class were refused the right to return
and were compelled to live outside oftheir homeland. At the same time, in 1950, Israel passed the Law of
Return, which allows only Jews to immigrate freely to the state. This law is inis in
contradiction with Article 13 of the Concluding Observations of the Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) (December 1998) and Article 18 of the
Concluding Observations of the 52nd 52dSession
of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) (March 1998). Article 13 states:
“The Committee notes with
concern that the Law of Return, which permits any Jew from anywhere in the
world to immigrate and thereby virtually automatically enjoy residence and
obtain citizenship in Israel, discriminated against Palestinians in the
diaspora upon whom the Government of Israel has imposed restrictive
requirements that make it almost impossible to return to their land of birth.”
Further, although the UN Partition Plan (UN
Resolution 181) under which the State of Israel was established emphasized two
key factors - the protection of the national rights of the Palestinians and the
establishment of a separate Palestinian state - neither of these was were realized.
Two
legal systems were applied in Israel from 1948 to 1966 - civil and military., Tthe
Palestinians lived under a military rule, applied only to them, despite the fact that they were declared
citizens of the State. Military rule severely restricted
Palestinian fundamental civil liberties, including freedom of movement, speech,
and association. In 1956, the
Israeli army killed 49 Palestinian
farmers in Kufr Kasem forwho wer
“violating” the curfew. Unaware
that a curfew had been ordered, the farmers were returning home from working
their agricultural lands when they were killed. Israeli authorities also confiscated Palestinian-owned land
and other Palestinian resources en masse.
While the Jewish community in Palestine owned just 6-7% of the land
prior to 1948, the State has enacted a series of discriminatory laws in an
ongoing process to bring Palestinian-owned and Palestinian-held lands to State
ownership. Today, 93% of all land
in Israel iscomes under direct
State control.
Although military rule ended officially in 1966, some of its military rulepractices
continued, such as restrictions on civil
and political rights. In 1967,
one year after the government lifted military rule, Israel occupied the West
Bank (which includes East Jerusalem), Gaza Strip, Golan Heights of Syria and
the Sinai of Egypt. From this time
and throughout the early 1990s, Palestinian citizens of Israel began to focus their attention on what was
happening in the Occupied Territories. Concurrently, wWithin Israel, the Palestinians citizens fought for their national survival including; struggling to
remain in their homeland;,
protests over land confiscations; and long strikes by the mayors of Arab
municipalities because of lack of allocated budgets to provide basic services
to their villages. characterized
the Palestinian struggle in Israel. Of particular importance was
the call for a general strike in 1976 following a wave of land expropriations,
which were part of the governmental plan to “Judaize” the Galilee. Protests erupted in the Galilee, during
which Israeli security forces killed six Palestinian citizens and wounded
hundreds more. Land Day, as 30
March came to behas become
known, represents an important national collective struggle of the Palestinians
in Israel against land confiscation and dispossession.
During the late 1980s and
1990s, Palestinian citizens of Israel began to rebuild their national institutions, such as
associations and political parties, and their national identification as
Palestinians was reawakened. The
focus of the Palestinian minority in Israel on the situation in the Occupied
Territories increased with the outbreak of the first Intifada (1987-1993), and
further strengthenedshifted
in September 2000, when the second Intifada began. During streets demonstrations in early October 2000, called to express solidarity with the Palestinians in the
West Bank, and Gaza, Israeli police killed 13 Palestinian
citizens of Israel and injured
hundreds more throughout Israel. Security forces used
illegitimate policing methods such as shooting live ammunition, and consistently usedthe consistent use of
indiscriminate and excessive
force. Situations such as those in
Nazareth, in which police looked on and shot at Palestinians while hundreds of Jewish
citizens demonstrated and tens attacked Palestinian citizens and their property, make it clear
that this was a predetermined, official planpolicy
based not on fear, but on the national identity of the demonstrators.
In short, although
political rights such as freedom of expression and association were more
secured in the
1990s, Israel has
practiced systematic discrimination against Palestinian citizenss in most fields. Successive Israeli governments also attempted to suppress
Palestinian identity. To that end, the
Palestinians in Israel is not defined by the State as a national minority,
although this right is upheld in Article 27 of the ICCPRInternational Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and General Comment 23 of the 50th
Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (1994). Rather, Palestinian citizens of Israel are
referred to as “Israeli Arabs,” “non-Jews,” “minorities” or by region or
religious affiliation.
