24 Arab Residents of Daliyat al-Carmel ask to cancel plan to turn their private land into a national forest
On 21 October 2007, Adalah filed a petition to the Haifa District Court on behalf of 24 people from Daliyat al-Carmel demanding the cancellation of the master plan for a “National Park and Har Shukiv Forest”. The master plan entails the joining of the petitioners' land to the area of the aforementioned park, thereby preventing the future development of the area. The petition was filed by Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara against the National Council for Planning and Building, the Authority for Nature Reserves and National Parks, and the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
The master plan was drafted in 2002 and covers large areas of land around Daliyat al-Carmel, a Druze village in the north of Israel surrounded by nature reserves and national parks. The implementation of the master plan would therefore render the future development of Daliyat al-Carmel extremely difficult, except in the western part of the area, which consists of privately-owned land.
The petitioners argued that the owners of the land have been cultivating it since before the establishment of the State of Israel and that the land contains no national resources to justify its appropriation. Therefore, the explanations provided in the master plan are essentially void and there is no logic behind the declaration of the land as a national park or forest.
The petitioners emphasized that none of the local, regional or national master plans previously prepared for the area have declared these lands a nature reserve or national park. Rather, the lands were excluded in order that they would be put to the future use of the development of Daliyat al-Carmel and in order to prevent any violation of the rights of the landowners.
Furthermore, the master plan is inconsistent with the National Parks and Nature Reserves Law (1998), argued the petitioners, and the Authority for Nature Reserves and National Parks and the JNF do not have the power to draw up this plan. Attorney Bishara stressed that, “The objective of this master plan is to preclude the development of Daliyat al-Carmel on the land owned by its population, and violates their property rights and their right to a livelihood.”
Haifa District Court, A.P. 4377/07, Maqaldah Safi, et al. v. The National Council for Planning and Building (pending)
Photos by Nazih Halaby of residents of Daliyat al-Carmel signing affidavits that were included in the petition
