Last Shabbat, like I do every week, I participated in the Havdalah ceremony that we hold at the beginning of the protests calling for the Government to return the hostages, this time at the site in Tel Aviv that many of us now refer to as Hostage Square. We sang Psalm 121, one of the psalms referred to as a Shir Lama'alot (A Song of Ascents), which opens: I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come? The answer is given in the verse: God will protect you from all harm and will guard your life. At IRAC, we pray that God will guide us through this challenging time. But we also feel called to act in the face of injustice.

Two months ago, I wrote about the lack of adequate shelter infrastructure in Bedouin communities in the Negev. Along with six partner organizations and the Council for Unrecognized Villages, as well as individuals who joined with us, we petitioned the Supreme Court to address the urgent issue of lack of bomb shelters, which leaves tens of thousands of people unprotected in the middle of a war. We are awaiting a Supreme Court hearing of our petition next month and will be sure to keep you posted.

Since we filed the petition, the war on our border with Lebanon has heated up, placing hundreds of thousands of people in peril as they are targeted by daily rockets, missiles and drones. Once more, this time in the north, there is a glaring lack of sufficient bomb shelters in Arab communities, especially as compared to neighboring Jewish communities.

For instance, at the beginning of the war in Karmiel, a city of about 55,000 residents, the vast majority of whom are Jewish, there were 126 public shelters. After the war began, the government promptly installed an additional 129 temporary shelters. But Sakhnin, a city of 36,000 Arab residents a mere 15-minute drive from Karmiel, didn't have a single public shelter, and the government responded to the crisis by installing only seven temporary shelters.

Due to this discrepancy, 19 out of 34 people killed by rocket fire in the north since the beginning of the war have been residents of Arab villages and cities.

Pictured above, the site of the missile attack on the Druze village of Majdal Shams in July, which killed 12 children. Photo Credit, Marianna Belenkaya, Shatil Stock.

Yesterday, 60 rockets were fired at Israel’s north. A woman was killed in the Arab city of Shefaram and another woman and a 4 year old child were  severely injured. This is a daily and sometimes deadly reality. Yet the lack of adequate shelters in Arab communities has been known for years. Israel's State Ombudsman released a report calling to address this issue back in 2018, but nothing has changed.

This week, we sent a letter in the name of the National Committee of Arab Communities and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel to the Minister of Defense, the Chief of the Home front Command, and the Attorney General, demanding that the State fulfill its fundamental obligation to protect all its citizens without further delay. We state that although some Jewish communities in the same area lack sufficient shelters, the complete lack of shelters in Arab communities is a clear instance of systemic discrimination against citizens based on ethnicity, religion, and national identity, which must be addressed immediately.

The first responsibility of a state is to protect its citizens, and indeed all who are under its jurisdiction for any period of time, from enemy actions.

When Israel discriminates against Bedouin communities in the Negev and Arab communities in the north, by failing to extend basic physical protection, with the same concern and responsibility it shows towards the Jewish community, it fails both its commitments to be a Jewish and a democratic state, for both emphasize the equality of all human life.
 
IRAC will continue to advocate for these communities and unless this issue is placed at the top of the agendas of these authorities, we will take this case to the Supreme Court.
 
We will never stop holding the State accountable for fulfilling the promise of the Declaration of Independence to ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. There is no greater political and social right than the right to physical security. It is our responsibility to stand up for this basic Jewish and democratic value.

Have the courage to care and work for an Israel that protects all its citizens equally.
 
Sincerely,
 
Orly Erez-Likhovski