Although the Declaration of
the Independence of the State of Israel promised complete equality for all its
citizens, it refers specifically to Israel as a “Jewish state” committed to the
“ingathering of the exiles.”
Accordingly, the State of Israel has one people, one history, and one
collective memory - that of the Jewish people. In practice, this reference is used to justify racism and
discrimination against Palestinians in Israel in violation of Articles 2 and 5 of the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (ICERD). Convention of the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination This issue was raised in Article 10 of the Concluding Observations
of the CESCR Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (December 1998), which
states:
“The Committee expresses
concern that a [sic] excessive emphasis upon the State as a ‘Jewish State’
encourages discrimination and accords a second class status to its non-Jewish
citizens. The Committee notes with
concern that the Government of Israel does not accord equal rights to its Arab
citizens, even if they compromise over 19% of the total population of Israel. This discriminatory attitude is apparent
in the comparatively lower standard of living of the Israeli Arabs, as a result
inter alia of lack of access to housing, water, electricity and health
care and their lower level of education.
The Committee also notes with concern that despite the fact that Arabic
has official status, it is not given equal importance in practice.”
The phenomenon ofRacism
exists at almost every level of Israeli society. It is expressed by individuals and manifested in policies
pursued by official Israeli institutions, which contradicts Article 2.2 of the ICESCRInternational Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Articles 14
and 15 of the Concluding Observations of the 52nd 52dSession
of the CERDCommittee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (March 1998). No State institution has taken serious steps against
this phenomenon nor educated against it.
A main reason for its prevalence is that these institutions consistently
emphasize the State’s national-religious-ethnic character.
Israeli law also affords
legal status to several Zionist national bodies as quasi-governmental entities:
the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund, and the Jewish
Agency. The internal regulations
of these bodies, founded at the turn of the 20th century to further advance the
goals of the Zionist movement, explicitly aim to benefit Jews only. As the State cooperates and coordinates
many of its governmental functions with them, including matters related to
refugee and waqf (Islamic community) property; land development; the building of settlements for Jews only; religious, cultural and
educational activities; and some hospital and health-related services, the
needs of the Palestinian citizens are systematically disregarded, as indicated
in Article 11 of the Concluding Observations of the CESCRCommittee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (December 1998).
Issues faced by the
Palestinian minority
Legalized discrimination: Israel applies maintains20 majormain racist and discriminatory
laws that address such issues as citizenship; political participation; culture
and language; education; religious rights; and social, economic, and employment
rights. These laws emphasize the
ethnicity of the State as a Jewish State; give benefits or privileges solely to
the Jewish population; or impose restrictions on the civil and political rights
of the
Palestinians citizens because of their
national belonging or because they do not belong to the majority ethnic group. The Supreme Court of Israel has delivered several important decisions in
anti-discrimination cases involving the rights of women, gays & lesbians, the disabled
and other groups. However, the Court has moved very
slowly and conservatively in cases involving equal rights for Palestinian
citizens and only since the late 1990s. Further, the legal system shows great disparities in criminal cases
involving Palestinian and Jewish criminal defendants in areas such as
indictment, conviction and sentencing.
Inequity in political
participation: Although Palestinian Arab citizens have
the right to vote, to be elected to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), and to
elect their local councils, and although there are representatives of their
political parties serving in the Knesset, the right to full political
participation is restricted through discriminatory laws and parliamentary
regulations. Palestinians are
constrained in their ability to form political parties which explicitly or
implicitly deny the Jewish nature of the State, or, once elected, to present
legislation for consideration which challenges the Zionist character of the
State.
Uprooted villages: The establishment of the State of
Israel led to the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their
villages, of whom 45,000 remained inside the new state. They and their descendants, now
numbering 250,000, have not been permitted to return since. Hundreds of villages were destroyed and
military commanders were given absolute discretion to declare the lands thereof
as “closed areas,” thereby prohibiting individuals from entering or leaving
these areas without special permission.
