Press Release

ADALAH PRESS RELEASE
13 February 2011

NEW REPORT: The EU Should Pursue an Enhanced and Proactive Rights-Based Strategy towards the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel

In 2005, the EU and Israel committed to engage in a bilateral political dialogue and to cooperate to “promote and protect rights of minorities, including enhancing political, economic, social and cultural opportunities for all citizens and lawful residents.”

Five years later, however, the situation of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel has further deteriorated with a flood of discriminatory legislation that targets their basic citizenship rights, rampant anti-Arab racism throughout the country, and attacks, including criminal indictments, against Arab political leaders for their legitimate political activities. 

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), a network of 80 human rights organizations in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, together with member organizations Adalah and the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), have published a new report, “The EU and the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel”. This report is the first to examine EU policies toward the Arab minority in Israel in detail and to make a series of concrete recommendations to the EU for an enhanced and proactive rights-based strategy towards the minority.

The report argues that the EU should insist on the protection of minority rights in Israel, as it does in eastern neighbouring countries and in accession countries where the EU has considered it critical to regional stability and security. 

The report further argues that the EU should view the Palestinian Arab minority through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its effect and impact on internal and regional stability. To date, the EU and the rest of the international community has tended to sideline any direct discussion on the minority in the context of the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP). However, the minority is inherently tied to the core issues discussed in the framework of the MEPP – future borders, the refugees, the character of Israel – and will be deeply affected by its outcomes. With the exacerbation of the conflict following the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Israeli governments have increasingly viewed the Palestinian Arab minority as a threat or as an enemy within, and have taken drastic legislative and other measures to impose substantial limitations on their rights. They have also insisted that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”, which would inevitably undermine the citizenship status of Arab citizens of Israel, and officials have even proposed an exchange of some of the Arab population from Israel to a future Palestinian state. Polls show that around 90% of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel surveyed were opposed to such a step. 

Among the recommendations made in the report are that the EU should: 

  1. Publicly support and promote the full and equal citizenship and minority rights of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. The EU should work to ensure that their rights and citizenship in Israel be fully guaranteed under any agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinians;  
  2. Raise its concerns regarding the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel at the highest political level, as well as in all bilateral relations with Israel; 
  3. Ensure that appropriate EU assistance funds are devoted to the Arab minority, and that the minority benefits from Israel's participation in joint research and study programmes;
  4. Condition the upgrade of its relations with Israel, including any new bilateral agreement, on tangible improvements in the human rights situation in the OPT and in Israel.

 

The report was written by expert researcher Dr. Nathalie Tocci with contributions by Nathalie Stanus of the EMHRN, Rina Jabareen and Katie Hesketh of Adalah, and Mohammed Zeidan, the Director of the HRA. 

The human rights organizations launched the report in Brussels to a group of EU officials and EU parliamentarians during the week of 7 February. The report will be presented in Israel during the week of 14 February to representatives of the EU delegation to Israel and embassies of EU member states, civil society organizations, and journalists.  

 

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