By Joshua Brilliant, United Press International

Tel Aviv

The Israeli cabinet last Sunday approved a controversial measure that would enable state land to be apportioned for Jewish use only, thereby restricting the ability of Israeli-Arabs to move into Jewish communal settlements.

In Israel, communal settlements are usually established on state-owned land leased through the Jewish Agency. The founders usually share an ideology, determine what kind of a community they want to establish, and try to encourage like-minded people to settle in the community.

Committees examine potential candidates, sometimes allowing them to live in the community for a test period, before weeding out unsuitable candidates.

An Orthodox Jewish community would, for example, be expected to reject a secular candidate, and vice versa.

In 1995, the Israeli-Arab Kaadan family wanted to build a house in the new communal settlement of Katsir, located near the Israeli-Arab town of Umm Al Fahem.

However, a secretary who was new on the job told Adel Kaadan that he could not move there because he was an Arab.

Kaadan, a male nurse in a Jewish geriatric institution, appealed to the High Court of Justice. In March 2000, a five-judge High Court panel, by a four- to-one vote, ruled in favor of the family and held that the state cannot discriminate between Arabs and Jews in the distribution of land.

Kaadan does not live in Katsir any longer, but other Arabs have moved into the settlement as well as to neighboring Harish.

While many Israeli-Arabs would like to live in Arab communities, others are attracted by the higher standard of living and better services, including schools, available in Jewish communities.

Israeli-Arabs are free to buy flats in cities and have moved to Upper-Nazareth and Carmel, for example, which were originally designed to be Jewish towns.

There are mixed cities, such as Jaffa, Haifa and Acre, where Arab residents have lived longer than their Jewish neighbors. But as a general rule, most Arabs have avoided settling in predominantly Jewish communities.

Israeli hardliners, taken aback by the court's decision, sought to amend the law to legalize establishing settlements for Jews only.

"We are in a Jewish state and Jews don't want to live with gentiles," Rabbi Haim Druckman of the hawkish National Religious Party told UPI. "That's why Jews come here. If one would want to live with gentiles he could live in New York."

Druckman, who was prominent in the settlers' drive in the West Bank, tabled a bill that would allow the Jewish Agency to provide land for Jewish settlements only.

The state controls 93 percent of Israel's land, a spokeswoman for the Israel Lands Administration said. Establishing new settlements through the Jewish Agency saves costs on leasing state-owned land and bureaucratic hassles.

On July 7, hawkish Education Minister Limor Livnat brought the bill to the full cabinet. Seventeen ministers voted to support it when it comes before parliament; two voted against, and one abstained.

Israeli leftists and Arabs slammed the cabinet's decision.

"It is a racist bill. Something that should not be done," Knesset Member Naomi Chazan of the dovish Meretz Party told UPI.

"It contradicts all the basics of democracy and equality," Chazan added. She likened it to the infamous South African apartheid laws.

Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ahmad Tibi complained that the government was treating its Arab citizens as enemies of the state. "The state of Israel is Jewish and democratic, but it is democratic for the Jews and Jewish for the Arabs," he complained.

Tibi said the government confiscates Arab-owned lands and denies building permits, as there are no master plans. Israeli Arabs have thus engaged in illegal construction and more than 20,000 demolition orders have been issued against them, he added.