The remnants of a demolished home in the Arab locality of Qalansawa.

The Arab community in Israel has suffered from discrimination in planning and housing for decades as a result of the state’s refusal to provide detailed and formal planning solutions to Arab localities. In 2015 the Knesset passed Government Decision 922, the “Economic Development Plan for the Arab Sector 2010-2016.” Although the Decision was heralded as a victory, it did not adequately compensate for decades of state neglect, including in the realm of housing and planning. Similarly, the Ministry of Housing’s state budget for the coming year does not allocate sufficient funds for addressing the disparities between Jewish and Arab citizens.

The State of Israel has allocated lands and provided planning services for over six hundred Jewish localities since its establishment in 1948, yet it has not created a single Arab locality, aside from the seven that it established to concentrate the Arab Bedouin community in the south. With the Arab community having increased sixteen-fold since the establishment of the state, this has resulted in severe overcrowding. The state’s unwillingness to approve master plans for Arab localities and distribute building permits has given rise to a housing shortage in Arab localities, as well, leaving many with no option other than to build and inhabit homes without legal permits. Approximately 50,000 Arab families live in such homes and, thereby, live under constant threat of being fined, being arrested, or having their home demolished. With the passage of the Kaminitz Law in 2017, the legal consequences facing such families have worsened.

The state’s unwillingness to allocate land to Arab communities also undermines the ability of Arab localities to develop infrastructurally and expand to accommodate their growing populations. As a result of overcrowding in Arab localities, many families are forced leave their communities to move to mixed cities such as Haifa, Nazareth Illit, Carmiel, Be’er Sheva, and Afula. The Ministry of Housing has allocated 66,211 million NIS for the construction of new neighborhoods in 2019. This amount, however, is not nearly enough to accommodate the growing Arab populations in these neighborhoods or compensate for the historical neglect of Arab neighborhoods. 

The government’s double-standard in its approach to providing housing for Arab communities is readily apparent in the case of Neve Tamarim in the Negev. Having received approval from the National Planning Committee, the construction of this high-income, Jewish locality, which will hold 2,070 housing units, will begin shortly. Meanwhile, the state has refused to recognize thirty-five Arab Bedouin villages in the same area, despite the fact that they predate the establishment of the state of Israel and their residents have sought legal recognition for decades. One such village is Umm al-Hiran, which the state intends to demolish completely to construct a “Jewish only” locality in its stead. The case of the Jewish locality, Shivolet, also sheds light on the state’s inequitable approach to land administration and planning. Despite an initial decision to establish the settlement elsewhere, it will be built on land expropriated from the overcrowded Arab village of Tur’an in the Galilee.

During the Arab Center for Alternative Planning’s annual conference on land and housing in the Arab community, which was organized in cooperation with the Mossawa Center, the aforementioned issues, as well as possible solutions, were discussed in depth. While the precarious situation of the Arab community was mainly attributed to the government’s systematic discrimination, conference speakers emphasized the importance of community involvement in effecting change. The director of the Mossawa Center, Jafar Farah, posited that internal solidarity and trust are central to resolving housing and infrastructural problems in Arab communities. The community itself, he continued, must collectively resist discrimination in order to achieve adequate solutions.

Over the coming weeks, the Mossawa Center will distribute the full report on the Ministry of Housing’s 2019 budget to Arab localities, civil society actors, and members of the Knesset so that they may use it as a tool to advocate for more equitable budgeting. The full report in Arabic can be found here. The full report in Hebrew can be found here. During the last weeks of December and the first week of January, the Mossawa Center will publish three more reports on industrial zones, the Mossawa Center’s recommendations for the Haifa municipality, and the 2019 state budget. English summaries of each report will be posted on the Mossawa Center’s English website under “News.” For more information, please contact [email protected].