Time to Enforce the Law Equally? Long Past Time! - by Ari Briggs

The strength of the naysayers in the Arab sector has always been their threat to ensure fire, hail and brimstone if the government actually enforced the law.

Ari Briggs..
Opinion/JPost..
13 January '16..

Israel is currently suffering from a horrific wave of terrorism. However, below the radar, Israel has been suffering from increasing lawlessness for quite some time.

These two developments violently converged recently on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, when a terrorist, an Israeli Arab who lived in an illegal house in Arara, murdered three civilians in cold blood on a quiet Friday afternoon.

The heinous attack in Tel Aviv is a bitter result of the progressive Israeli surrender of sovereignty in the Arab sector. One that could possibly have been stopped had the rule of law been upheld consistently and throughout the country.

This surge of lawlessness includes everything from seizing land, illegal construction and agricultural theft to protection rackets and corruption. Here is a small example of how entrenched this lawlessness is: In the town of Arabeh in the north, fines for illegal construction imposed by the regional development committee on town residents were offset by the town, which gave them a discount on arnona (municipal tax) equivalent to the amount of the fine.

What’s happening on the ground is massive illegal construction in the Arab sector, in the south, center and north of the country.

In the Negev, the illegal seizure of state land spreads over 200,000 acres in the area between Beersheba, Arad and Dimona. One just has to look at Google Earth to see more than 1,000 villages, hamlets and illegal outposts that expand exponentially each year, taking more and more land, encouraging even more Beduin to leave their legal dwellings and venture into the “business” of stealing land and illegal building.

In the center, one only has to venture into Taiba, Tira, Kalansuwa or Jaljulya to see the lack of enforcement of building codes, in stark contrast to the strict enforcement in place in neighboring towns of Kfar Saba or Hod Hasharon.

In the north there are an estimated 30,000 illegal structures. The threat of violent protests and general strikes should the government start to enforce the law is very real. This is based on the experience of the last demolition of an illegal home in the north, which happened in Kfar Kana in 2013, where fire bombs, burning tires and rioting coincided with a three-day general strike.

However, illegal construction is only a symptom of a much wider problem: The failure of the State of Israel to impose the law equally, on all its citizens, throughout the land. This has led to rates of serious crime in the Arab sector increasing dramatically.

Tax evasion is rampant, with hundreds of thousands of citizens not paying municipal taxes and/or income taxes. There are over 25,000 illegal weapons of all kinds in the Arab sector, and their elected officials incite against Israel day and night.

For a decade, we have warned about the loss of sovereignty in the Arab sector. It should be clear to all that sovereignty is not a theoretical issue. When it is not enforced, it no longer exists. The unbelievably high numbers of illegally built structures is not only a good example but a major source and enabler of lawlessness. The facts speak for themselves: There are more than 110,000 illegally built homes in the Arab sector that have been conveniently ignored.

For decades, the State of Israel has been content to turn a blind eye to this severe phenomenon, and to take shortcuts in maintaining the rule of law. The price is now being paid by all citizens of the State of Israel, including members of the Arab sector.

A timely but unfortunate example is the amount of illegal construction in the town of Arara, where the terrorist who carried out the attack in Tel Aviv lived. Out of 4,368 homes there, 942 are illegally built – over 20 percent.

It is argued by some that the true reason for the illegal construction is that Israel does not approve building plans.

So here are the facts: the municipal plan for Arara, approved in 2006, enables the construction of thousands of additional housing units – a fact that pulls the rug out from under those that claim discrimination.

It now seems to be clear, even to the government, that changes need to be made.

A story about peace and co-existence in Israel that Harriet Sherwood won’t report

Israelinurse
CiF Watch
25 May '11
Posted before Shabbat

http://cifwatch.com/2011/05/25/a-story-about-peace-and-co-existence-in-israel-that-harriet-sherwood-wont-report/

One of the problems with foreign correspondents in Israel is that they are, well…foreign. They don’t speak or read the local languages and are therefore dependent upon getting the news they pass on to their readers from often partisan sources with specific agendas. They therefore usually miss the little stories of everyday life which are important in presenting a realistic view of the entire tapestry of life here.

This is one such story – as reported in a local edition of the Hebrew newspaper Ma’ariv.

Taibeh Town Council is proud to present: Gan Yavne Square


A tribute to co-existence: after sanitation workers from the Gan Yavne regional council helped clean up the streets of Taibeh, it was decided in the Arab town to name the central square there after the Jewish town.


Staff from the local municipality in Gan Yavne recently answered the request of Taibeh Council and arrived to clean up various parts of the town. But they did not imagine that their little town would receive a special tribute from the Arab town: in Taibeh it was decided to change the name of the town’s central square and from now on to call it “Gan Yavne Square”.


Last Thursday Avi Mantsur, who manages the sanitation department in Gan Yavne, went with five of his maintenance and gardening workers to Taibeh. The garbage contractor in the town donated his street-sweeping machine and the team began to clean up the major roads of the Arab town.


As a result of the intensive work, the neglected town square changed its appearance. As a gesture of thanks for the help offered by the local council in Gan Yavne, the general manager of Taibeh Council Sami Talawi decided to call the square after the small town.


“This is an act of solidarity between local councils” said the head of Gan Yavne Council Aharon Dror yesterday (Monday). “The workers were not anxious at all, there was a great reception and it was very nice”.


Dror added “The aim was to bring hearts closer; especially at this time that is important to us all. In the end, we are all citizens of Israel”.


Manager of the department for town improvement in Taibeh Council, Taysir Masarwa, also commented on the special initiative saying “We enjoyed working together. They even said at the end that they would like to come here again. The help they gave us gives a feeling of partnership between the towns. It is rare that people just come and help like that, we need to tell them well done”.

Of course a story like this one will never find its way onto the pages of CiF even though it is right under Harriet Sherwood’s nose. The simple realities of daily co-existence just don’t fit the narrative of ‘the world’s leading liberal voice’.

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Terra Incognita: Discrimination cuts both ways

Seth Frantzman
JPost
02 November 09

At a recent meeting of the Israel-Europe Policy Network regarding Muslim minorities, MK Ophir Paz-Pines declared that as interior minister in Ariel Sharon's government he had presided over a discriminatory policy against Arabs. He claimed that Israel's Arab citizens have faced "structural" discrimination since the state's founding. As an example he pointed to discrepancies in state funding directed toward Arab municipalities.

Israeli Arab municipalities do face financial discrimination, but in large part it is a discrimination of their own making. Israeli Arab municipalities barely collect taxes, many are on the verge of bankruptcy, there is a complete lack of enforcement of building codes and residents do not invest in their own infrastructure.

Rafik Haj of Ben-Gurion University has shown in his recent thesis that only 18 percent of Arabs pay municipal taxes (arnona) while 53% of Jews do. Haj claimed that one reason for this is because Arabs can't afford to pay. This claim is blatantly false, and the noncompliance with taxation is only part of the problem. Arnona is based on how much land someone owns or how large a house someone has. But other studies have shown that in Arab villages statistics for ownership and size of houses are woefully inaccurate, meaning people are taxed less than they should be. The chaos in Arab villages is comparable to the situation in southern Italy, where people traditionally do not pay their share of taxes.
(Read more...)
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