Palestinian Arab Localities in Israel and their Local Authorities A General Survey 2006

Transcription

1 אגודת הגליל האגודה הערבית הארצית ל מ ח ק ר ו שי רו ת י ב רי א ו ת ) ע. ר ( (. ) THE GALILEE SOCIETY The Arab National Society For Health Research & Services (R.A) Palestinian Arab Localities in Israel and their Local Authorities A General Survey 2006 This publication constitutes the results of a general survey conducted by Rikaz in all the Palestinian Arab localities in Israel and their local authorities. The publication presents the findings of the survey in tables and also includes a special chapter focusing on the historical context shaping Arab society and local authorities in Israel. This context is provided in order to shed light on the findings of the survey, their importance and significance. The publication includes chapters addressing the unrecognized Bedouin Palestinian villages, information for which was gathered using supplemental survey questions in these localities. A two-page summary of findings is included for each Palestinian locality that took part in the survey. It should be noted that some information from the Israeli Bureau of Statistics is utilized to supplement analysis of Rikaz data. Main Findings At the end of 2006, the Palestinian Arabs in Israel constituted more than one million people (1,137,500 people inclusively), with the exception of the residents of Occupied Jerusalem and the Golan. They represent approximately 16.7% of the total population in Israel, which means their number has doubled 7.3 times since the ceasefire in the spring of At that time, they constituted 156,000 persons and 17.8% of the population. The vast majority of Arabs in Israel live in three main locations: the Galilee, the Triangle and the Naqab (Negev). The Northern region of Israel, which includes the Galilee and parts of the Triangle, is comprised of the North District (in which 53.7% of Arabs live) and Haifa District (17.9%). The Central region also includes parts of the Triangle and is comprised of Tel Aviv District (1.5%), Central District (12.1%) and three villages that were under the jurisdiction of Occupied Jerusalem in 1948 (1.03%). The Southern region includes the Naqab (12.9%). In 2006, approximately 46.7% of the Arab population lived in communities administered by local village councils, and 33.8% lived in towns officially regarded as Arab cities. Of the rest, 8.2% were in the Arab-Jewish mixed cities, 3.6% lived in towns under the jurisdiction of regional councils, and around 7.7% resided in 38 Arab villages and neighborhoods in the South and the North that are not recognized by the State. Compared to Israel s Jewish community, the Arab community is young. The percentage of Arabs under fourteen is 41.1% (38.6% in the North, 40.7% in the Center and 42.3% in the South), while the ratio of Jews in the same age group is only about 25.5%. The median age among the Arab population is approximately 19 years old (21 in the North, 19 in the Center and 12 in the South) while the median age of Jews is approximately 30.3 years. The average size of the Arab family is currently 5.04 persons. In addition to the four Arab local authorities that existed prior to the Nakba (mass expulsion of Palestinians during the formation of Israel), 17 Arab local authorities had emerged by the 1950s, followed by 24 in the 1960s and 10 in the 1970s. In the 1980s, 12 additional local P. O. Box 330, Shefa-Amr 20200, Israel. ' ת. ד.,330 שפרעם admin@gal-soc.org /

