The Forum on Minority Issues
Land and Housing Rights for Arab Minorities in Israel
Rawia Aburabia- The Association for Civil Rights
It is an honor to speak on behalf of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. ACRI works
intensively to address entrenched discrimination against Arab citizens, particularly in regards
to discriminatory planning, building, and land distribution policies; inequitable access to
public services and funding; violations of freedom of expression and political participation;
racial profiling at airports; and the rights of Arab women.
Israel’s Arab citizens are subject to discrimination based on their ethnicity. Lack of Arab
equality has been documented in many studies and papers, and has been underscored in
numerous court rulings, government decisions, state comptroller reports and other official
documents. One of the areas that stand out in terms of discrimination towards Arab citizens
is land allocation, planning and housing.
My presentation will focus on land and Housing Rights for the Arab Bedouins.
Introduction
The Arab Bedouins of the Naqab are integral part of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel,
both as an ethnic and as an indigenous minority. Before the founding of Israel there were
approximately 100,000 Bedouins, after 1948 only 10,000 remained. Approximately half of