Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that Arab municipalities will receive the 200 million shekels ($54 million) they are owed within 10 days, the head of the Federation of Local Authorities, Haim Bibas, told Arab mayors on Sunday.
Bibas, a Likud stalwart, met with the mayors at the protest tent they set up outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem and relayed to them the promise he said he received directly from Netanyahu.
But despite this assurance, the mayors said they have yet to receive any official confirmation. “And as long as there’s no agreement on the details, we don’t intend to end our struggle,” one said.
The money had been pledged by the previous government to compensate for discriminatory criteria in the so-called “balancing grants” that the Interior Ministry pays to poorer municipalities. These criteria resulted in Arab towns getting less than Jewish towns.
The National Council of Arab Mayors in Israel has announced that all Arab schools will strike as soon as the school year opens on September 1 if Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich still refuses to transfer the funds by then. They are also planning a mass demonstration and are urging the Federation of Local Authorities to join the fight.
On Sunday, the mayors said the 200 million shekels is just part of the funding they were promised under the previous government’s plan to reduce gaps between Arab and Jewish communities. These allocations have already been approved, Umm al-Fahm Mayor Samir Mahameed said, but the government is now holding them up or trying to divert them to other purposes.
The National Council of Arab Mayors in Israel is set to step up measures to protest Smotrich’s freezing of 870 million shekels ($233.4 million) in approved funding for Arab communities.
After demonstrating outside the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem Sunday morning, Arab mayors and council heads met and decided on moves to intensify their protest: A second, larger demonstration will be held at the same location next Monday. If the funds are not forthcoming, the country’s Arab communities will begin an open-ended general strike September 1, the date that schools around the country are set to open.
With the backing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich announced that a law establishing oversight mechanisms must be enacted to guarantee that the money allocated to Arab local governments does not end up in the hands of crime organizations.
Smotrich has claimed that many Arab municipalities are controlled by criminal or terrorist organizations. The finance minister presented no data to support his claims. The mayors’ council said it will not tolerate such lies.
The council’s executive director, Ameer Bisharat, said that his organization is demanding “emergency treatment of crime in Arab society and the immediate release of all funds earmarked for the Arab local governments. As a first step, next week the councils will strike for a day, and their heads and employees will demonstrate outside the Prime Minister’s Office.”
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