After the announcement earlier this week regarding new housing eligibility for free VAT apartments, the Arabs have joined the chareidim in condemning Finance Minister Yair Lapid.
The new regulation permits persons meeting requirements to purchase their first apartment value added tax free, a savings of 18%. However, the perk only applies to residents who have served in the IDF or a state approved national service. Hence the plan is viewed as discriminatory against the Arab and chareidi communities.
The Mossawa Center is calling on the minister to exhibit courage and deal with the widespread poverty in the Arab sector instead of increasing the discrimination against the weaker residents of the county. According to statistics quoted, less than 2% of Israelis receiving mortgages are from the Israeli Arab community. In addition, there are over 35,000 illegal homes in the Arab sector, homes lacking the necessary permits.
Mossawa, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, points out the new laws address building in kibbutzim and yishuvim, and there is even money for chareidim, yet there are no paragraphs in the law addressing the dire situation in the Arab sector. There are no plans for massive state sponsored construction in Arab municipality. They add that in most cases, banks refuse to give Arabs a mortgage and ironically, as a result of the discrimination they pay more for their homes than Jews.
Mossawa accuses Lapid of placing the future of the state’s building in the hands of the settlers, which also run the Israel Lands Administration and have once again opted to harm the weakest sectors of the nation. Mossawa adds the treasury allocated billions of shekels for IDF veterans but there is no reason to do so at the expense of the Arab sector which has been neglected when the financial pie was divided. The only Arab city with public housing is Nazareth the organization explains, adding in Nazareth an apartment costs over 1.2 million shekels.
Organization officials conclude the new VAT law will do little to assist its community other than some resident of Haifa since in most Arab municipality, residents are compelled to build on their own, lacking state subsidized alternatives.
A group of representatives from Mossawa will be in Knesset on Tuesday in the hope of lobbying some MKs, seeking to persuade them to oppose the new bill.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
Look at that it’s a discrimination who said it’s not apartheid state the state of Ysrael is apartheid state John Kerry is right when you see and read this kind of laws you really come to understand that Israel is an apartheid state is the place where discrimination is still exist big-time shame on you lapid
first of all, ybf, your grammar is horrendous. i have no idea where your sentences end and begin. that takes credit away from anything you are trying to say.
second, its not discrimination if it includes everyone. both chareidim and the arabs have the ability to serve in the army and thereby get the benefits. they chose not to for their own reasons but they can.
this law might be wrong but it doesn’t discriminate