High court orders Jewish town to set aside land for Arab couple
The High Court of Justice on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction ordering that a plot of land in the predominantly Jewish town of Rakefet be set aside for an Israeli Arab couple who had been previously denied entry to the community for “lack of suitability.”
The couple, residents of Sakhnin, said they were denied residency in the town because they are Arab. They added that local authorities in Rakefet and officials at the Israel Lands Authority had found an alternative way to keep them from moving into the town - by stating that according to a “suitability test,” the couple was “not socially fit to live in the town, according to expert opinion.”
The two petitioned the High Court in February, with the aid of the non-profit group Adalah, asking that an order be issued to allow them to live in the town. Adalah, an organization that battles discrimination against Israeli Arabs, represented the couple in their petition to the High Court of Justice in February.
The couple, Ahmed and Fathina Zvidat, graduates of the archaeology department at Jerusalem’s Bezalel College, tried in 2006 to find a place to live in northern Israel. According to the petition, when the two wanted to move to Rakefet, they were required to undergo a “suitability test”, in accordance with Israel Lands Authority decision 1015.
In the petition, the couple asked the court to instruct the Israel Land Authority and heads of the Misgav Regional council to ensure their rights to a residential plot in Rakefet. With the aid of several rights groups, the couple also made efforts to outlaw the admission committees, like the one that deemed them unsuitable.
Before petitioning the High Court, the Zvidats filed an appeal with the Israel Lands Authority, asking that the admission committee’s decision be reversed, but the appeal was denied.
source: haaretz
