building-by-Tal-DahanOn 3 December 2015 ACRI submitted a petition to the Administrative Court in Jerusalem, calling to compel the Israel Land Authority to penalize the “Be’Emunah” company due to its discriminatory marketing of residential units in Carmei Gat. The potential penalties set in the tender are a fine amounting to 15 percent of income, and/or annulling the company’s winning bid. Following our petition, Justice Nava Ben-Or ruled that the State Attorney must respond and notify the court by December 10th whether it has decided to rescind “Be’Emunah’s” winning bid.
ACRI’s petition was submitted after “Be’Emunah” declared that it was marketing the apartments solely to the national-religious public. This constitutes discrimination against secular, Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and non-Jewish individuals. On top of that, a few days ago the company distributed an offensive advertisement, mocking Mizrahi Israelis and stating that in its housing development, there wouldn’t be “neighbors of that sort.”
The petition states that the tender that “Be’Emunah” won was for construction of residential apartment buildings on public lands, for all citizens without discrimination. The State did not designate the project for the national-religious population alone. Thus, by marketing the units only to that segment of the population, “Be’Emunah” is violating the conditions of the tender.
ACRI maintains, in the petition, that the Israel Land Authority (ILA) is obligated to ensure that public lands are equally accessible to all citizens, and the tender conditions indeed reflected that obligation. As “Be’Emunah” marketed the apartments in a discriminatory manner, the ILA must penalize it. In fact, ACRI had foreseen Be’Emunah’s discriminatory marketing and had already warned the ILA about it several months ago, but the ILA had opted at the time to ignore the issue so as not to delay the Carmei Gat tender. The ILA must act now to oppose illegal discrimination.
While in the past the State indeed allocated public lands for construction of separate Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities, those were an exception to the obligation of equality in allocation of public lands, as they involved a group that requires separate residences so as to preserve its culture. Secular and national-religious Israelis are not entitled to that in any case, and in Carmei Gat there was no State decision to designate the land for a national-religious housing development. If “Be’Emunah” had sought to create a homogenous community, it could have appealed the tender conditions in advance. But now it is trying to create facts on the ground in violation of the tender.
“Segregation and homogeneity in housing are common in the rural sector, and we have recently witnessed a rising trend in cities, that are typically heterogeneous. This is a worrisome phenomenon. Just as ACRI opposed secular-only communities and kibbutzim which screen applicants via acceptance committees, we likewise oppose attempts to create communities that exclude anyone who is not national-religious. Each person has a right to choose his place of residence, yet the State may not legitimize segregation imposed by strong groups that wish to reside only with those who resemble them, while excluding other citizens from lands that are meant for all. We therefore expect the State to act decisively against discriminatory marketing of apartments built on State lands.” said Attorney Gil Gan-Mor, Director of the Social and Economic Rights Unit at The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, who submitted the petition.
