Israeli Arab finds no welcome mat in Jewish town
(Reuters)
20 January 2004

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BAKA AL GHARBIYA, Israel - By now Adel Kadaan was sure
he would be living in the house of his dreams - nine
years after responding to an advertisement for a plot
of land in Israel.

But the dream has turned into a nightmare for the
Israeli Arab nurse, who blames prejudice for the delay
in moving from the rundown Arab town of Baka Al
Gharbiya to the more modern Jewish suburb of Katzir in
northern Israel.

The saga began back in 1995, when Jewish officials in
Katzir summarily rejected Kadaan’s housing
application. “Let’s be frank, we don’t accept Arabs
here,” Kadaan quoted one of the officials as telling
him.

Ari Gilad, chairman of the Katzir Residents’
Committee, declined to comment, saying the case was
still in the courts.

Landmark ruling

In a landmark decision in 2000, Israel’s Supreme Court
ruled that no community in the country was entitled to
deny Arabs residence on the basis of ethnic identity.

Arabs comprise about 20 percent of Israel’s population
and have long complained about discrimination,
including a paucity of funds for housing and
education.

Despite the court’s decision, Kadaan does not appear
to be any closer to purchasing the plot of land he
wanted in Katzir, where local officials have blocked
his way with bureaucracy.

Katzir officials said they had a right to interview
applicants for residency. Kadaan was told his wife
Iman, a schoolteacher, wouldn’t fit in.

He subsequently produced yet another court order, and
a battle began over which plot he could buy and the
price, which had jumped from $15,000 when he initially
applied to $100,000.

“Just like it took me 10 years to win a (court)
decision, I guess it’s going to take another 10 until
that decision is carried out,” 47-year-old Kadaan told
Reuters. “They’re just worried that more Arabs will
move in once I do.”

Michael Jankelewitz, a spokesman for the
quasi-governmental Jewish Agency which helped to
finance Katzir, accused Kadaan of seeking to move
there solely “to make a political point” in a
community intended as a Jewish township.

Jewish-Arab ties severely strained

Kadaan’s housing difficulty is one of many examples of
the obstacles facing efforts to achieve coexistence.

Relations have been severely strained by a
three-year-old Palestinian uprising in the occupied
territories, and hit a low in October 2000 when
Israeli police shot dead 13 Israeli Arabs while
quelling protests staged in solidarity with it.

A judicial inquiry into the shootings accused police
of using excessive force and warned of increasing
alienation of the Arab community.

Israelis, in turn, grew openly more suspicious of
fellow Arab citizens after some were caught helping
Palestinians get past roadblocks to stage suicide bomb
attacks in Israel, though few Israeli Arabs have
themselves been involved in violence.

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked new anger
in December by calling Israeli Arabs a worse
“demographic problem” than the Palestinians, citing
that their growing numbers could transform Israel from
a Jewish to a bi-national state.

“Soon they will start spraying us with spermicide,” to
keep down the birth rate, Israeli Arab legislator
Ahmed Tibi said in response to Netanyahu’s remarks.

A few mixed Jewish-Arab neighbourhoods

Few Jews and Arabs choose to live alongside one
another in Israel, although there are some mixed
Jewish-Arab neighbourhoods in cities such as Haifa,
Acre, Jerusalem and Nazareth, where integration
predated the foundation of the state in 1948.

But few Arabs live with Jews in the towns and communal
farms built since then, and virtually all their
children attend separate school systems.

Integration is particularly anathema to places like
Katzir, one of a string of communities built to boost
the Jewish population in the north, where Arabs far
outnumber Jews.

Katzir, a fenced-in hilltop community with a
fortress-like aura, is surrounded by Israeli Arab
villages. And while some local Arabs have moved into a
lower-income section of Katzir, none has been welcomed
in the up market area where Kadaan wants to live.

“Some people here are paranoid, they are suspicious
and afraid that (Arabs) would seek to take over the
community,” said 35-year-old Asnat Riffkin of Katzir.

Riffkin, a mother of four, is involved in efforts to
start an integrated Jewish-Arab school, yet she fears
that by forcing the community to accept an Arab
resident, the courts would stir only more resentment.

Kadaan sees few options for lifestyle improvement
other than moving from Baka Al Gharbiya, a neglected
town of 20,000.

“We don’t have the most elementary of services here,
no parks, not even a sidewalk,” Kadaan said. “I cannot
rectify the discrimination all on my own and in the
meantime the clock is ticking for me and my family.
Why shouldn’t I have the right to live wherever I
choose?”



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