Ministry of Transportation

Total Budget: 860 million NIS

Number of Employees: 640

Number of Arab Employees: 6 → 0.9%

Issues:

1. Regional Development and Urban Roads

♦ The allocation in 2000 to regional development in the areas where there are Arab

communities is 110 million NIS (as in 1999) which is 10% of the budget for major

arteries.

♦ 68% of the budget was allocated to access roads to Nazareth, as part of the

development towards Year 2000 events.

♦ The amount in the budget for the year 2000 for urban roads within Arab

municipalities is less than 10% of last year’s allocation. 35% of it has been

allocated to the Nazareth area within the framework of the “Nazareth 2000” tourism

project.

The main purpose of regional transportation development is to create access for communities to major traffic arteries. Convenient access, is among other things, access to employment, health services, shopping and many other routine activities.

The smallest of Jewish communities enjoys an access road and connection to traffic arteries from the moment it is established by the official settlement institutions. To this day, much older Arab communities remain without adequate connections to traffic arteries.

It should be noted that although the allocation for the "Nazareth 2000" Project is considered an allocation for the Arab citizens, it is actually offensive to them. The paving of an access road and urban roads in Nazareth was not at all designed to improve accessibility for Nazareth’s 58,000 Arab citizens; but rather, primarily to improve the mobility of tourism in Israel. The rest of the 1,000,000 Arab citizens who do not live in Nazareth pay the price for this tourism development as if it was for their benefit.

2. Integration of Arab Employees in Areas for which the Ministry of Transportation

is Responsible

Ben Gurion International Airport: There are no Arab employees.

The Ports Authority: 5.5% of the employees are Arabs.

The Israel Train System: 5.7% of the employees are Arabs.

Public Works Department: 3.4% of the employees are Arabs.

Integration of Employees

Ben Gurion International Airport

The Ports Authority

The Israel Train System

Public Works Department

3. Road Signs

♦ Following an appeal filed by the “Adala,” Organization on February 25, 1998, the

Supreme Court ruled that the Public Works Department must replace all road signs

written in Arabic. All signs posted on the four main traffic arteries must be replaced

within two years and all other signs throughout the country must be replaced within

five years.

♦ The current situation according to the Public Works Department report is that 3,795

signs in Arabic have been installed throughout the country, constituting

approximately 30% of all the signs in the country.

In many cases, the signs are not uniform, have errors, and the translations are inaccurate according to acceptable rules of transcription. This warrants continuous correction and the public’s comments should be taken into account.