In November 2007, Attorney Tali Nir from The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) intervened with Uri Lupolianski, at the time mayor of Jerusalem, demanding that municipality forms be translated into Arabic. Attorney Nir stated that only 13 of 90 forms were available in Arabic, and that it is the municipality’s duty, by law, to provide translated forms. Until recently, this duty had been shunned.
On April 26, following several interventions with the city’s new mayor, Nir Barkat, the Jerusalem Municipality announced its intention to translate all municipality forms from Hebrew to Arabic.
“If the municipality will indeed keep its promises to translate the forms as soon as possible, and make this well known to the Arab-speaking public through the Arab media, then this is indeed encouraging news” Nir said. “Residents of East Jerusalem have been suffering terrible discrimination for over 40 years, and one can only hope that the new mayor and his municipality will bring about a true change”.
