PRESS RELEASE
25 October 2011

On 17 October 2011, Adalah submitted a new NGO report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ("the Committee") to assist it in upcoming review of Israel, to take place in Geneva on 16-17 November 2011. The Committee monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which Israel ratified in 1991. During the review session, the Committee will consider Israel's report of July 2010, as well as information provided to it by Adalah and other local and international NGOs. Adalah Attorney SawsanZaher will participate in the session during the review in Geneva.

Adalah's report discusses the economic, social and cultural rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, and details Israel's violations of the ICESCR. It responds directly to a series of questions that the Committee posed to Israel following its preliminary review in November 2010.Among the issues covered in Adalah's report are:  

Land and property rights

• The ongoing denial of the right of internally-displaced Arab citizens of Israel from the destroyed villages of Iqrit and Bir’im to return to their original homes, along with hundreds of thousands of other internally-displaced refugees, and the sale of their land.
• A raft of newly-enacted legislation that has left Arab citizens of Israel with even fewer land resources in Israel, by legalizing “individual settlements” in the Naqab (Negev), authorizing “admissions committees” to screen applicants to hundreds of towns in Israel based on “social suitability”, and preventingArab citizens from bequeathing their land to their Palestinian relatives abroad, even to the original owners of the land.

The Arab Bedouin in the Naqab

• The government’s approval of the Prawer report, which will forcibly displace over 40,000 Arab Bedouin from their villages in the Naqab and dispossess them of their ancestral land.
• Widespread poverty, high unemployment and illiteracy, and poor health indicators among Arab Bedouin women in the Naqab.
• The delayed elections to the Abu Basma Regional Council in the Naqab.

Employment and education

• The ongoing lack of appropriate Arab representation in the civil service, particularly among Arab women citizens of Israel.
• The lower wage rates and higher poverty rates among Arab citizens of Israel.
• The high drop-out rate of Arab children from school, especially Arab Bedouin youth, and the inadequate level of state investment to solve the problem.

Language and religious rights

• The minimal use of the Arabic language within and by Israeli public institutions, and a new legislative bill that wouldcancel the official status of Arabic through a new basic law – Basic Law: State of the Jewish Nation.
• The lack of protection provided to Muslim holy sites, and the recent use of the grounds of the Big Mosque in Beer al-Sabe (Be’erSheva) as the site of a wine and beer festival, in flagrant disregard of Islamic law.

Adalah's new NGO report to the Committee.

Previous NGO report sent by Adalah to the Committee.

More information on the ICESCR, Israel's State Report, and other NGO reports submitted to the Committee.