The city of Caesarea, where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu owns a house, has long been associated with luxury villas and the super-rich. But for the Palestinian citizens of Israel living just across the other side of the city's land barrier, the reality is markedly different. Locked in on all sides with Caesarea to the south, Ma'agan Michael kibbutz to the north and the Jewish town Beit Hanania to the east, Jisr al-Zarqa's growing population is squeezed within 150 hectares of land. Beit Hanania, 900 people live on 300 hectares. Ma'agan Michael kibbutz's huge aquaculture fish ponds, covering an area of 240 hectares. When Jisr al-Zarqa asked to set up industrial fish ponds as a source of income for the town, its request was rejected. The town's high unemployment rate is reportedly at 30 percent. In contrast, Israel's nationwide unemployment rate stands at just four percent.
Jisr al-Zarqa, the last remaining Palestinian town on Israel's coast, is among the poorest and most densely populated in the country. Here, buildings are packed on every available plot of land, with barely any trees left. Home to 15,000 Palestinians, Jisr al-Zarqa has for years faced a serious housing crisis, its land swallowed to make room for government infrastructure projects such as a highway that connects Tel Aviv to Haifa. Every year, an additional 200 housing units are needed in Jisr al-Zarqa, but it is difficult to find the space. As a result, multiple families end up sharing homes. In the past 20 years, Israeli authorities also declared some of Jisr al-Zarqa's land as protected nature reserves, making the remaining land unusable.
"The housing crisis exists not because there is no space. It's because the Jewish kibbutzim took the lands around and they refused to give back the lands to the village, to allow this village to expand," said Jafar Farah, the director of the Haifa-based Mossawa Centre - The Advocacy Centre for Arab Citizens in Israel. "After 70 years [since the creation of the state of Israel] you should see development," Farah added. "Why is the situation like this? It's because of the vision of Israel as a Jewish state. It has isolated Palestinian communities, even in a beautiful place like this, it created poverty and anger in the community."
"It's not just that we're neglected and abandoned. The state is doing it on purpose," Murad Amash, the head of Jisr al-Zarqa's local council, said. "It's clear discrimination."
In November 2017, Netanyahu visited Jisr al-Zarqa. He admitted that the government had long ignored Jisr al-Zarqa and promised to visit more to work together with local authorities in order to improve living conditions. That was the last time they saw him.
Israel goes to the polls for a general election on Tuesday.
"Palestinian citizens of Israel do not feel that voting will change the 70 years experience of being marginalised, second-class citizens of the state, who are subjected to institutionalised racism and discrimination, including through the Jewish nation-state law and other laws and policies," Farah said.
If he wins the election and remains prime minister, Netanyahu promises to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank and we can expect Israeli apartheid policies to be widened and strengthened.
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