2 authorities were set up, including villages that were recognized and placed under the regional council s jurisdiction, combining more than one village into one local authority. In the 1990s, 21 Arab local authorities were set up, also including villages that were recognized, placed under the jurisdiction of the regional councils and merged with other villages to form one local authority. Between 2000 and 2005, three Arab regional authorities were set up. Since the end of 1994 to 2007, 20 villages have been officially recognized (out of around 60 unrecognized villages), including 9 villages in the North and Center and 11 in the Naqab that were incorporated into the Abu Basma Regional Council. In Israel, only 867,000 dunam (867 km²) of the land remains under Arab ownership, which constitutes 4.24% of the total land area (excluding bodies of water). 65.8% of the members of the Arab local authorities and representatives in the regional councils belong to the age group. Only a tiny percentage of women (approximately 1%) are a member. 41.9% of members have high school graduation certificates and 27.7% hold a Bachelor's degree or a college certificate. Those who are over 50 constitute 29.7% of local authority members, of whom 63.4% have high school graduation certificates and approximately 23.3% hold Bachelor degrees and above. Approximately 88% of Arab local authorities' representatives believe that the local authorities' main need lies in training and enabling their various staff. 85.7% of the Arab local authorities need to increase the number of computers they own and utilize them in their work. 67.6% see an acute need for increasing their administrative staff. 75% of the Arab local authorities do not use computers in their work, so they cannot use the Geographic Information System (GIS) for town planning, construction, and industrial and commercial project management. In addition, around 69% do not use computers in the local planning and construction committees. In 2006, approximately 90% of the Arab local authorities did not witness any new street building or the expansion or repair of any existing ones. Approximately 93% did not witness implementation of any projects for the supply of water or sanitation. The gap between the total income of the Arab local authority (from government budgets) and the total income of the Jewish local authority from the same sources is approximately 25% in favor of the latter. The income of approximately 60% of the Arab local authorities from these sources is 5,000 NIS (New Israeli Shekels) per capita, while only 15.83% of the Jewish authorities' per capita income is at this level. The per capita income of the rest of the Arab local authorities (38.57%) amounts to between 5,001 and 8,000 NIS, while 65.83% of the Jewish authorities' per capita income is at this level. The per capita income of the rest of the Jewish authorities (approximately 18.34%) amounts to more than 8,001 NIS, while the proportion of Arab local authorities with a similar income is 1.43%. While the income of around 60% of the Arab local authorities is 5,000 NIS (per capita), only approximately 43% of them manage with this amount, while a large proportion of the local authorities spend much more than what they receive. Between 30% and 50% of the regular budget of 70% of the Arab local authorities is earmarked solely for education as it is provided by the government education budget, but the Arab pupil's share of government education budgets is still only around 80.6% of the Jewish pupil's share. The Jewish local authorities local income is 2.8 times that of the Arab local authorities, with 1,180.2 NIS per capita in the Arab local authorities compared with 3,278 NIS per capita in the Jewish authorities. Perhaps the component most responsible for this difference is the local house tax (Arnona), where the Jewish local authority collects 4.67 times more than what is levied by the Arab local authorities. 52.2% of the Arab local authorities have filed a request to expand their jurisdiction area.

3 אגודת הגליל האגודה הערבית הארצית ל מ ח ק ר ו שי רו ת י ב רי א ו ת ) ע. ר ( (. ) THE GALILEE SOCIETY The Arab National Society For Health Research & Services (R.A) Only a very small percentage of them (2.8%) have received partial or complete responses from the relevant government departments. Approximately one-third (33.3%) of these applications have not received any response, while a small percentage (5.6%) have had their requests refused. 88.8% of the Arab towns have structural plans, 42% of the currently approved plans were prepared from the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s, approximately 36.6% were prepared in the 1990s and 18% were prepared between Only 2% of the Arab local authorities prepared master plans of their own towns in the years , while the planning and construction committees were the ones who prepared these plans. Approximately 47% of the Arab local authorities prepared their structural plans during the 1990s, and this percentage reached 57% in the years In most cases (more than 56%), these plans were prepared by private Jewish engineering firms from all years. More than half of the Arab local authorities have not witnessed an expansion of their area of jurisdiction since their first structural plan; even those that have experienced such an expansion have done so only in the last two decades. 38.5% of Arab towns have certified strategic plans and only 29.5% are in the process of preparing such plans. Only 21% of Arab towns have benefited from housing projects initiated by the Ministry of Housing. Approximately two-thirds of Arab town residents currently suffer from the lack of land zoned for construction. Approximately one-third of Arab families will need one housing unit, 19% will need two housing units, and 18.5% will need more than three housing units in the next decade. All Arab towns in Israel, with the exception of Jish and Mili'ya villages, are at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, in clusters 1 to 4 (see Methodology section for more information about how this scale was derived). These towns constitute around 71.1% of all the local authorities in these levels on the scale. The water network was installed in the majority of Arab towns in the 1950s and 1960s (26 then 32 of towns, respectively). In the 1970s, 12 additional towns were added. In the 1980s and 90s, the water network was incorporated into a few unrecognized villages in the Center and North after their official recognition (3% and 10% respectively). A third of Arab towns still lack a water reservoir and a substantial proportion (29%) suffer from an old water system. Furthermore, 14% of Arab towns suffer from contamination of drinking water, 18% from cutting off of water services, and 12% from total lack of service to certain areas in the town's vicinity. Most Arab local authorities (61.2%) squander up to 20% of their water supplies, while the rate among the Jewish local authorities is approximately 95.8%. The rest of the Arab local authorities (34.3%), waste between 20.1% and 40% of the incoming water. The electricity network was installed in most Arab towns (53%) in the 1970s. 9% were already connected in the 1950s and 23% in the 1960s. The process of providing electricity to some Arab towns continued into the 1990s. Arab towns in Israel suffer from effects caused by an old network (14%), intermittent power outages (5%), and lack of connections in some areas of the town (21%). Approximately 95% of Arab towns lack a branch of the National Insurance Institute, and a similar proportion lacks an Interior Ministry office. There is an almost complete absence of a Center for Fire and Rescue, with only two existing in Arab towns: one in Shefa-Amr and one in Um El Fahem, both of which were only opened recently. Only one branch of the Income P. O. Box 330, Shefa-Amr 20200, Israel. ' ת. ד.,330 שפרעם admin@gal-soc.org /