The affected villages are known as “uprooted villages.” Their residents are known internationally
as internally displaced persons, and domestically as internal refugees orthe
uprooted, and they make up approximately one quarter of the Palestinian
population in Israel. Although the
Supreme Court recognized the right of the residents of three such villages to
return in the 1950s, successive governments prevented implement of these decisions
by declaring the lands of these villages “closed military areas.” This concern was reflected in Article
25 of the Concluding Observations of the CESCR
Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights(December 1998).
Unrecognized villages: Throughout the State, tens of villages
exist which are not recognized by the State, and in which approximately 100,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel(mostly Bedouin)
reside. Although most of these
villages existed prior to the establishment of the State, they became illegal when the lands on
which they sit were zoned retroactively as
non-residential and ownership was claimed by the State. These villages are afforded no official
status: they are excluded from governmental maps, have no local councils,
belong to no other local governing bodies, and receive little to no government
services such as electricity, water, telephone lines, or educational and health
facilities. The State officially
recognized nine such villages in the 1990s; however, few municipal
plans have been
completed to ensure that these villages have basic infrastructure or access to governmental or
other services. These concerns
were outlined in Articles 26 - 28 of the Concluding Observations of the CESCR Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights(December 1998).
Marginalization of the
Arabic language and culture:
Throughout the years, Israel has marginalized the Arabic language
although it is one of the official languages of the State. Even though Arabic is the native language
of 20% of the population and is the primary language spoken in the Middle East,
it is perceived as beinguseless and unimportant, and
governmental practices ignore its official status. In a few cases, the Supreme
Court has ordered the use of thatArabic in
addition to Hebrewbe used, but to date the Court has not issued a
declaratory statement, which requiresorders
the use of Arabic as an official language. In addition, the hegemony of one dominant group one dominant
culture is clearly evident, as state institutions, official
holidays, symbols and heroes are all exclusively Zionist-Jewish. This discrimination violates Article 27
of the ICCPR International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rightsand Article 15 of the ICESCRInternational Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Palestinian women: Palestinian women face multiple forms
of discrimination: that of Palestinians in the State of Israel, that of women
in the State, and that of women living in Palestinian society. They are restricted in access to health
care, as there are no public hospitals and few obstetric/gynecological services
available in Palestinian communities.
While the Ministry of Education has attempted to reduce gender
stereotypes in the text and curricula of Jewish schools, there have been no
parallel efforts for Arab schools.
Palestinian women also face a high risk of domestic violence - 25% of
Palestinian women are physically abused at least once in their lives - and the
State of Israel provides minimal resources to deal with such violence. They face discrimination in all aspects
of employment, including hiring, training and promotion. Further, those who work outside the
home face extreme wage discrepancies, and the majority earn less than the
national minimum wage. In short,
the social and economic welfare of Palestinian women is severely
compromised. These disparities
contradict several international standards, such as Articles 3, 10, 11, 12 and
14 of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women.
Inequity in the educational
system: The State Education Law
codifies the objectives of the governmental educational system, which serve
only to advance Jewish culture and Zionist ideology. No autonomous educational system, run by Palestinian
educators, was created for the Palestinian community to meet their needs as a
distinct group. Since the
establishment of the State, the government has maintained a consistent policy
of separate but unequal educational systems. This disparity contradicts numerous international standards,
such as the Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960); Article
5e(v) of the ICERDConvention of
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; Articles 5
and 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); and Article 13 of the ICESCRInternationalCovenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Housing:
Governmental housing policies in Israel were and continue to be set
mainly to absorb Jewish immigrants.
