11 December 2007

On 10 December 2007, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) published its annual report – State of Human Rights Report – 2007. The report reviews the human rights situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories over the year. As always, this year’s report includes an entire chapter examining the human rights situation of the Palestinian minority in Israel.

The chapter relating to the Palestinian minority paints a depressing picture, detailing the worsening nature of human rights violations. These violations are reflected in diverse areas:

• A constant rise in the level of racism against the Arab population among Jewish citizens;
• Repeated attempts to emphasize and reinforce the Jewish character of the state;
• Racist legislation that seeks to exclude the Arab citizens from equal participation in use of state lands, or to prevent family unification between Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories;
• Racist and discriminatory treatment of Arab citizens during security checks at Israeli airports (as detailed in Suspected Citizens, a report of the Arab Association for Human Rights);
• The political persecution of the Arab population by the General Security Service, not on the basis of suspected involvement in actions liable to injure state security but for expressing views that differ from the dominant Jewish consensus, or merely for proposing alternative frameworks for the relations between the state, the Jewish public, and the Arab citizens;
• Discrimination in budgets for the rehabilitation of the north of Israel following the Second Lebanon War, despite the fact that 40 percent of the civilians who were killed during the war in Israel were Arab citizens, and that the Arab communities were badly damaged during the war (see Civilians in Danger, a report of the Arab Association for Human Rights);
• The refusal to recognize Bedouin villages in the Negev, to ensure planning and municipal functions, and to provide basic rights and services, such as connection to the water and electric grids, alongside the increased scope of house demolitions during 2007.
  

The ACRI report emphasizes the violations of the rights of the Palestinian minority in Israel. These violations were also discussed in last year’s annual report, under the heading: Living on the Margins: The Annual Report on the Violation of the Rights of the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel, 2006.

Click here to read the English version of the ACRI report.