Don’t call it a ‘housing crisis’: the discriminatory plight of Israeli Arabs
The discourse in Israel treats the housing crisis as a national one, with all sectors of society suffering equally, its ramifications felt universally across the country. Such a framing of the problem presumes that this is a single crisis deriving from a confluence of economic factors, such as limited housing supply coupled with raging demand in the country’s center, accompanied by a steady increase in monthly mortgage payments due to rising interest rates. To this, analysts add the absence of long-term rental options, along with a scarcity of bids for housing construction on state-owned land.
Such a framing of the problem is a far cry from reality in Arab communities. Young Arabs aren’t flocking to buy apartments in Tel Aviv and its environs, most Arab households are not eligible for mortgages, and if you do happen to find someone willing to rent an apartment to an Arab, you don’t start haggling over the price. As far as state lands are concerned, they hardly exist within Arab communities, and when they do, they take the form of Jewish National Fund forests planted in order to demarcate the community’s boundaries. This shows that there is no universal national crisis, but rather two separate crises. One is a Jewish one, which is discussed regularly. The second one, concerning Arab communities, is out of sight.
The assumption that the housing crisis is a national crisis encompassing all social strata leads state authorities to promote solutions for the Arab sector that were previously used in Jewish communities, while totally ignoring the specifics of Arab society. This dooms these plans for failure a priori, leaving Arab citizens with no real solutions.
In contemporary Arab society, the question of “where will the kids live?” crops up starting in hospital maternity wards. Along with the joy accompanying the arrival of the next generation, there is concern regarding where they will live three decades later, when they too want to start a household. The answer to this question is particularly difficult for the 50 percent of the Arab population living below the poverty line. In this respect, the housing shortage in Arab communities is more like an intergenerational crisis, which has existed since the state was founded.
Over the years, Arab towns and villages could only develop by using the bits of private land left in the hands of residents, under the shadow of expropriation and appropriation policies which the state has employed since it was established. This is coupled with the lack of overall planning or investment in infrastructure in these communities. This backdrop led to construction patterns meant mainly to address housing needs. The manner of construction that arose out of necessity, against the backdrop of the dire shortage in land and in the context of restrictive construction policies, led to the creation of neighborhoods of concrete houses, with no room for open green areas such as public gardens or promenades. A safe sidewalk became a privilege enjoyed by only a few.
In tandem, the limited areas allocated for employment and commerce activities and the scarcity of revenues from property taxes on businesses located within Arab local councils created many sleeper towns which empty out every morning, with streets all but lifeless in the evening. This is why Arab local councils are at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap, with their residents needing to look for work elsewhere.
It’s not just the housing crisis that’s different; it’s also the financing system. In response to the lack of credit services and the discriminatory policies adopted by banks, Arab society developed a social custom designed to provide a financial safety net for young couples wishing to buy a place to live. According to this custom, a house is built as part of a joint financial undertaking by the nuclear family, with each family member either contributing from their private savings or taking out a small loan in order to help the young couple in their quest for a home. This custom has provided a partial solution for many years, but it has led to a prolonged economic dependence on family members, with a heavy financial burden placed on them, keeping them in poverty for many years. Over the last decade, with the weakening of these social mechanisms, a parallel banking system has arisen, one that provides loans through a gray market managed by criminal elements, which are gaining strength in Arab communities.
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Educated young couples looking for a better quality of life and employment opportunities need to find affordable alternatives in nearby Jewish or mixed Arab-Jewish cities. This phenomenon, which is growing constantly, draws sharp opposition from some Jewish residents or local politicians, who object to Arab citizens moving into their communities. They want to maintain the de facto segregation practices that have prevailed until now. What has the government done in response to such segregation? It is promoting an amendment to the law permitting admission committees that vet newcomers not only in small communities, as is currently the case, but in larger ones as well. This will enable even more Jewish communities to refuse to accept Arabs under the excuse of non-compatibility with a community’s social fabric.
Thus, the quest for an apartment by young Arabs in Israel is full of obstacles such as discriminatory planning policies, which dooms them to violate construction laws against their will or become unwelcome migrants in their own country. At the same time, propaganda outlets are busy presenting them as having a genetic propensity to be troublemakers who build illegally and evade taxes. Next time you hear about a national housing crisis, you should stop and ask yourself which crisis they are really talking about.
Attorney Amal Oraby holds a master’s degree in urban planning and is a media manager at the New Israel Fund.