Past Programs
Cooperation between the Sachnin Municipality and the Misgav Regional Council
Neighbors was founded after the October 2000 unrest and violence in our region. At that time, the two municipal leaders, Sachnin Mayor Mustafa Abu-Raya and Misgav Regional Council Head Erez Kreizler, bravely attempted to rise above those difficult events. They understood that the only hope for the future lay in identifying common interests and creating common initiatives for the Arab and Jewish populations in the region. This understanding was immediately translated into action: creating a joint industrial zone for Sachnin and Misgav and reaching an understanding on a number of issues relating to the site of the industrial zone, such as the expansion of Sachnin's municipal borders, the location of a planned new road, and the borders of nearby Kibbutz Eshbal. Though the process began with optimism and good will, it eventually reached a standstill, resulting in a loss of trust between the two parties. These in turn chose to retreat from their initial understandings and preferred to have decisions on the region be imposed by outside bodies. At this point the members of Neighbors, leading planning professionals from the Jewish and Arab communities in the region, stepped in to generate a professional and objective process to understand the issues and propose the fairest, most feasible solution.
View the Hebrew version of the document on cooperation between Misgav and Sachnin
Mediation between the Sachnin Municipality and the Misgav Regional Council on Municipal Borders
Relinquishing decision-making on the region to outside bodies (mentioned above) led to the forming of a Municipal Borders Committee by the Israeli government's Ministry of Interior, in response to the request of the Sachnin Municipality to significantly expand its area of jurisdiction by transferring to it lands under the jurisdiction of the Misgav Regional Council, which objected to the scope of this request. Neighbors' members attempted to enable the local leadership to arrive at a compromise on this issue, rather than waiting for a decision imposed by the government. Our members even appeared before the official governmental borders committee with the message that these kinds of decisions should be arrived at locally, by residents and leaders, through authentic dialogue and in response to the needs of each community, and they must include a commitment to positive cooperation, in particular in the fields of joint industry and protection of the environment. Rather than speaking about the exact size of the area of land that should be transferred to Sachnin, Neighbors' members preferred to stress adopting a creative planning approach to the issue that will allow for the development of both Sachnin and the Jewish communities nearby and ensure increased cooperation between them, while preserving the green rural quality of the region wherever possible. Rather than viewing decisions made by the Borders Committee as the end of this issue, our organization sees them as the starting point for a long planning process in which we hope to be involved, one that has the potential to create the neighborly relations we seek.
Agriculture in the Arab Communities of Israel: Economic, Social and Physical Changes
Focusing on the Arab towns of Sachnin and Tamra, this research project investigated the current situation in agriculture in the Arab communities of Israel, its difficulties and challenges, while proposing recommendations for its preservation and development in the future. Project stages included summarizing literature on the subject, fieldwork, interviews with farmers, and conclusions. The research was conducted by four experts, headed by Tovi Alfandari, specializing in the socio-economic aspects of the study, Architect Hannah Livne on landscape, Naim Daoud on environmental issues, and Architect Ali Abu-Salach on physical planning and land use. The study was part of the "Nekudat Chen" initiative led by Yad Hanadiv – the Rothschild Foundation.
Planning for a Shared Landscape
The goal of this project is to enable joint Jewish-Arab planning stemming from the communities themselves, through resident planning teams from two pairs of neighboring sites: Tamra and Mitzpe Aviv and Sachnin and Yuvalim. This 18-month project began in August 2006 thanks to grants from the European Union Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights and the Kathryn Ames Foundation with the support of the local leadership and municipal governments.
The planning process included a number of stages: first, creation of a planning team from each community; second, an intercultural dialogue workshop for the pair of Arab and Jewish teams, in order to understand the fears, needs and differing outlooks of each side; third, formation of a joint team and entering into a process of strategic planning for future cooperative development; and finally, creation of a joint plan, agreed upon by all participants, with the intention of implementing it by the resident team with the help of Neighbors.
Youth Encounters – Young residents from Tamra and Mitzpe Aviv created outdoor mosaic art projects, exhibited permanently in public buildings in each of the two communities. Images from one of the encounters
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P.O.B
61, Sah'nin, 20167. Tel. 04-6744898 info@neighbors.org.il