National and regional master plans designed by Israeli authorities doe
not take into account the specialhousing needs of the
Palestinian citizens of Israel. The Israeli government
prevents its Palestinian citizens from fully participating in the development
of criteria to determine housing policies for their own communities. Successive Israeli governments have
used legal and administrative measures to restrict building in Palestinian communities. Such probably primarily affect
Palestinian residents of mixed cities and unrecognized villages, although they
also impact those who live in recognized Arab communities. The State has recently stepped-up its demolition of “illegally” built Palestinian citizens’ homes, numbering almost 30,000, according to the Government. In contrast, the State has not taken any steps to demolish about 16,000 “illegal” structures in Jewish localities, and indeed has
begun proceedings to legalize the status of many of these buildings,
retroactively. the Arab sector. These policies and practices are in
violation of Article 19 of the ICERD.Convention of the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Discrimination in allocation of state resources to
Arab towns and villages: Arab municipalities and local councils receive a relatively
small share of the routine national budget allocations to local governing
authorities in Israel. According to 1998 Interior
Ministry data, Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories received NIS 2,910 per resident; Jewish
development towns received NIS 2,100; and Arab towns received only NIS 1,540. In addition, although Arab communities are the poorest in the state, almost all are arbitrarily
excluded from the
government’s National Priority Areas Program, which affords a wide-range of educational, tax, mortgage and
housing loan benefits. In
2000, after much pressure from Arab municipalities and the Palestinian
institution, the government
promised to allocate
NIS 4 billion to Arab municipalities, yet these funds still to date have
not been allocated. This sum is only a small fraction of what is needed
for infrastructure and other basic services to close spending gaps between Jewish and Arab communities in Israel.
Religious discrimination: Israel’s Palestinian population is
comprised primarily of Muslims, Christians, and Druze. Although each major religious grouping
in Israel - Muslims, Christian, Druze, and Jews - has holy sites located
throughout the country, Israeli laws and practices officially recognize only
Jewish religious sites as holy places, only Jewish holidays as official state
holidays, and only the needs of the Jewish religious community. A disproportionately small percentage
of the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ budget - less than 2% - is allocated to all the Palestinian religious communities
combined. In 2000, the Israeli
Supreme Court ordered the Ministry to distribute the cemetery budget “equally”
in the coming years; however, this adjustment hasstill not been
implemented to date. Such
discrimination violates Article 2 of the Declaration on the Elimination of All
Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion on Belief, as well
as Article 18 of the UDHRUniversal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Today, the struggle for Palestinian citizens of Israel
is for full and equal rights, both individual and collective, which includes
the recognition of their history, national memory, historical land claims,
their culture and their language, and the sharing of political power. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are
an integral part of the Palestinian people, who are entitled to
self-determination. This struggle
is compatible with international human rights principles, which ensure human
dignity and liberty for all peoples, as enumerated in UN human rights conventions such as the ICCPR; ICERD; ICESCR; CRC; International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights; Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination; the International Convenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, all
of which have been ratified by Israel.
Palestinian NGOs present
the following seven-point program to address racism and ethnic discrimination
in Israel. We call on the international
community to ensure that these concerns are addressed during the World
Conference Against Racism and reflected in conference documentation.
We call on the UN and its member states to take concrete
steps to ensure that the rights of all indigenous peoples and minorities are
protected by:
1. The development of a binding
international convention on the rights of indigenous peoples and persons
belonging to national or ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities based on
the UN Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the
Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious
or Linguistic Minorities.
2. The adoption of the Draft Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
We call on the State of
Israel to respect and implement its
international obligations regarding the promotion and protection ofprotect
the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. We also call on , andthe UN to take maximum measures to urge the State
of Israel toensure that the rights of Palestinian citizens are upheld by the State of Israels are protected
by:
3. Ending the Israeli occupation of the
Occupied Territories based on UN
Resolutions; and recognizing the right of Palestinian refugees to return, which was
enumerated in Article 13 of the UDHRUniversal
Declaration of Human Rights and was reaffirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
4. The repeal of all racist and discriminatory
laws.
5. The recognition ofthe Palestinian citizens of s in Israel as a
distinct national minority group based on Article 27 of the ICCPR; the
Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious
or Linguistic Minorities; and the International Labour Organisation Convention
107 of 1957. Palestinians are also
an indigenous group entitled to the recognition of their historical claims and
the receipt of compensation, as outlined in the Draft Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples.
6. The implementationfulfilment
of the recommendations and concluding comments regarding Israel issued byof UN human rights treaty bodies such as
the Commission on Human
Rights and the CESCR. These recommendations emphasize the
Palestinian citizens’ historical, collective and individual rights regarding
land and absentee property, and affirm the rights of the uprooted and the
residents of the unrecognised villages.
7. The provision of equal access to
resources of the State and civil equality, including affirmative action
policies, which recognize the
historical discrimination against the Palestinian minority.
P.O.Box 9577 Haifa 31095,
Tel: +972-4-8507250 , 8507110 Fax:
8507241 email: ittijah@ittijah.org