Haaretz
Adar 21, 5767
A United Nations committee
has called on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their
property and land in Israel and to ensure that the bodies responsible for
distributing property, such as the Jewish National Fund, not discriminate
against the Arab population.
The UN Committee on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination made the recommendation in its concluding
observations released Friday, in response to a report Israel submitted on
the matter. Representatives of a number of human rights groups appeared
before the committee, including Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority
Rights in Israel, which presented objections to the official Israeli
position.
The report recommends that Israel scrutinize its policy
in a number of areas. Among them, it recommends that "the state party
ensure that the definition of Israel as a Jewish nation state does not
result in any systematic distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference
based on
race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin." The
committee also said it "would welcome receiving more information on how
[Israel] envisions the development of the national identity of all its
citizens."
The committee's deliberations were made in the framework
of overseeing the implementation by various countries of the provisions of
the UN's International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Racial Discrimination. Israel has been a signatory to the convention since
the late 1970s, and should submit a report every two years. However, it
has not done so for nine years.
The appearence before the
committee of the human rights organizations, which also included B'Tselem
(the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied
Territories) and Ittijah (the Union of Arab Community Based Organizations
in Israel), is part of an increasing
trend to fight Israeli policies
in international forums. Adalah said some of the information provided to
the committee came from its international advocacy department assigned to
UN committees.
The committee also noted a number of positive
developments, among them the ministerial appointment of Raleb Majadele and
the High Court decision on the petition of the Ka'adans, an Israeli Arab
couple, to buy land in the community of Katzir.