Israel: Arab Citizens

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter for securing this very important debate, and for his excellent introduction.

Like others, I wanted to take part in this debate because of my personal passion and commitment to equality and the protection of human rights for all people, whatever their background, faith, race, sexuality, disability, and so on. My family were migrants to the UK; they came here in the early 1950s, before race relations legislation. Like many migrants who had arrived here over the decades, they faced open hostility and discrimination. We as a society have evolved, and have outlawed discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism, and we have developed co-existence and how to live with one another.

We support and promote the principles of equality and non-discrimination as a cornerstone of international human rights law. So when debating the continuing practices of a nation that itself was born out of European intolerance and racism in the extreme, it is hard to understand how it can be tolerated. There cannot be a Member of your Lordships’ House who would support any form of discrimination. As a councillor in Hackney some 15 years ago, I worked closely with a large Orthodox Jewish community in Stamford Hill, ensuring that they had proper access to services for their children and young people. Often they did not have equal access and felt very discriminated against. I am pleased to say that I still maintain strong links and friendships with leading figures from that very strong community.

Sadly, it remains the case that in Israel the right to equality and freedom from discrimination is not explicitly enshrined in law as a constitutional right; nor is it protected by statute, as has already been mentioned. A recent poll in Israel revealed that a majority of Israeli Jews believe that the Jewish state practises apartheid against Palestinians, with many openly supporting discriminatory policies against the country’s Arab citizens. Perhaps what is so depressing is that a third of respondents believe that Israel’s Arab citizens should be denied the vote, while almost half—47%—would like to see them stripped of their citizenship rights and placed under Palestinian Authority control. These views appear to echo hard-line opinions that are usually associated with Israel’s ultranationalist parties and depressingly suggest that racism and discrimination is more entrenched than was generally thought. Just over 40% would like to see separate housing and classrooms for Jews and Arabs. The findings reflect the widespread notion that Israel, as a Jewish state, should be a state that favours Jews. As a leading columnist commented:

“After almost half a century of dominating another people, it’s no surprise that most Israelis don’t think Arabs deserve the same rights”.

The definition of Israel as “the Jewish state” makes inequality a practical, political and ideological reality for Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, who are marginalised by and discriminated against by the state on the basis of their religious affiliations as non-Jews. Numerous groups of Palestinian citizens of Israel face multiple forms of discrimination on the basis of their membership of one or more distinctive sub-groups. Arab women in Israel, for example, face discrimination as members of the Arab minority and as women. As has been mentioned, Arab Bedouins face an additional layer of institutional discrimination. Individuals are subjected to multiple forms of discrimination. For example, a disabled Arab Bedouin child living in an unrecognised village in the Negev—referred to by the state as an illegally constructed village—faces intolerable discrimination.

It is therefore an irony that, in regard to certain marginalised groups, Israel has some of the world’s most progressive laws and policies, with strong anti-discrimination legislation and legal protections for women and disabled persons. However, these have not been extended to the Palestinian minority in Israel. As a result, these marginalised groups do not receive the full benefit of such protections. More than 30 main laws discriminate, directly or indirectly, against Palestinian citizens, and the current Israeli Government have proposed a flood of new discriminatory Bills which are at various stages in the legislative process.

Underinvestment in Arab schools in Israel sustains these gaps between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority and, as Arab children account for 25% of all children in Israel, the unequal investment in their education and development further contributes to the inequality. According to official state data, the state provides three times as much funding to Jewish students as it does to Arab pupils. My noble friend Lord Palmer, a valued colleague, cites inequalities here in the UK. Yes, he is quite right, there are inequalities among different groups here in the United Kingdom, but the difference is that the United Kingdom does not deliberately invest less in ethnic minority children than it does in the majority population.

In the field of health, the inequalities are just as stark. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to mortality rates. The infant mortality rate, for example, among Palestinian citizens is double that among Jewish citizens, and higher still among the Arab Bedouin population. As to income and poverty, Arab families are greatly overrepresented among Israel’s poor, with half of Arab families in Israel classified as poor compared to an average poverty rate of one-fifth. The unrecognised Arab Bedouin villages in the Negev are the poorest communities in the state. Gaps in income and poverty rates are directly related to institutional discrimination against Arab citizens.

Unemployment rates remain significantly higher among Arab than Jewish citizens. Arab women citizens make up only 20% of the workforce, among the lowest in the world. As the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, said, the Bedouins of the Negev valley are the most disadvantaged. They are systematically excluded from Israeli society and denied the rights and standards of living enjoyed by the majority. Approximately half of them are living in what are termed as unrecognised villages. They have Israeli citizenship but those living in these villages have no address registration, which can lead to problems with accessing services. The vast majority of Arab Bedouin citizens living in Negev have been expelled from their ancestral lands, some repeatedly. With no official status, these villages are excluded from state planning and government maps, have no local councils and receive few to no basic services and facilities.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting the women from this community who established the charity Sidreh. Khadra Elsanah, who is the director of the charity, told me of the valuable work they are doing at the grass roots among Bedouin women organisations in the Negev. She referred to the way in which the Israeli Government demolish their homes. She said that they come in the morning, when the husband is away, so that only the women and the youngest children are in the house. Most of them cannot speak Hebrew, and even if they could, it would not help. She said that they demolish their homes; they leave people on the street, with no other accommodation. Then they send them the “bill” for the demolition.

I want to ask my noble friend why, as a friend of Israel, we tolerate this treatment of minorities, which we would never tolerate with our own communities. Surely tolerance and equality extended to all Israeli citizens would foster and be a step towards a climate of peace in the Middle East, something that we all want.