‘Social Suitability’ Nears OK as Israeli Housing Criterion

[Purveyor]

BY Nathan Jeffay

Tel Aviv — Israel is poised to enshrine in law the right of some villages to handpick residents, following the advance of legislation that some decry as carte blanche for ethnic discrimination.

The Knesset Law Committee has approved a bill that protects the right of communal villages of 500 or fewer families to select residents by using the criterion of “social suitability.” The bill, approved by the committee at the end of October, is expected to pass its final hurdle into the statute books via a Knesset-wide vote in November.

The advancing bill is a counteroffensive against the potential application of an earlier Supreme Court ruling to a new judicial petition. Submitted by the Arab nongovernmental organization Adalah, this petition focuses on the right of Ahmed and Fahina Zubeidat, an Israeli Arab couple, to buy a house in the Galilee communal village of Rakefet. They were turned down on the grounds of “unsuitability.” Adalah is opposed to any locale selecting residents, and has sought to fight the practice in stages, starting with Israel’s 111 communal villages. The couple’s petition will be heard in December.

With some exceptions, Israel’s urban property market is open to all. But in certain smaller locales, residency is subject to the approval of a local committee. Israel’s kibbutzim, socialist cooperatives where the land is held communally, insist on carefully choosing their members via such committees. The situation is the same for the country’s moshavim, which are also cooperatives but to a less degree than kibbutzim. Israel also has a category of villages known as yishuvei kehillati, or communal villages — cooperatives on paper but where, to all practical intents, residents live independently.

Back in 2000, the high court ruled that that the State of Israel was not permitted to allocate state-owned land for Jewish-only ownership (though in contrast to many democracies with open housing laws, a November 7 court ruling seems to indicate that private developers may do so). But kibbutzim, moshavim and yishuvel kehillati continued to assess potential residents for suitability on the grounds of how well it was believed they would fit into the community.

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[josiegallows]

1. Pfff

No shit, Israel is in principle a form of extreme discrimination.

It's exactly what the Germans wanted but exactly what Israel gets instead.

If their military could exact genocide without the media eye, they would.

Funny, the irony. So much for the Jewish ethical highground.

[ishaneferguson]

2. It is actually a Haredi protection measure

It is to keep the Haredi (under 15% of the Jewish population) from harassing/proselytising the normal/secular people.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Its been that way unofficially for some time

And it is to keep the hardcore away from the rest of the populace.