The Israeli cabinet approved on Sunday a 30-billion shekel ($9.35 billion), five-year plan to close gaps between the Arab sector and the remainder of the population in education, welfare, employment and infrastructure.
While Arab-Israelis account for about a fifth of the population, the current coalition government, led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, is the first to include an Arab political party, giving the sector considerable political clout.
A main achievement of the party in coalition talks was to increase the funds allotted to the five-year plan, according to a Globes report at the time.
The plan includes:
- Employment development: More training programs for in-demand job skills; Hebrew-language training; expanded day care to encourage Arab women to enter labor force
- Technological innovation and jobs: Increasing the proportion of Arab students completing advanced high school matriculation exams in mathematics, English and computer science; boosting the number of Arabs studying technology subjects at a university level and those working in technology
- Health services: Reducing gaps in health services
- Housing: Thousands of housing units will be marketed; infrastructure in older neighborhoods will be improved and public institutions, such as community centers, will receive added funding
It was earlier reported that, thirteen political parties and organizations from the Arab world issued a joint statement Sunday condemning Israel’s decision last week to designate six Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist organizations.”
The leftist Tunisian Workers’ Party released a statement signed by 13 institutions from Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, Jordan, Mauritania, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait and Bahrain on its social media account.
“We condemn this classification and accept it as part of the Zionist occupation policy that usurps the rights of the Palestinian people,” the statement said.
“True terrorism is represented and embodied by the state of the Zionist formation, which was historically established as an extension of terrorist and criminal gangs and has been dedicated to usurping lands, killing and displacing the Palestinian people since its establishment as an occupying entity,” it added.
The statement also called on all “free people in the world” to reject this classification of terrorism, adding solidarity with the Palestinian non-governmental organizations will continue.
On Friday, Israel accused the six human rights groups of having links with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group banned by the Israeli military.
The six organizations are the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.
The PFLP was the second-largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during the 1970s and was elected as a member of the Legislative Council in Palestine’s last parliamentary elections in 2006.
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