The Position Paper (H)On 9 March 2006, Adalah submitted a position paper to the Knesset’s Interior and Environment Committee, in response to a report issued by the Committee regarding the future of planning and building in Arab towns and villages in Israel. The first section of the position paper discusses the existing and historical planning injustices in Israel and their spatial and geographical consequences from the perspective of the Arab minority. In the second section, Adalah proposes a series of planning principles absent from the Committee’s report for the achievement of spatial equality and justice between Arab and Jewish citizens of the state. The position paper was prepared jointly by Adalah’s Urban and Regional Planner, Hana Hamdan, and Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara.
The Knesset’s Interior and Environment Committee issued its report, entitled “Summary Document: Planning and Building in the Arab Sector, in the Northern District, Haifa, the Center and the South,” on 15 February 2006. The document summarized Committee sessions held on the subject of “Planning and Building in Arab Towns,” attended by Adalah representatives, and put forward a number of related recommendations.
In the paper, regarding planning injustice, Adalah argued that successive Israeli governments have pursued a policy of discrimination towards Arab citizens of Israel and injustice in matters of land and planning, which ignores their socio-economic and spatial needs. Adalah further argued that this policy has created the following spatial conditions, which violate the basic rights of Arab citizens of Israel:
1. An unjust spatial and geographical division between Arab and Jewish local authorities, which has in turn led to infrastructural problems and shortages of land for development in the long and short terms in Arab towns and villages.
2. Racial segregation between Arab and Jewish citizens of the state, as a result of which there exist today Jewish-only towns in which Arab citizens are not permitted to live.
3. The existence of approximately 40 Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab (Negev) in the south of Israel which are unrecognized by the state, as well as entire unrecognized neighborhoods excluded from the official planning maps, for example, the old western neighborhood of Wadi Salami, and unplanned Arab neighborhoods in mixed cities, such as the neighborhood of Shanir in Led (Lod).
In light of the above, Adalah recommended that the Interior and Environment Committee adopt the following planning principles, which Adalah argued are necessary in order to rectify existing planning injustices and achieve spatial equality and justice for the Arab minority, and that the various planning authorities work in accordance with them:
1. Grant recognition to all of the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab and plan them according to the needs of their residents. The state and its various authorities are obliged to recognize these villages and to make serious efforts to find a complete and suitable planning solution for them, and thereby put an end to the hardships endured by their residents since the state’s establishment in 1948.
2. Recognize of the traditional land ownership customs of the Arab Bedouin in the south. Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel have lived in the Naqab in the south of Israel prior to the establishment of the state. The agreed-upon customs of land ownership were institutionalized according to social and traditional rules which developed over hundred of years. Therefore, it is appropriate for the state and its institutions to recognize these ownership customs.
3. Find a solution to the constraints of Arab neighborhoods in the mixed cities. A planning response must be provided for the needs of Arabs living in mixed cities. Such a response should take into consideration the social and cultural characteristics of Palestinian citizens.
4. Expand the areas of jurisdiction of Arab towns and villages. In order to create a solution to the existing shortage of land in Arab towns and villages, it is necessary to expand their jurisdictional areas, in accordance with the needs of each town and village.
5. Planning must take into account the “difference” of Arab citizens. Recommendation 9 of the Interior and Environment Committee’s Summary Document examines “fast-tracked” planning for Arab towns and villages. Fast-tracking, however, is only advantageous when planning takes into account the “difference” between Arab citizens of Israel and other population groups.
6. Arab citizens must participate in the planning process. Public participation in a planning process is a vital and even obligatory means of understanding and examining the needs of different population groups. Therefore, the planning authorities must include Arab citizens (men and women) in the various planning processes as an indispensable part of the process of making decisions which relate to the future and development of Arab towns and villages.
7. Arab citizens must have suitable representation within the planning authorities. Regional planning and building councils and regional and local planning committees determine the future planning and spatial development of Arab towns and villages. Therefore, suitable representation for Arab citizens must be guaranteed within the various planning authorities to ensure proper and suitable representation of their needs and views.
8. Arab citizens must enjoy “the right to choose.” The “urban” situation of the Arab minority generally provides a single residential option: living in a space which is beset by underdeveloped infrastructure and restricted economic development, and which has extremely limited potential for future development. In this situation, Arab citizens cannot exercise their “right to choose” between various residential options (urban, rural, rural cooperative, etc,), as Jewish citizens can. Therefore, when deliberating over the idea of “the establishment of an Arab town” (Recommendation 10 of the Interior and Environment Committee’s Summary Document), the Committee must conduct a serious examination of Arab citizens’ residential needs, define the planning goals and guarantee the full participation of Arab citizens in the planning process.