COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION CONCLUDES SEVENTIETH SESSION | Concluding Observations and Recommendations on Country Reports ... Israel | 9 March 2007

Issues Concluding Observations on Reports of Canada, Israel, India, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Liechtenstein, Antigua and Barbuda and Czech Republic

Having considered the tenth to thirteenth periodic reports of Israel, the Committee noted with satisfaction the domestic legislation implementing article 4 of the Convention (on racial propaganda and racist organizations). It also welcomed affirmative action programmes to ensure better representation of minority groups in the civil service and within government-owned corporations. The Committee noted with satisfaction that for the first time an Arab Israeli citizen has been appointed to the Cabinet. Furthermore, it welcomed the enactment of the Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry into Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law (2000), and noted with appreciation that the civil service sector had taken steps to accommodate the different cultural and religious traditions and practices of minority employees at work. Finally, the Committee welcomed Israel's efforts to improve the status of Arabic language, in particular steps taken to add Arabic to all existing intercity and highway sign roads.

The Committee noted with concern that the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) of May 2003 suspended the granting of citizenship and residence permits in Israel, including through family reunification, to residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, except in limited exceptions. Such measures had a disproportionate impact on Arab Israeli citizens, and the Committee was concerned that those "temporary" measures had systematically been renewed, and had been expanded to citizens of "enemy States". The Committee recommended that Israel assess the extent to which the maintenance of separate Arab and Jewish "sectors" might amount to racial segregation. Mixed Arab-Jewish communities and schools should be promoted and strong action taken to promote intercultural education. Israel should also assess the extent to which the alleged discriminatory attitudes by employers against Arabs, scarcity of jobs near Arab communities, and lack of day care centres in Arab villages were a cause of high unemployment rates among Arabs. The Committee further noted with concern information according to which a high number of complaints filed by Arab Israeli citizens against law enforcement officers were not properly and effectively investigated and that the Ministry of Justice's Police Investigations Unit lacked independence. The Committee recommended that Israel consider the establishment of a national mechanism for redress of racial discrimination either as a specialized agency on racial discrimination or a national human rights institution in accordance with the Paris Principles.

The Committee reiterated its concern about Israel's position that the Convention did not apply in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights. Such a position could not be sustained under the Convention or under international law. The Committee was further concerned at Israel's assertion that it could legitimately distinguish between Israelis and Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories on the basis of citizenship. The Committee recommended that Israel cease construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, dismantle that structure, and make reparation for all damage caused. It also recommended that Israel take action to give full effect to the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Committee was deeply concerned that the severe restrictions on the freedom of movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories targeting a particular national or ethnic group had created hardship and had had a highly detrimental impact on the enjoyment of human rights by Palestinians, in particular their rights to freedom of movement, family life, work, education and health. The Committee also reiterated its call for a halt to the demolition of Arab properties, particularly in East Jerusalem, and for respect for property rights irrespective of the ethnic or national origin of the owner. Finally, the Committee urged Israel to ensure that the excavations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in no way endangered the Mosque or impeded access to it.
- posted by Editor @ 11:59 AM

Red Cross Report Says Israel Disregards Humanitarian Law | By STEVEN ERLANGER | Published: May 15, 2007 ... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/world/middleeast/15jerusalem.html

JERUSALEM, May 14 — The International Committee of the Red Cross, in a confidential report about East Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, accuses Israel of a “general disregard” for “its obligations under international humanitarian law — and the law of occupation in particular.”

The committee, which does not accept Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, says Israel is using its rights as an occupying power under international law “in order to further its own interests or those of its own population to the detriment of the population of the occupied territory.”

With the construction of the separation barrier, the establishment of an outer ring of Jewish settlements beyond the expanded municipal boundaries and the creation of a dense road network linking the different Israeli neighborhoods and settlements in and outside Jerusalem, the report says, Israel is “reshaping the development of the Jerusalem metropolitan area” with “far-reaching humanitarian consequences.” Those include the increasing isolation of Palestinians living in Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and the increasing difficulty for some Palestinians to easily reach Jerusalem’s schools and hospitals.

