From the Margins to the Extreme Margins

The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) has been publishing annual reports for the last three years, documenting some of the violations of human rights of Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel and tracking the official policy of Israel and its institutions throughout the year towards the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel.  Our third annual report hereby presented portrays a typical picture of racial discrimination, which has become entrenched in official and legal policy, and has become an extremely dangerous practice and the legal basis that establishes relations between the state and its Jewish majority towards the Palestinian Arab minority.

With the racist discourse moving from the margins to the center, and from the exception to the norm, we are seeing an escalation of the "demographic" discourse, which no longer remains within the confines of the marginal racist political parties, but has become a law, legitimized by most of the Jewish political parties and approved of by them. Such was the case of the amendments to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (temporary order) 5763-2003, which constitutes a blatant interference in a person's basic right to start a family and choose a partner and have children in their homeland.  Likewise, last year, the state and its institutions continued to use "security" as an excuse to give legitimacy to all of the prohibitions and severe violations of human rights, from political persecution, through uprooting families and separating parents from their children to political arrests and the prohibition against visits to Arab and other countries.

In 2006 we also witnessed the continued policy of land appropriation and choking the Arab villages and cities and preventing their development, along with an increase in the demolition of Arab houses in the Galilee, the Triangle, the Nakab (Negev) and in the mixed cities.  Meanwhile, the state and its planning institutions prepared all of the plans and designs to complete the process of Judaization, whose purpose is to change the demographic makeup by a plan to "develop the Negev and Galilee." All of the government ministries treat this plan as a national plan, with a budget of millions of dollars, to encourage the establishment of Jewish settlements on extensive areas, while tightening the stranglehold of the Arab villages and closing their residents in settlements devoid of the basic means of survival and development.  The Arab villages suffer from planning problems and a lack of infrastructures and are threatened by demolition and evacuation, besides being denied the right to receive drinking water and basic services.

We also witnessed in 2006 the Israeli war on Lebanon that exposed, besides the brutal aggression against the citizens of Lebanon, the discrimination against Arab citizens in many areas, the most salient of which is the acute shortage of bomb shelters, to the point of their nonexistence in most Arab villages, and the absence of safety and emergency rooms as well as the absence of alarm systems and information materials for the Arab citizens.  All that is in addition to the incitement by the Hebrew press against the Arab citizens during and after the war and its disregard for the heavy price paid by those citizens, both in lives and in property.

On the civilian level, in 2006 racist expressions by the Jewish majority against Arab citizens increased.  Polls showed increased support for the idea of "transfer" of the Arabs away from Israel (62%), while more than 40% support racial segregation.  Those findings are the result of the official policy and the general atmosphere, reflected in the increased representation of extreme Jewish parties in the last Knesset elections and their subsequent inclusion in the government coalition, which enables them to spread their venomous racist ideas against the Arab citizens in the framework of their official missions and roles as ministers.  This has opened the door to other parties and legislators from different camps to compete with each other over racist suggestions for the Arab citizens by proposing many laws that define the Arabs as a "fifth column" and "enemies of the state."

The report follows with concern physical attacks on Arab citizens by members of the police, without any justification and without the assaulting policemen being punished, in an extension of the treatment of Arab citizens as "enemies," as noted by the Orr commission in its report, where it called for putting an end to that attitude.  It appears that this appalling phenomenon has also opened the way to Jewish citizens to continue physically attacking and using violence against Arab citizens out of racist motives, as this report notes in many cases.

In addition, the report stresses that in 2006 the violation of Moslem holy sites continued, including the violation of mosques and cemeteries, in addition to the violation of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, in an offense to human and religious values, engendering an atmosphere of hatred, hostility and violence.

Upon the publication of its third annual report, the HRA clearly notes the increase in racism and the policy of discrimination in various areas of life against the Arab citizens of Israel, indicating the failure of the various governments to treat this dangerous plague.  The report notes that the current government justifies these activities and defends their perpetrators on the official and public level, creating the legal and political atmosphere that supports the continuation of those activities.  The HRA also stresses that the government of Israel bears full responsibility for the increase in discrimination on the Israeli streets and in its official institutions, creating an atmosphere of hatred and hostility, which has been reflected by the use of violence and direct attacks, leading to a new era in which discrimination and racism have spilled over into the realm of fascist actions.

While the HRA notes the dangerous deterioration in the area of the violation of human rights, it must note that the international community is neglecting to fulfill its role in this matter, which is to force Israel to respect the human and international standards of human rights, and stresses that the international disregard for the dangerous violations occurring in the occupied territories and Israel constitutes complicity in the moral and legal responsibility for the continuation and escalation of those violations.  Therefore, the HRA calls on the international community to take action to provide the necessary tools of oversight and control to protect citizens and members of the minority from the rule of the state and the majority, to defend human rights and act to enforce them.

 

 

Sincerely,

Muhammed Zeidan, Director

The Arab Association for Human Rights
22/6/2007