"Brutal procedure". This is how the admissions committee of the locality, to which he wished to be accepted, rejected his application. We'll call him Y. He is afraid to be exposed after he appealed the decision to the appellate court, which accepted his request. But he still vividly remembers the moment when he was told he hadn't passed the admissions committee. "It's very humiliating. You only understand the feeling of rejection and being an outsider when you feel it in your own flesh," he said.
The Admissions Committees Law is a loaded law, and this week it made headlines again after the Knesset decided to expand its applicability. Until now, admissions committees could only be held in community communities in the Negev and Galilee with up to 400 housing units. This week, the law was expanded to include large community communities with up to 700 housing units, as well as localities defined as "national priority localities," which are on the Ministry of Construction and Housing's national priority map, and are classified in clusters 1 to 5 in the peripherality index.
The community has no connection to the article (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)
With the Knesset and the entire country rocked by the legal revolution, the expansion of the Admissions Committees Law actually won the cooperation of opposition and coalition Knesset members. The bill was proposed by MKs Simcha Rotman (Religious Zionism), Sharan Haskel (State Camp) and Yitzhak Kreuzer (Otzma Yehudit). On the third reading, 42 Knesset members supported the proposal against 11 opposed. In addition to Haskel, there were other Knesset members from the state camp who supported the law. Ra'am and Hadash-Ta'al MKs opposed the bill, as did MKs Naama Lazimi and Gilad Kariv, both from the Labor Party.
"It would have been better if the Admissions Committees Law had not been born at all. This is racist legislation that has no place on Israel's statute book," Lazimi said after Tuesday's vote. According to her, "This law is not what will deal with the housing problems in the Negev and Galilee for all those who live there. Problems that are the result of problematic and broad policies. This law is brought by the most racist and extremist government Israel has ever known, a government that seeks to institutionalize discrimination and exclusion through this law as well. Instead of decision makers working for a more just and equal society, for life itself and the cost of living, for the development of the country and its inhabitants, they only exacerbate the rifts and the economic situation even more."
The community has no connection to the article (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)
Attorney Uri Narov of the Center for Victims of Racism also spoke out strongly against expanding the law. "The law was problematic in its previous version, and now it is even more problematic," he explains. "The entire purpose of the law is to prevent the Arab public from being accepted into those localities, and necessarily it also adversely affects the chances of disadvantaged populations being accepted into those localities. Now they have expanded the law to additional geographical areas in the Negev and Galilee, this is a scandal. Instead of repealing the law, they are expanding its applicability."
He sees this as "a deepening of the institutionalized separation between Jews and Arabs. This leads to all the evils that plague our society. There is no encounter between the populations from childhood to adulthood. For example, my child, who studies in the state-religious education system, will not meet an Arab child, and this is the case throughout the Israeli education system. The State of Israel is lending a hand to the trend of separation and therefore racism is on the rise."
Oppose the bill. MK Naama Lazimi (Photo: Flash 90, Yonatan Zindel)
At the heart of the legal debate revolves around the argument of the law's supporters that admissions committees are necessary in communal localities in order to be able to reject applicants for admission due to "the candidate's incompatibility with the socio-cultural fabric of the community locality, which there is reason to assume will harm this fabric."
Narov argues that "the grounds of 'incompatibility' are vague and go prove after the committee rejected you that you are suitable. It is about the desire of communities to remain homogeneous and for all their residents to have certain characteristics. There is an opening here for irrelevant considerations, and the state is lending a hand to this."
Amit Yifrah, secretary general of the Moshavim Movement and chairman of the Israel Farmers Association, rejects the claim that the criterion for adapting the absorbed to the socio-cultural fabric and character of the community is not a vague criterion designed to prevent Arabs or disadvantaged populations from being relieved in those communities. "The desire is to ensure that those who wish to be absorbed really want to live as a member of a small community and that this is not someone who comes to make a real estate round," he claims. "Each such community consists of a community with a certain character or characteristics. These are small communities and each family that is absorbed has a greater specific weight than a family in an urban locality. We want those who intend to determine their fate in that community to integrate into it. It should be remembered that these are communities based on the voluntary management of its members. We want to ensure the existence and growth of communities," he said.
Amit Yifrah, secretary of the Moshavim movement and chairman of the Israel Farmers Association (photo: courtesy of those photographed)
Yifrach rejected the claim that the purpose of the law is to prevent the entry of Arab residents. "The law has criteria that clearly prevent the ability to disqualify a candidate based on religion, race or gender, and that is not the purpose of the law. There are localities where Arab families have been absorbed, and it should be remembered that 97% of the applicants pass the admissions committees. Those who are not accepted can appeal to an objection committee where there are no representatives of the receiving locality, and out of those who appeal there are those whose appeal is accepted," he stressed.
Yiftah's appeal was indeed accepted, but he carries with it a serious injury. "It's impossible to really know how the absorption committees operate and what the considerations that guide them really are. Obviously there are combinations and personal connections. I was accepted in the end, but it cost me money and time and the feeling of humiliation that remained."
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