Nazareth, November 18 (IslamOnline) - Nine Palestinian citizens of Israel accused of illegally demonstrating and attacking police outside an Israeli employment office in 1999 will face trial on November 20.

The defendants, from the northern Galilee region, believe that this case is an example of the Israeli government strategy of silencing those who dare to challenge the racism inherent in the legal and political structures of the state.

“Every day I am dealing with cases of discrimination against Arab citizens in the job office which are a direct result of the racism inherent in the state,” said one of the defendants, Wehbe Badarne, director of Sawt El-Amel, a worker’s rights organization.

“This case is yet one more example of government racism against the 20% of the population who are Palestinians,” he added.

In September 1999, the Israeli government declared that the unemployed of the Arab village Ein Mahel must sign at the employment bureau in Jewish Nazareth Illit, and not in Arab Nazareth as they had previously done.

Ein Mahel, on the edge of Nazareth, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the area. Land confiscation to develop Nazareth Illit, the Jewish new town built in a loop around Arab Nazareth, has continued over the years leading to high unemployment amongst the former farming community.

An Arab worker’s rights organization, Sawt El Amel, believed that the move was a cover for the adoption of discriminatory practice designed to deny benefits to Arab citizens, and to reduce government unemployment figures.

This claim was supported by the investigation of Yediot Aharonot, a Hebrew language newspaper who reported that on transfer to the Nazareth Illit office, 199 jobless out of 454 from Ein Mahel were registered as ‘refusers’.

If a person is said to have refused work, they are not entitled to benefits. Thus the government claimed that between August and October 1999, the unemployment rate in Ein Mahel had fallen from 18.8% to 10.5%.

Reporter Hagar Enosh said that one of the bureau’s main strategies was to send the Ein Mahel unemployed to workplaces that did not exist. When the worker returned to the office to claim benefits, the form was signed to say that the individual was a refuser, even though the job did not exist.

In October 1999, hundreds of Ein Mahel residents went to the job office in Nazareth Illit to demonstrate and demand a meeting with the area supervisor.

When this was refused, the workers began demonstrating in the hall of the job office itself.

The police were called and started to provoke demonstrators. Three unemployed women were injured, and 9 people were arrested including Sawt El-Amel director Wehbe Badarne.

The prosecution refused a plea by Adalah, the Legal Center for the Rights of Arabs in Israel, to drop the case, and after 3 years the nine will face trial beginning 20 November.