About Palestinians in Israel

 

Prior to 1948, approximately 950 000 indigenous Palestinians comprised the majority of inhabitants in historical Palestine, owning 94% of the land. Following the establishment of the State of Israel, around 530 Palestinian villages and localities were destroyed. More than 800, 000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes and became Diaspora refugees or international displaced persons.

The Palestinians who remained within the Green Line borders became citizens of the new Israeli state. Today they number approximately one million, and comprise nearly 20% of Israel's citizens. Some 250, 000 (25%) are internally displaced, and like the Palestinian community in Diaspora, are still denied the right of return to their homes.

Palestinians in Israeli are citizens of a State which purports to be an ethnic democratic state, but these terms are self-contradictory. By establishing a hierarchy which places the interests of Jewish citizens above all others, the State has created the basis for a pervasive system of legal and social discrimination against its Palestinian citizens.

The Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel:

° Live predominantly in the Arab towns and villages of Galilee, the Triangle and
   the Naqab (Negev);

° Speak Arabic as their first language, and Hebrew, the dominant language of
   the State, as their second;

° Are comprised of three religious communities: Islam (81%); Christianity (10%);    Druze (9%).

Systemic Discrimination and Bias

Discrimination and racism are endemic in Israeli society: ethnic bias in Israeli begins with structurally discriminatory legal system and pervades nearly every segment of society.

° Legal Discrimination
• Lack of constitutional provision for equality in Israeli law;
• Biased citizenship regulations
• Exclusionary requirements for participation in the political process

° Land Rights
• More than 80% of Palestinian land has been lost to government expropriation since 1948, in a process that continues up until today;
• Today, 93% of land in Israel is State-controlled. Most of it is allocated for exclusive Jewish use

° Unrecognized Villages
• Nearly 8% - some 70, 000 Palestinian Arab citizens live in villages and localities in the north and the Naqab which are refused recognition by the State
• the State does not recognize these villages and localities as existing on the map, and thus are denied basic infrastructural and government services, such as roads, housing, clean water, electricity, education and health care.

° Discriminatory Budget Allocations
• In fields such as education, municipal planning policies and development projects, budget allocations are consistently greater Jewish populated areas;
• As a result, there is a shameful discrepancy between socio-economic conditions of Palestinian and Jewish populated areas of Israel.



Palestinian Citizens

 

"Although the Palestinian citizens of the State of Israel represent 20% of its population, the Palestinian community suffers from institutionalized discrimination that produces severe socio-economic gaps between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority. No investments are made to eliminate these gaps. On the contrary, the Arab population continues to suffer from under-budgeting and discrimination in many areas including employment, education, property and planning policies, and health care services."

Physicians for Human Rights, Israel
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Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

The discriminatory nature of the State of Israel has enormous implications for the daily life of Palestinian Arab citizens. Nearly every indicator of economic and social welfare is lower for Palestinian than for Jewish citizens, and the cultural and religious rights of Palestinian Arab citizens are consistently violated. A direct result of the ethnic bias endemic in the Israeli state system, discriminatory budget allocations lie at the heart of this issue.

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The Arab Bedouin
in the Negev

The situation of the Arab Bedouin in the Negev is perhaps the most stark example of repressed economic, social, and cultural rights inside of the State of Israel.

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