COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS CONCLUDES EXAMINATION OF REPORT OF ISRAEL

MORNING
HR/ESC/98/27
18 November 1998




Government Officials Questioned on Effects of
Closures in Occupied Territories;
Family, Housing and Education Issues


Review of an initial report from Israel was completed this morning by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights after a day and a half of discussion with Israeli Government officials. Committee members continued to express concern about what they said were negative effects on health and employment for Palestinians during security closures of territories occupied by Israel, and also pressed the officials about what they said were discrepancies in resources allocated to the Jewish and Arab populations for housing, education, and health services.

Conclusions and recommendations on the Israeli report were to be issued towards the end of the Committee's fall session, which ends 4 December.

During the meeting, the Israeli delegation said progress had been made in construction of classrooms, nurseries, and day-care centres for the Arab sector, although gaps still remained. When Committee members asked why new Jewish settlements could be built in the course of a year while providing water and electricity to long-existing Arab villages often took several years, the delegation replied that construction after careful planning of new settlements on open land could be accomplished more quickly than supply of services to communities built unofficially and in a disorganized manner. It was added that the Government was trying to speed up the process.

To a question on whether many of the thousands of Russians who had settled in Israel under the country's "law of return" were in fact Jews, Malkiel Blass, of the High Court of Justice Division of the Israeli Ministry of Justice, said that unfortunately, over the course of the century, those who had tried to kill Jews in various places in the world had not determined first "if they had rabbinical certificates". The law of return applied to those who had a parent or a grandparent who was a Jew, he said; and in fact the country was sometimes accused of being too restrictive in deciding who was a Jew -- and so was entitled to Israeli citizenship -- rather than too lenient.

As one of 137 States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Israel must provide periodic reports to the Committee on efforts to put the treaty into effect.

The Government delegation included Mr. Blass; Michael Atlan, Head of Department, Legal Adviser's Office, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs; Yuval Shany, Consultant to the Ministry of Justice; and Ady Schonmann, Office of the Legal Adviser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Committee members speaking at the meeting were Virginia Bonoan-Dandan; Walid M. Sa’di; Javier Wimer Zambrano; Mahmoud Samir Ahmed; Jaime Marchan Romero; Eibe Reidel; and Maria de los Angeles Jimenez Butragueno.

The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. to begin its review of the third periodic report from Cyprus.

Discussion

The Committee followed up on a list of questions prepared in advance and to which the Israeli Government already had submitted written replies. The questions fell under the general categories of entry limitations such as closure of the occupied territories; family reunification; permanent residency and citizenship; land use and housing; and education.

A Committee member asked a series of questions after consultation with the rest of the group, in order to save time. They were, among other things, if the country's "law of return" was more generously applied to Jews than to Palestinians; why subsidized housing in East Jerusalem apparently was constructed much more often for Jews than for Palestinians; if permits for new housing units for Palestinians, many of whom had had their former homes demolished, were issued at a much lower rate than needed; why Jewish settlements were built in an efficient manner every year, while delivery of such services as electricity and water to long-existing Palestinian villages took several years, even though Palestinian residents also paid taxes; and if resources for education were disproportionately channeled to Jews as opposed to Arabs.

Other Committee members asked, among other things, if Israel practised a policy of "internal colonialism" with regard to territories and populations in that, for example, Palestinian villages were destroyed, land expropriated and populations removed, and water resources diverted from Palestinians to Israeli settlers; if the right to education was still not considered a Constitutional right in Israel; if school drop-out rates were much higher for Arabs than for Jews and what was being done to deal with the matter; if percentages of Arabs attending university was one fifth the percentage of Jews; if Jewish settlers in the territories used water at a rate five times that of Palestinians, who were often short of water; if many of the thousands of Russians who had come to settle in Israel were in fact Jews; if Jews of Ethiopian and Asian descent had higher rates of unemployment and received less Government help for education and housing; and if there were programmes for bringing Jews and Arabs together.

