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Affordable housing for Jaffa’s Arab residents: too little, too late

With the prices of houses skyrocketing in the center of Israel, even projects designed for the low-income Arab population of Jaffa have become too expensive for them.
This picture shows a view of ongoing work at a construction site in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, Israel,  July 12, 2021.

A district court in Tel Aviv rejected July 25 a lawsuit filed against the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality by Jewish residents of Jaffa. The case revolved around a new affordable housing project, open exclusively to Arab residents of Jaffa. The court accept the municipality’s argument that the tender was not discriminatory, since the city had the authority to foster and promote racial equality. In other words, preferential treatment of one sector over another in cases such as this would not be considered discriminatory.

To clarify, Jaffa is an ancient city, with a history dating back to the Middle Ages and even before. Tel Aviv was founded at the beginning of the 20th century. Jaffa is a mixed city, with an important Arab population, while Tel Aviv’s population is mostly Jewish. The two cities touch physically, and in 1949 the government decided to unite them in one municipality. Hence the name Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

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