Human Rights Violations in Israel and Palestine

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The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) publishes annual reports on the state of human rights in Israel and occupied Palestine. This article is based on its latest year end 2007 one.

ACRI is Israel's leading human and civil rights organization and the only one addressing all rights and liberties issues. It was founded in 1972, is independent and nonpartisan, and leads the struggle for these issues in Israel and the Occupied Territories through litigation, legal advocacy, education, and public outreach. ACRI also believes that civil and human rights are universal. They must be "an integral part of democratic community building and....a unifying force in Israeli public life" for everyone, especially those most marginalized, disadvantaged and currently persecuted or neglected.

ACRI evaluates the state of human rights annually, and it's latest report coincided with the December 10, 2007 International Human Rights Day. Its purpose is to cite flagrant violations; note positive trends and developments, if any; and "trace significant human rights-related processes (affecting) Israeli citizens and residents." Reports rely on various information sources: government publications, NGO reports, newspaper and other published materials, parliamentary documents and court litigation.

Human rights violations directly result from government policies, actions and inactions, and ACRI's report is gloomy. It found the Israeli government derelict for having allowed the "blanket" of rights it's supposed to ensure for Arabs and Jews to erode. As a result, rights violations grow, more people are affected, and those harmed most are on society's fringes. ACRI's report is comprehensive and documents them in areas of:

-- health;

-- workers' rights;

-- the state of Arab Israelis;

-- education in Sderot;

-- migrant worker rights;

-- citizenship and residency status;

-- human rights in occupied Palestine, highlighting neglect and discrimination in Arab East Jerusalem, Hebron, and the "unrecognized" Negev Bedouins;

-- freedom of expression;

-- the right to privacy;

-- criminal justice; and

-- the overall destabilization and erosion of democracy in the country. Israel claims to be a democracy. Its record disproves it.

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/03/human-rights-violations-in-israel-and.html

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1. 34% of Israelis forgo food for other essentials

The government need not get directly involved in food distribution to the needy, but it must increase aid to organizations that do distribute food by tenfold or more and regulate their activity, a government committee recommended yesterday.

The committee that found nutrition insecurity in Israel has reached worrisome proportions, more than twice the level in the United States. The interministerial committee, appointed by Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog, presented its report yesterday. Committee members came from the Ministries of Social Affairs, Finance, Agriculture, Health, Justice, Education and Pensioner Affairs and the National Insurance Institute.

"The State of Israel is committed to maintaining its character as a welfare state, and as such, it must resolve the problem of nutrition insecurity among some of its citizens, which has grown more widespread in recent years," Herzog said in presenting the report.

A study conducted in 2004 found that 22 percent of Israelis suffer from nutrition insecurity, a term used in affluent nations to describe limited or uncertain access to nutritionally adequate foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire such foods in socially acceptable ways.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/970376.html