Israel Law Center
15 November '10
November 15, 2010: This week, the Israeli Supreme Court handed down its ruling upholding the right of Jewish families who had won a public tender to purchase land in the Tel-Aviv suburb of Jaffa to go forward with their plans to construct a multi-family building. The families' right to build had been challenged last year in the Tel-Aviv District Court by a coalition of Arab-Israelis and politically motivated NGOs.
The coalition demanded that the families' bid be disqualified by the District Court based solely upon the fact that they are Jewish and that their presence in Jaffa will tip the demographic balance of the neighborhood and discriminates against Arabs. The Supreme Court decision has now confirmed that the Jewish families had won the tender fair and square.
The families were represented both in the District Court proceedings and upon appeal in the Supreme Court by Shurat HaDin.
The story began last year, when the Jewish families submitted a joint bid on a plot of land in Jaffa which had been offered up in a public auction by the Israel Lands Authority (ILA). The families planned to build a residential building, with twenty apartments, on the plot. A competing, lower bid was submitted by an Arab contractor. After considering all the bids, the ILA awarded the land rights to the Jewish group. Following the families' victory, however, a coalition of twenty-five Israeli-Arabs from Jaffa, along with three Israeli human rights NGOs, filed a petition in the Tel Aviv District Court against the ILA, insisting that the families' successful bid be disqualified. It must be noted that the coalition did not participate in the ILA tender themselves and had no personal interest in the outcome. They claimed they were filing the case in order to win justice for the Arab residents of Jaffa.
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i think you're misrepresenting, if not saying an untruth:
ReplyDeleteThe claim of the people from the Jaffa community, both Arabs and Jews, was that the building is for religious zionist Jews only. Not against Jewish people living in Jaffa, but against exclusive projects.Imagine someone in the USA building "for whites only".
However in Israel almost all housing offerings are directed to target audiences, whether Chareidim, National Religious, secular, or other. When funding is earmarked for Arab housing/developments I don't imagine that there will be a cry of protest from you, as to it's exclusivity, but this is a common double-standard. Anyone familiar with the local scene is aware of the desire of most communities to have an atmosphere conducive to their choice of values, as it normally will be explicit in the headline of a new offering.
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