UN human rights expert finds ‘persistent systemic discrimination and segregation in accessing the right to housing for Palestinian citizens/residents in Israel and the West Bank’
The UN Special Rapporteur (SR) on Adequate Housing, Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal, published a report on discrimination in the context of housing worldwide in October 2021. This report is the first of two interrelated thematic reports that he intends to publish on this subject. Next month, in March 2022, he will present his second report on spatial segregation to the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Regarding Israel and the occupied West Bank, the SR expressed his grave concern about “the persistent systemic discrimination and segregation in accessing the right to housing experienced and reported by particular vulnerable groups, particularly … Palestinian citizens/residents in Israel and the West Bank” (para. 54).
He also emphasized that in Israel, “judicial interventions have contributed substantially to the creation and maintenance of discrimination” (para. 72), citing submissions made by Adalah and Badil, and a 2018 book entitled, “Emptied Lands: A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights.”
In response to the SR’s Report, Adalah’s Legal Director, Attorney Suhad Bishara stated:
“Adalah welcomes the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing in tackling the long-lasting systematic policies and practices of spatial segregation enforced by the State of Israel between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel within Israel. The report is of great importance at this time following the constitutionalization of segregation through the enactment of the 2018 Basic Law: Israel – The Nation-State of the Jewish People. This Law enshrined “Jewish settlement” as a constitutional value, providing that the State will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation, and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s recent statements emphasizing the need to expand mechanisms that will advance Judaization processes.”
In June 2021, Adalah submitted its report on "Spatial Segregation in Israel," in response to the SR’s call for inputs to inform his upcoming thematic reports to the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly on spatial segregation.
Adalah’s report focuses on the main systematic policies and practices of spatial segregation initiated and enforced by the State of Israel between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish Israelis. The report first reviews laws, policies, and practices that created, and continue to maintain, spatial segregation that affects all Palestinian citizens of Israel. The report then considers the specific case of Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab (Negev), with an emphasis on policies and practices of spatial segregation enforced to maintain separation between the Bedouins and Jewish Israeli citizens in that area. The report concludes with six recommendations for the SR including to raise serious concerns about segregation between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in communications to the highest levels of the Government of Israel; and to urge the Government of Israel to immediately halt and reverse multiple serious and systematic violations of international human rights law in relation to, e.g., the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law, state denial of recognition to Bedouin villages in the Naqab, state empowerment of Zionist organizations to operate with quasi-state powers, the Admissions Committees’ Law and chronic overcrowding in Arab towns and villages in Israel.
According to the SR’s research, “discrimination in housing continues to be one of the most pervasive and persistent barriers to the fulfillment of the right to adequate housing” globally. This problem includes the lack of “equal and non-discriminatory access to private and public housing, to building land, housing for rental, mortgages and credit and inheritance, ensuring equal security of tenure, protection against evictions, habitability, equal and affordable access to public services, such as water and sanitation, energy, public transport and others.” He also emphasizes a “strong correlation between housing discrimination and environmental health and physical security, access to employment, schooling, and health care.” Notably “racial and ethnic groups and minorities” are particularly affected by discrimination in relation to the right to adequate housing. The report concludes with 11 key recommendations to States, public authorities and private housing providers to ensure non-discrimination in housing, including regulation and anti-discrimination legislation and access to justice and remedies through judicial mechanisms for victims.