4 Tax Authority exists in an Arab town (Nazareth). Furthermore, more than 90% of Arab towns lack employment offices, 36% lack post office branches and 34% do not have social welfare offices. In approximately 49% of the Arab towns, there are no community centers. Most Arab towns lack theatres (92% of towns), cinemas (approximately 99%), public parks (70%), sports clubs (69%), children's playgrounds (68%), swimming pools (87%) and elderly clubs (42%). Many Arab towns entirely lack a number of other services as well, including general practice clinics (in 24% of Arab towns), a first aid station (76%), ambulances (78%), specialist clinics (69%), dental clinics (31%), radiation centers (87%), analysis laboratories (98%), physiotherapy centers (70%), veterinary clinics (79%), pharmacies (39%), and elderly care centers (67%). For 80% of Arab towns, the nearest hospital is more than 11 km away, while for 35% of the Arab towns, the nearest hospital is more than 20 km away. Banks have branches in only approximately 34.5% of Arab towns, and approximately half of the Arab towns even lack auto repair workshops and stores for wood products, food and beverages, metals and glass. In addition, approximately 88% of the Arab towns lack organized slaughterhouses. As of 2006, more than 20% of Arab towns lack sewage systems and in the rest of the towns the sewage systems operate only partially. The existing networks were installed in 32% of Arab towns in the 1980s, while they were previously available in about only 10% of towns. 54% of Arab towns were not able to install sewage systems until the 1990s. More than 77% of Arab towns recycle wastewater for the benefit of various segments such as agriculture and industry. Around 70% of Arab towns lack waste dumps, and in 56% of the towns, the residents get rid of the waste by leaving it in random places. It is then transferred in 74% of cases to organized dumps, where it is buried or simply left out (18%+) or burned (8%). It must be said that the majority of the waste dumps that are "organized" do not meet health requirements. Approximately 48% of Arab towns suffer from the existence of antennas in the vicinity of their residential homes. In 21% of them, the distance between the antennas and the homes ranges between 0 and 50 meters, in about 10% the distance ranges between 51 and 100 meters, and in 36% of cases the distance ranges between 101 to 500 meters. Approximately 69% of the Arab towns suffer from the presence of high electric currents near the residential homes, with the majority not exceeding a distance of 50 meters from the homes. 35.7% of Arab towns suffer from one or more of the following: agricultural waste, smells, noise and smoke. The number of Arab pupils in the governmental education system is approximately 323,160 pupils; their proportion of the total pupils in government schools in Israel is approximately 17.53% (excluding Jerusalem and the Golan Heights). Arab pupils are distributed in 585 primary, preparatory and secondary schools. In addition, Arab children in kindergartens number approximately 40,000. The number of Arab schools until 1959 was only 21, while the Arab population exceeded 200,000 people. In the 1960s, 42 schools were established, divided as follows: 22 primary, three comprehensive secondary, and 17 secondary. In the 1970s, 231 schools were established, distributed as follows: 204 primary, 7 preparatory, 5 comprehensive secondary, and 15 secondary. In the 1980s, 69 schools were established, including 29 primary, 11 preparatory, 19 comprehensive secondary, and 10 secondary. In the 1990s, 114 schools were established, including 47 primary, three combined primary and comprehensive secondary; 28 preparatory; 21 comprehensive secondary; and 15 secondary. Between 2000 and 2006, 108 schools were established. Arab schools are divided in different educational stages (from the