MALKIEL BLASS, of the High Court of Justice Division of the State Attorney's Office, Ministry of Justice, Israel, said, among other things, that it was true that on one occasion a closure in Hebron had affected Palestinians even though the reason for the closure had been murders committed by an Israeli against Palestinians; the closure had been imposed only for reasons of security; that influx of foreigners into the occupied territories had been set at 2,000 requests per year -- which meant more than 2,000 people, since one request could cover a family -- based on agreement between Palestinian and Israeli representatives; that under agreement between the two sides family reunification issues were being resolved more quickly and satisfactorily; that family-reunification policies did not resolve problems of Palestinian refugees, which were based on separate negotiations; that last year there had been only about one month of closure, and it was not apparent that there was much effect on prices in the territories involved, let alone any indication that the closure had caused disease; that it also was not clear how a closure could result in increased child labour in the occupied regions, as one questioner had implied; that overall Israel tried to avoid closures as much as possible, as they did not help anyone, Palestinian or Israeli, and only caused bitter feelings; that a Government order stipulated that soldiers manning roadblocks at times of closure were to allow Palestinians with medical problems through, but that it was true that on occasion -- at least twice -- soldiers had not allowed persons with serious medical problems to pass; and that that was a violation of procedure, but sometimes mistakes were made.

Mr. Blass continued to state that Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were considered permanent residents rather than citizens if they had not exercised an option to become citizens; that they could become citizens if they wished, but that Israel had not forced the issue as apparently many did not wish citizenship, perhaps for political reasons; that based on a regulation dating from 1986 it was true that permanent residents who lived outside Israel for more than seven years lost permanent residency, but the matter was being reviewed by the Supreme Court; that the law of return did not prevent Palestinians from returning to Palestine but only helped Jews from anywhere in the world to come to Israel; that it was true that more than 100,000 Israeli Jews had come to live within Jerusalem's larger boundaries after 1967 and that the construction of housing for them had been carried out on land expropriated from Arabs who lived there, but also on land expropriated from Jews, in fact from thousands of Jews; that thousands of housing units for Palestinians had been built in Jerusalem, as indicated in written material submitted, along with thousands of units built illegally that would not be torn down; that in any case homelessness did not appear to be a problem in Jerusalem; that issuance of building licenses for Jerusalem was a problem, caused in part by confusing land-ownership records there; that it was true that illegal housing was sometimes destroyed in Jerusalem because roads or other public works had to be built there; that there was a difference in the time required to build new settlements on open land where construction was well-planned and the time required to supply public works to illegally built settlements, which posed complicated problems; and that nonetheless efforts were being made to speed up the provision of electricity and water to unofficial Arab villages.

Mr. Blass said that no one in Israel thought the occupation of the territories was a good situation and that efforts were being made to solve it; that at least a portion of the resources used by Israelis in the territories had now been transferred to the Palestinian Authority; that the law of return identified as a Jew someone whose parent or grandparent was a Jew, and that unfortunately over the course of the century those who had tried to kill Jews had not inquired if the victims had rabbinical certificates; that Israel provided more cubic metres of water per day to Palestinians than was called for under an agreement on the matter signed with the Palestinian Authority; and that numerous programmes in schools and other parts of society, including police and the armed forces, focused on human rights and on improving relations between Arabs and Jews.

MICHAEL ATLAN, Head of Department, Legal Adviser's Office, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Israel, said, among other things, that the International Labour Office produced an annual report on the employment situation of Palestinians in the occupied territories, and that the 1998 report was the first which had no recommendations; earlier reports had seemed unbalanced and unfair to Israel, whereas the latest report simply stated the facts about what was a sensitive and complicated situation; that over the past three or four years the number of nurseries in Arab towns had gone from zero to 12 and that the number of day-care centres for Arabs had risen to 120; and that a country-wide health-services plan had been established recently to cover all residents and was paid for through taxes and Government subsidy.

YUVAL SHANY, Consultant to the Ministry of Justice of Israel, said that educational resources had been increased to the Arab sector in recent years; that some 30 per cent of classroom construction had occurred in the Arab sector recently, although Arabs made up only 20 per cent of the population; that it was true that gaps had not been completely closed and two new commissions had been formed to examine the situation in terms of facilities and teaching curricula and methods; that at the high school level at this point Arab teachers were better educated than their Jewish counterparts; that the educational curricula for Arabs were adjusted according to needs expressed by the Arab sector but that Jewish history and literature were included because they were considered important for purposes of integration of the country; that there were indeed concerns about lower educational accomplishments among Jews of Asian and Ethiopian descent; and that greater funds and teaching time were being allocated to such students but that achieving results would take time.