Supreme Court Orders Government to Provide Urban Renewal Program According to Needs of Arab Towns

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled on a petition submitted in January 2000 by Adalah, on behalf of the National Committee of Arab Mayors, regarding the government’s discriminatory implementation of the Urban Renewal Programs (URP). The URP is administered by the Ministry of Housing and Building, and deals with the development of infrastructure, education and other social issues. Since its establishment in 1977, 56 Jewish localities and 99 Jewish neighborhoods have benefited from the URP, as compared with 4 Arab villages and 14 Arab neighborhoods. Over the years, the government has allocated millions of Israeli shekels to the URP.

The petition, submitted by Adalah staff attorney Marwan Dalal, detailed the poverty, unemployment, and overcrowded living conditions that exist in Palestinian communities in Israel. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), these indicators show that the worst socio-economic conditions exist in Arab towns and villages. Though the stated purpose of the URP is to reduce social inequalities in the country, almost all of the poorest Arab municipalities are excluded. The petitioners demanded that clear, objective and equitable socio-economic criteria be set for applying the URP, and that discrimination against the poorest Arab towns and villages in the implementation of the program be stopped.

The Attorney General’s representative argued that the government decided in October 2000 to allocate four billion shekels (about US $1 billion) to develop Palestinian communities in Israel. Therefore, the representative concluded, there is no need to implement the URP in these communities.

The Supreme Court accepted three important arguments raised by Adalah in the petition:   (i) the need to set equitable criteria for the allocation of URP funds; (ii) the necessity of implementing the URP in communities that need it most; and (iii) the irrelevance of the government’s four billion shekel plan to the URP. The Court ruled that:

• The criteria used to implement the URP should be equitable in character. These criteria should be formulated in accordance with the same rules that apply to other government allocations of public funds, namely they should rely on appropriate considerations and relevant facts, which reflect the purpose for which the money is intended. The criteria should meet the test of reasonableness, and be concrete enough to be applied according to objective standards.

• The social-educational component of the URP, which includes funding for enrichment programs, scholarships, and extra-curricular activities, should be implemented in Arab communities in a way that meets their needs and level of deprivation. Beginning with the 2002 budget, the Court ruled that the percentage of the URP’s social-educational budget designated to Arab communities should not be less than those communities’ proportion in the general population (percentage-of-the-population criteria).

• The four billion shekel multi-year program, cited by the Attorney General, is not a sufficient substitute for the URP. The Court found that there was no concrete allocation of funds according to this plan in any government budget, and that consequently, there was no way to determine whether the plan could serve as a substitute for the URP.

The Court rejected the petitioners’ request to immediately include in the URP all of the poorest Palestinian localities in Israel, with the highest rates of unemployment and overcrowding, according to CBS data. All of the poorest Jewish towns, according to the same data, currently enjoy the benefits of the URP.