5 אגודת הגליל האגודה הערבית הארצית ל מ ח ק ר ו שי רו ת י ב רי א ו ת ) ע. ר ( (. ) THE GALILEE SOCIETY The Arab National Society For Health Research & Services (R.A) first grade until the twelfth grade, and sometimes to the fourteenth) as follows: 371 primary schools, which constitute approximately 63.4% of the total number of Arab schools; 57 preparatory schools (9.7%); 59 combined preparatory/secondary schools (10.1%); and 95 secondary schools constituting approximately (16.2%). More than 40% of Arab towns (not taking into account the unrecognized villages) do not have secondary schools, more than 35% do not have preparatory schools, around 11% do not have primary schools, and more than 6% do not have nurseries for children under five and kindergartens for five year-olds. About 19% of educational institutions lack a library, approximately 48% lack security guards, 61% do not have transport available for pupils to travel to and from their homes, and 25% lack a constant internet connection. There are 44 Arab schools which care for those with special needs, including 12 primary and 32 combined primary/comprehensive secondary, a majority of which (66%) were established between 1990 to The Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab, who number approximately 180,000 people (constituting approximately 25% of the total region's population), live in 53 villages and towns. Around 85,000 Arab Bedouin residents of the Naqab live in approximately 45 villages unrecognized by the government of Israel. 60,000 of the Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab were displaced following the Nakba (amounting to 80% of the total Arab population there). The area lived on, planted and used for grazing by the Bedouins in the Naqab before the Nakba was more than 12 million dunam (12,000 km²), mostly located in the northwestern Naqab. There are between 500 to 5,000 people living in each unrecognized village, and they have no local access whatsoever to certain essential government services, such as water, electricity, schools, paved roads and waste dump sites. There is also a lack of official documentation that refers to their places of residence. Among the 38 unrecognized villages, 3 have not had a committee or a local person appointed to be administratively responsible for their affairs. In the villages that have a responsible body, the members are usually elected (approximately 78%) and in approximately 18% of the cases, the members are appointed according to the family representation of the village residents. In approximately 5% of cases, the responsible body is delegated. Only 68% of these responsible local bodies are represented in the Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages. It has become evident that one-third of these bodies had been delegated or elected in 1997, another third were selected in the two subsequent years ( ) and the last third was assigned or elected in the periods between 1988 and 1995 and between 2000 and Except for one body, all the local responsible bodies in the unrecognized villages have applied to those responsible in the government departments to obtain recognition of their village. Most of these applications (around 74%) were made between 1997 and 2000, and approximately 12% were made in the years Approximately 12% of these requests received positive responses and ended with full recognition of the village, but most of the requests (approximately 79%), made from 1997 till 2000 have not been answered to date. During the last two years, 64% of the unrecognized villages have had demolition orders carried out at least once. P. O. Box 330, Shefa-Amr 20200, Israel. ' ת. ד.,330 שפרעם admin@gal-soc.org /

6 The majority of the residents of the unrecognized villages (approximately 90%) receive some services such as government offices, public facilities, community centers, various cultural and recreational facilities, public parks and homes for the elderly, schools and basic services such as electricity and water from the neighboring Jewish settlements or towns, and only a small percentage (approximately 10%) get some of these services from other Arab towns in the Naqab. There are no bank branches, shopping centers, commercial establishments, agricultural centers or stores selling clothes, fabrics, paper and printing, aluminum, iron and steel in all their forms, glass and jewelry stores, or stores selling electronic and electrical equipment, etc. While the average wage in Israel in the year 2000 was around 7,000 NIS a month, the average wage for men in the city of Rahat (the only Bedouin city in the Naqab) was half of this. Among women, the average wage was 5.6 times less (1,250 NIS). Around 84% of the unrecognized villages lack maternal and child care or family health centers; approximately 80% do not have general practice clinics, and there are health clinics called "Sick Funds" (Kupat Holim) in only ten villages. Except for one village where there is one specialized clinic, the villages lack such clinics. All the unrecognized villages lack dental clinics, first aid and elderly care, rehabilitation centers for the disabled, medical laboratories and physiotherapy centers. 49% of these unrecognized villages particularly suffer from the presence of cellular phone antennae towers in the villages. Approximately 40% of the villages suffer from high electrical currents that run in the villages or adjacent to them, while they themselves lack electricity. 36% of these villages have homes and amenities built from asbestos. About 95% of these unrecognized villages suffer from rampant dust in the area due to the lack of paved roads. 79% of unrecognized villages suffer from smoke and smells resulting from the burning of waste adjacent to their towns. 71% of the towns suffer from wastewater. 56% suffer from the presence of garbage dump sites adjacent to their towns while 54% of villages suffer from the spread of agricultural waste (plant and animal) in their towns and adjacent to them. 49% suffer from their towns' location adjacent to highways with cars and trucks. 18% of the villages suffer from waste from factories that exist in the area and around 8% suffer from the presence of quarries adjacent to their towns and the consequent environmental and health effects.