Adalah demands that Israel Land Authority change unfair procedures regarding the selling of residential land in Arab towns
Adalah sent a letter earlier this month to the Israel Land Authority (ILA) demanding changes to the existing procedures regarding the sale of plots of land for residential housing purposes in Arab towns and villages in Israel. The current sale procedures, of which Adalah objects, are in the form of auctions, whereby individuals who place the highest bids will obtain the land for construction. Adalah demanded that this system be changed so that the sale of plots of land would be allotted among registered buyers. This new system would allow varied and disadvantaged segments of society to obtain lands, and would ensure that the price of land did not sky rocket and that the purchase of land was thus not restricted to only the wealthiest of buyers.
Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara sent the letter to the Director of the ILA, Bentsa Lieberman, following several years of rising prices in plots of land for construction offered by the ILA in Arab towns and villages. This trend has created large gaps between the price of plots that are sold on the one hand, and the price of plots sold by lottery in Jewish towns. As a result, a large segment of the Arab population is financially unable to purchase plots for construction.
Attorney Bishara argued in her letter that the ILA currently controls 93% of the land in Israel, and is the main decision-making body in matters relating to the division of land and the provision of housing to citizens of the state. As such, Attorney Bishara continued, "the policy of the Israel Land Authority has crucial implications on the issue of land allocation. It must therefore take into account the data regarding the social and economic development of these towns and the housing crises within them. It must also reduce the gaps between different segments of society in order to bridge the inequality of land prices between different towns, and to divide resources fairly. These changes alone [in the procedures] can lead to the distribution of land in a fair, equal and acceptable manner."
