The Afula municipality reneged July 14 on its decision to close its municipal park to non-Afula residents, following a petition submitted by Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. Judge Danny Tzarfati of the Nazareth District Court made it clear to the municipality that it is illegal to close off a public place and exact payment for entrance. “Just like you don’t close off a street, you don’t close a park, without connection to the discrimination issue,” he said. Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit joined the petition, and in the official opinion that was submitted to the court, he wrote that the decision of the Afula municipality to close the park to nonresidents, raises important questions regarding the motives behind such a decision.
The court did not address the issue of motive but restricted itself to determining that the decision to close the park was illegal. Nevertheless, the question still remains of what was behind the municipal decision to forbid entrance to nonresidents of Afula to the park. Was the welfare of the local residents at the foundation of the decision, or the desire to keep out residents of the nearby Arab localities from entering the park?