Recognise the Unrecognised - End Discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel
The more than one million Palestinians that are officially citizens of Israel have long been subject to discrimination. Many live in villages that the state refuses to recognise, and all face harsh limits to their human rights.
The discrimination against this population has often been overlooked by the international community because of a focus on the Israeli authorities' action in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. But we are concerned by reports that this deliberate discrimination and deprivation is intended to drive out the remaining Palestinian population from the state of Israel.
Israel sues Bedouin village for cost of evictionsIn a move that beggars belief the Israeli authorities have filed a claim for more than £300,000 for the expense of evicting the residents of al-'Araqib village, and destroying its structures, as many as 28 times over the past year. Find out more |
The campaign
We are joining forces with Amnesty Israel and other local human rights groups already working on the issues to campaign for a reality where Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace, prosperity and security with their human rights and dignity respected and protected. We are calling on the Israeli authorities to:
- Recognise the unrecognised villages
- End demolitions and evictions
- Improve land ownership rights for Palestinians
- Address discrimination in building and planning
- End police harassment of Palestinian political activism
- Halt proposed discriminatory legislation
We stand in solidarity with Palestinian citizens of Israel in their demands for an end to demolitions, evictions, discrimination and repression, for their freedoms, their basic human rights and immediate human rights reform.
We stand in defiance against all those who try to suppress Palestinian citizens of Israel standing up for their rights, facing down injustice and offering hope for a fairer Israel based on non discrimination.
Stop the destruction of Bedouin villages
There are 45 unrecognised Palestinian villages within Israel. Initially we are focusing on two at serious risk of demolitions.
Dahmash is an unrecognised village in the centre of Israel. Almost all of its 70 homes are considered as irregular (illegal) and are at risk of demolitions.
The Bedouin village al-'Araqib in the Negev in southern Israel has been razed to the ground in order to make way for a forest. Despite long-established claims to the land, the over 250 men, women and children face permanent forced eviction from their homes. Find out more
Israel - My pictures on the internet
In this short film made by Amnesty Netherlands and local film maker, Yoav Shamir, the children al-'Araqib, a Bedouin village in Southern Israel that has been demolished eight times, tell their stories.
What is the problem and what is the context?
More than one million Palestinians are officially citizens of the Israeli state but have long been subject to both formal and informal discrimination. Those living in villages which the state refuses to recognise and to provide with basic services have experienced long-term violations of their socio-economic rights. The broader Palestinian population in Israel faces discrimination in terms of their rights to land ownership as well as restrictions on civil and political rights, including freedom of expression and association.
Against the backdrop of these longstanding issues, there has been a deterioration in the standing of Palestinians inside Israel in the past decade.
In 2000, 13 citizens were shot dead in protests - they have recently been compensated but no policeman was indicted for the shootings.
In 2003, the Israeli parliament passed a temporary law preventing Israeli citizens from living with their Palestinian spouses from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) - a law which primarily affects Palestinian citizens of Israel. This law is renewed periodically.
In 2008, riots broke out in Akka between Jewish and Palestinian citizens, expressing deep tensions over discriminatory municipal policies and communal intolerance.
In January 2009, demonstrators who protested Israel's military campaign in Gaza were arrested, and some of them, all Palestinian Israeli citizens, are still under house arrest.
Since the election of a government under Benjamin Netanyahu in April 2009, the government has proposed three bills which affect primarily the Palestinian citizens of Israel. One demands that citizens swear a loyalty oath to the 'Jewish and Democratic State'. Another proposes to make it easier to strip suspected terrorists of citizenship. The third bans public funding for events about the Nakba, the Palestinian historical day of commemorating the harm done to the Palestinian community in what became Israel in 1948. Recently, a history textbook for schools was withdrawn from circulation because it mentioned the Palestinian history of the Nakba. The three bills were approved by parliamentary committees in their first readings and contribute to a sense of vulnerability in the Palestinian sector of Israeli society.
This deterioration is not countered by any criticism from the international community as Israel's conduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories sometimes is.