The Red Cross committee, which is recognized as a guardian of humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, does not publish its reports but provides them in confidence to the parties involved and to a small number of countries. This report was provided to The New York Times by someone outside the organization who wanted the report’s conclusions publicized. The leak came just days before Israel’s celebration of Jerusalem Day this Wednesday, observing the 40th anniversary of the unification of the city. ...
- posted by Editor @ 8:25 AM

Invisible Palestinians Exist in Legal Limbo in Lebanon | By NADA BAKRI | Published: May 6, 2007

BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 5 — Three generations of the Hamdallah family have lived in Lebanon. And for three generations not a single member of the family has been allowed to graduate from school, legally marry, or hold a job, or even set foot outside of the rundown camps that have been home to generations of Palestinians.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimates that more than 400,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon — refugees, their children and their children’s children — all denied many basic rights in their adopted homeland on the Mediterranean.
...
Palestinian refugees have been denied citizenship in Lebanon for years, and they are prohibited from practicing more than 70 professions. The Lebanese government has insisted that the plight of the refugees should not be settled at the expense of host nations, and it has made clear that it eventually wants the Palestinians to go back to Israel after a settlement with that government.

At the heart of that policy lies the fear that the refugees could upset Lebanon’s already complicated and tenuous power-sharing system, based on ethnic and sectarian affiliation. Because most Palestinians are Sunni Muslims, nationalizing them would throw the power balance to Sunnis. ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:12 AM

Israel 'routinely tortures prisoners' | By Steve Weizman in Jerusalem | Published: 07 May 2007

Israel's Shin Bet security service tortures Palestinian prisoners during interrogations in defiance of a 1999 court ruling outlawing such practices, two of the country's human rights groups said yesterday.

Interrogators beat suspects, shackle them in painful, contorted positions and deprive them of sleep for long periods, according to the 96-page report,Absolutely Forbidden, by B'Tselem and The Centre for the Defence of the Individual.

The Justice Ministry said interrogations were carried out within the law and described the report as badly flawed.

Israel's Supreme Court outlawed in 1999 what the Shin Bet called "moderate physical pressure", such as exposure to extreme temperatures and tying up detainees in painful positions.

The new report is based on affidavits from 73 Palestinians who were detained between July 2005 and January last year.

One man, aged 29, identified as A Z, says his captors made him arch his back over a bench with his hands and legs joined in what prisoners call "the banana position". He says: "They brought a chain and used it to hook together the handcuffs and leg shackles. The way this made my body stretch was unbearable. Then the interrogators lifted the bench from both ends and dropped it suddenly ... I lost consciousness." ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:08 AM

Abolish the JNF | by Uri Avnery | April 21, 2007 | Gush Shalom

What would we say if an American institution, holding a seventh of all the land in the United States, adopted statutes that allowed it to sell or rent land only to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants?

We would not believe it. And it is, indeed, impossible.

But that's the way things are in Israel. This us now the subject of a stormy public debate.

These are the facts: The Jewish National Fund (in Hebrew Keren Kayemet le-Israel - KKL) holds 13% of all the land in Israel. Its statutes explicitly prohibit the sale or rental of land to non-Jews. This means that every Jew in the world, living anywhere from Timbuktu to Kamchatka, can get land from the KKL, without even coming to Israel, while an Arab citizen of Israel, whose forefathers have lived here for hundreds - or even thousands - of years, cannot acquire a house or an apartment on its land.

The debate arose after a recent ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court which proscribed discrimination between citizens in the distribution of land. On the strength of this, the KKL has been sued. Now the Attorney General has decided that the Government cannot discriminate against Arab citizens, even while distributing land belonging to the KKL.

This is all very nice, but there is a "but". The best legal brains looked for a way out: How to keep the discrimination alive in spite of the court's decision? No Problem. The Attorney General simply proposes that for every dunam (1000 square meters, a Turkish measure still applied in Israel) that the KKL will have to distribute - God forbid - to Arabs, the government will compensate it with another dunam somewhere else. The alternative land will be in the "peripheral" areas, the Negev and the Galilee, where it is much more profitable. And for good measure, the government will guarantee that the annual revenues of the KKL will reach half a billion Shekels. Thus the cake will be divided but remain whole.

The KKL, by the way, appoints almost half the directors of the "Israel Land Authority", the government body that is in charge of all state-owned land in Israel.

In this situation, 20% of the citizens of Israel are denied the right to buy a home in large parts of the country, while this right is enjoyed by Jews living in Brooklyn and Odessa. ...
- posted by Editor @ 5:44 PM