Israeli Arabs Face Red Tape When Leasing JNF Land
source:
Haaretz, Dec 23, 2013
Arab citizens who buy apartments on JNF-owned land have a hard time registering their properties, residents say.
Despite state assurances to the contrary, Arab citizens of Israel who buy apartments on land owned by the Jewish National Fund are still having a hard time registering their homes in the Land Registry (Tabu), Arab residents of Carmiel claim.
Nizar Bakri and his brother Qassem both bought apartments in a Carmiel building three years ago and began the process of having the property registered in their names. To their chagrin, while their Jewish neighbors had no problem completing the process in a timely fashion, their apartments have yet to be registered.
The Israel Lands Authority makes no bones about the reason. In a letter Bakri received from the ILA, the agency writes: “At issue is a minority lessee and the land on which the apartments are built belongs to the Jewish National Fund, and there is a need to implement a swap between the authorities. There has been a request to execute what was requested but it will take considerable time.”
The source of the problem is that the fact that the JNF insists that its lands be sold only to Jews, since historically its lands were purchased with money from Jewish donors for the purpose of settling Jews in the Land of Israel.
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High Court Upholds Residential Screening Law, Enabling Jewish Villages to Keep Arabs Out
Source:
Haaretz, Sep 18, 2014
Rights groups say legislation, which allows small communities to screen potential members, promotes racism and discrimination.
The High Court of Justice on Wednesday narrowly upheld a law allowing small communities to screen potential new members via admissions committees.
In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the petition filed against the law by several Fhuman rights organizations was premature, because “it isn’t yet clear how the law will be applied in practice.”
“The High Court has approved one of the most racist laws of the past several years,” charged Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which was one of the petitioners. “It was legislated by a majority of the Knesset with the declared intent, primarily, of keeping Arab citizens out of these communities.”
The law, which was passed in March 2011, allows small communities to set up admissions committees to screen potential new members based on criteria laid down in the community’s bylaws. Such committees have been standard practice in small communities for decades, but until this law was passed, they had no legal basis.
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