August 20, 2009: Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center has filed an appeal in the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of a group of twenty Jewish families whose right to build homes in the coastal Israeli town of Jaffa is being challenged by a coalition of Arab-Israelis and politically-motivated NGOs. The coalition is demanding that the families, who won the right to build in a public auction of a plot of land, have their bid disqualified by the Supreme Court based solely upon the fact that they are Jewish and that their presence in Jaffa will tip the demographic balance of the neighborhood and discriminates against Arabs.

Two months ago, the families submitted a joint bid on a plot of land in Jaffa which had been offered up in public auction by the Israel Lands Authority (ILA). The families planned to build a residential building, with twenty apartments, on the plot. A competing, lower bid was submitted by an Arab contractor. After considering all the bids, the ILA awarded the rights to the Jewish group.

Following their victory, a coalition of twenty-five Arab citizens from Jaffa, along with three Israeli human rights NGOs, filed a petition in the District Court of Tel Aviv against the ILA, insisting that the families' winning bid be disqualified. The coalition argued that since the families intended to build apartments primarily for Jewish citizens, the ILA - a government agency - had somehow discriminated against the Arab contractor and Arab residents of Jaffa in conducting the public auction. The petitioners argued that the local Arab population of Jaffa suffers from a housing shortage and that the court should issue an injunction against building any apartments, unless the builders agree to allocate housing units specifically for Arabs.

The District Court dismissed the case on a technicality, but went out of its way to criticize the Arab group's position as inherently contradictory: While seeking to nullify the winning bid as discriminatory, they argue that the main problem is the very fact that the tenants are Jewish; they would have no objection, it is clear, if the winning bidder were to sell the apartments exclusively to Arabs.

The Arab group appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court. Amazingly, the Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction to prevent the families' building project from moving forward. To fight for their rights, the families turned to Shurat HaDin to represent them in their own appeal to the Supreme Court. The families won the land auction fairly and want to commence building their new homes as quickly as possible. It is clear from both the filings and the response of the District Court Judge that the claim of the Arab groups and the NGOs is part of a broader campaign to limit the rights of Jews to live in Israel more broadly-a campaign that starts with the assumption that all of Israel is inherently Arab land, and that every new Jewish community is a "settlement" that is wrongful in its essence. This campaign cannot be allowed to prevail, in Jaffa or anywhere else.

In our legal brief filed with the Supreme Court, Shurat HaDin argues that the Jewish families were legally declared the winners, in a public auction that was conducted in a free and transparent manner. Just as all Arab Israelis were allowed to bid on the property, so, too, were the Jewish families who managed to offer the highest bid. In addition, the Jewish families also have vital human rights that the Supreme Court must act to safeguard: namely the freedom of association, the right to benefit from their own property, and the rights of Jews to live wherever they want in Israel.

The Supreme Court is waiting for the response of the ILA, which has yet to file a brief in the case, before it can set a date for a hearing. In recent weeks the world Jewish community has been told that Jews are forbidden to live in parts of Jerusalem and the territories. Now we are being informed by so called human rights groups that Jews may also not live in Jaffa, a suburb of Tel-Aviv that has had a Jewish presence for thousands of years. We are confident that the Supreme Court will expose the fallacy of this argument and uphold the right of Jews to live anywhere in the State of Israel.