Palestinian Arabs and Ethiopian Jews in Israel filed the most racism and discrimination complaints in 2021, an official report revealed on Monday.
The most common complaint was discrimination in obtaining a service, said the report issued by the Justice Ministry’s Government Unit for Coordinating the Struggle Against Racism.
The report indicated that 24% of the complaints involved racism directed at people of Ethiopian descent, 24% against Arabs, and 10% against Haredim (religious Jews), while 4% Four percent involved incidents directed at Mizrahi Jews – of Middle Eastern origin.
In 2021, 458 cases were opened on complaints of racism and discrimination, compared to 497 cases in 2019 and 506 cases in 2020.
Twenty-three percent of the complaints were for illegal discrimination in providing a service, 11% percent for discrimination in hiring and employment in general, 10% percent for racist expressions made in public and 9% for racist or stereotypical advertising in public, the report showed.
It added that 7% were filed for racist speech in public services, 7% for police treatment of complainants, 4% on educational issues and 3% involving racially motivated crime.
It cited an incident of suspected racially motivated conduct by police officers during a bus inspection.
The complaint asserted that while enforcing COVID-19 restrictions in January 2021, police gave tickets for not wearing seatbelts to all the Arab passengers but none of the Jewish ones.
The tickets were canceled upon review. Steps were ordered to be taken as a lesson from this case of police misconduct.
