Health Care
Advocates want to nationalize school health
18 January 2012 (The Jerusalem Post)
Opponents to the privatization of the School Health Service voiced objections to the Health Ministry’s decision to allow the private company to continue to operate in most of the country.
[…] The Association for Civil Rights in Israel joined in the call for the restoration of a public School Health Service, and charged that its poor provision increased the social gap.
Committee rejects dental-care plan for elderly
23 January 2012 (The Jerusalem Post)
Rami Adut of ACRI, who has been closely involved in the private members’ bill, told The Jerusalem Post that the cost could be covered by raising health taxes collected by the National Insurance Institute by only 0.05 percent – and that there would not be a means test for coverage. Adut said that offering such care “without rehabilitation of the mouth would be a waste of time” and hoped the ministry would come around to understanding the need for dentures and implants to replace missing teeth.
Adut said that leading community dental medicine experts are involved in preparing a plan.
“There must be objective supervision of such a program,” he said, noting that a significant flaw in the existing children’s dental care program introduced by Litzman was that it lacks objective and comprehensive supervision.
“But there is room for optimism,” said Adut. “I am not totally saddened by the rejection of the private members’ bill, because the strong support in the Knesset has the power to influence positive changes in the government plan.”
Citizenship Law
No Israeli Citizenship for Palestinian Spouses
24 January 2012 (PRI: The World)
a recent Israeli Supreme Court decision [ruled] that most Palestinians…who are married to Israelis would not be eligible for Israeli citizenship. A panel of Supreme Court judges was split on this decision six-to-five. Typically, the human rights community in Israel has viewed the high court as a bastion of democratic values. But Hagai El-Ad – who directs the Association for Civil Rights in Israel – says the ruling amounts to a disaster for Israeli democracy.
“This is probably the most extreme piece of racist legislation that the Knesset has passed and now, it has the seal of approval from the highest court in the land,” El-Ad said in an interview with The World.
Israel citizenship ruling slammed as ‘racist’
29 January 2012 (The Telegraph)
Israeli rights groups and MPs on Thursday denounced a court ruling upholding a law that prevents Palestinians married to Arab Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship or residency[…]
“It is a dark day for the protection of human rights and for the Israeli Supreme Court,” attorneys Dan Yakir and Oded Feller from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in a statement.
Citizenship Law prefers discrimination over human rights
24 January 2012 (972 Mag)
Recent rejection by the Israeli High Court of the final petitions against Israel’s Citizenship Law – which denies status in Israel to Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens – was described as a “watershed” ruling. Watershed indeed, but how exactly?
Bus Passes Infringe on Privacy
Israeli activists fear bus passes may infringe on human rights
23 January 2012 (Haaretz)
Human rights activists and government officials are concerned that public transportation ticket packages could potentially infringe on the privacy of passengers. The tickets in question are the Rav-Kav passes used for a variety of public transport purposes.
Attorney Avner Pinchuk, who heads the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI ) privacy and information division, says that the state has given a green light to a request made by transportation contractors, enabling them to monitor routes chosen by each passenger, and railroad and bus stations at which passengers start and finish journeys. A passengers’ journey record remains in this data base for seven years. The extent to which such information is secure remains unclear.
Pinchuk says that the Transportation Ministry has ignored requests made by Knesset members, asking that it furnish guidelines for the protection of privacy rights of passengers who purchase Rav-Kav passes. Up to now, more than half a million Rav-Kav passes have been issued.
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Myths, facts and suggestions: Asylum seekers in Israel
24 January 2012 (972 Mag)
Asylum seekers’ are often confused with ‘migrant workers’ in Israel. Here is an info-sheet written by two experts in the field that explains the facts about the new faces in Israeli society, and suggests how the country should cope.
Yonatan Berman is the director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the Academic Center of Law and Business. Attorney Oded Feller is director of the Immigration and Residency Project at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Anti-Ethiopian Racism in Housing
Fein: An easy case followed by a harder one
24 January 2012 (Florida Jewish Journal)
The fallout of the Kiryat Malachi episode is not all bad. There have been demonstrations galore, some by local Ethiopian Jews alone, some joined in by one or two thousand protesters who made the trip to join the demonstrations. Still, in the face of so blatant, so egregious a violation of Israel’s fundamental social contract, where were the hundreds of thousands of people who just this last summer chanted, over and over, “The People demand social justice?”
Among Israel’s jewels is ACRI, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. ACRI has reacted to this sordid episode by demanding that the authorities “clearly state that they do not accept displays of racism and discrimination and are taking clear and decisive steps to eradicate them.” Among those steps, ACRI is seeking a legal amendment that would give the Real Estate Registrar the authority to suspend or even cancel the license of a real estate agent who discriminates against clients on the basis of their ethnic origin. That would likely help, but more “clear and decisive steps” seem warranted, at least to cover cases where no real estate agent is involved.
Acceptance to Communities Law
Israeli AG defends controversial law on admissions panels
26 January 2012 (Haaretz)
Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein supports the law permitting small communities to screen potential residents, with the state telling the High Court of Justice on Wednesday that the law is proportionate and that there is no basis for invalidating it[…]
Social action groups castigated Weinstein’s response. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of the petitioners against the law, said “The Admissions Committee Law discriminates against and humiliates people whose only crime is a desire to exercise their right to choose where to live.”
