2023 RLLR 64

Citation: 2023 RLLR 64
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: October 6, 2023
Panel: Victoria Bragues
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Jared Will
Country: Israel
RPD Number: TC2-00446
Associated RPD Number(s): TC2-00447, TC2-00448, TC2-00451
ATIP Number: A-2023-01721
ATIP Pages: N/A

DECISION

[1]       MEMBER: Okay. So, this is the decision for XXXX XXXX XXXX, as well as XXXX XXXX XXXX, and your children, XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX, and that is file number TC2-00446. You all claim refugee protection pursuant to sections 96 and 97(1) of the Immigration, Refugee Protection Act. I have heard your claim together, and Mr. XXXX has been appointed as the designated representative for the minor claimants, and this is all required by the RPD rules. I have also considered and applied the gender guidelines in coming to this decision today.

DETERMINATION

[2]       I find that you are all Convention refugees for the following reasons.

ALLEGATIONS

[3]       You allege the following in your Basis of Claim forms, which are found in Exhibits 2.1 through 2.4 and the addendum made in Exhibit 5, and there were a few slight amendments also made at the start of the hearing today. You allege that you are all citizens of Israel, and you allege a fear of persecution at the hands of the state itself as well as society generally because you are Palestinian Arabs and Muslims. You allege that there is no state protection nor an internal flight alternative available to you.

Identity

[4]       Your personal identities and Israeli nationalities have been established on a balance of probabilities through your testimony and the documents that you provided, and these are all in Exhibits 1 and 6. These documents include copies of your passports, your birth certificates, the principal claimant’s driver’s licence, and the adult claimants’ marriage certificate.

[5]       I also asked some questions surrounding the Jordanian document that you provided for your father as well as his marriage certificate. I asked you some questions to assess whether he had citizenship there. However, you explained that this was simply a travel document and not an actual passport which grants citizenship. And I am mindful of Item 3.8 of the Jordan NDP, which is actually Item 3.3 of the list of documents, and this indicates that Jordanian documents which do not contain that national identity number are not actually documents that grant citizenship. So, I find that you have established that your father does not have Jordanian citizenship, and therefore, this is not a potential country of reference for you.

Nexus

[6]       I find that there is a nexus between the harms that you fear and the Convention grounds, and that is race and nationality or even religion. Therefore, I have assessed your claim pursuant to section 96 of the IRPA, and I find that you have met the test under that section.

Credibility

[7]       So, your testimonies today have been entirely consistent, straightforward with your evidence, and you were able to provide clear and spontaneous detailed testimony in regards to your allegations. There were no major contradictions or omissions that would go to the heart of the claim, and therefore, I find that you are both credible witnesses, and I believe what you have alleged in support of your claim.

[8]       You have also provided a number of documents, and these are all in Exhibit 6. I found that these documents are probative and that they relate to the core aspects of your claim. And so, I have placed great weight on them in establishing your claims. Essentially, these include personal identity documents, such as the ones I have already listed, which all show for the principal claimant that you were born in the West Bank and that you are all Arab and you are Muslim. You have also provided family and relative documents confirming that both of your families originate from the West Bank. You provided educational documents confirming your education in the West Bank as well as in Israel. You have also provided various documents demonstrating the difficulty that your family has faced in obtaining Israeli citizenship. You have provided a letter of support, as well as copies of United States asylum documentation for the principal claimant’s brother, and he confirms that he faced similar issues to you and your family in Israel and that is why he also left Israel and that he was actually granted protection in the United States on similar grounds. And you have also provided other letters of support from your family and relatives, colleagues, and friends, all confirming your allegations.

[9]       Specifically, I find that you have established on a balance of probabilities that you are all Palestinian Arabs and Muslim citizens of Israel, and as a result of this profile, you faced many issues in Israel as well as travelling between the West Bank and Israel in your earlier years. I will not go into the details of all of these incidents individually, but essentially, you faced discrimination, harassment, and violence in crossing through checkpoints, in obtaining and maintaining employment, in your quality of education and choice of professions, in accessing health and government services, and also just within society generally. Additionally, for the principal male claimant, you also faced physical violence and arbitrary detention simply for participating in protests in Israel.

[10]     I did have some concerns as to why you did not leave Israel sooner to come either to Canada or elsewhere to claim protection, and why you did not claim on your previous trips to other countries between 2011 and 2019, and why you actually returned to Israel, which is a country where you fear for your lives. However, you explained that you were not ready to leave, you did not actually want to leave your homes, you were hopeful that things would get better in the country. You also explained that it is not an easy choice to make, to leave everything behind. The turning point for you was the treatment for the principal claimant that you faced at the hands of authorities in XXXX of 2021 and also the incident of discrimination where your paramedic services were refused simply because you were Arab or Muslim. And I find these all to be reasonable explanations, especially in your claims, where it is a case of discrimination amounting to persecution.

[11]     So, on the whole, I find that you have established a subjective fear, and I believe what you have alleged on a balance of probabilities.

Objective Basis

[12]     So, I find that your fear in Israel is supported by the objective documents contained in the National Documentation Package. In this regard, I am also mindful of the case law and the guidance from the UNHCR Handbook, which outlines the procedures or ways of dealing with cases involving discrimination amounting to persecution. I will not go into the details of that law, but simply, I find that the circumstances that you face demonstrate that you do face discrimination amounting to persecution in Israel.

[13]     So, the evidence contained in the NDP indicates that Arab citizens of Israel are subject to institutional discrimination. Specifically, Item 3.11 indicates that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up more than 20 percent of the population, continue to experience marginalization in a range of areas, including housing, access to services and employment, and also social prejudice and official discrimination. The item further indicates that Israel has continued to adopt legislation curtailing the rights of Palestinian Israelis, who are subject to wide-ranging discrimination in housing, social welfare, education, criminal justice, and other areas of their lives.

[14]     Item 3.5 further indicates that Palestinians have long suffered human rights violations at the hands of Israeli authorities. Defined legally and acting practically as a Jewish state, Israel places its approximately 1.5 million Palestinian Arab citizens — again, that is 20 percent of the population — under a system of discrimination and exclusion. The legal and political system creates a hierarchal citizenry that privileges Jews over others in Israel, and most notably, structural discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel appears in the area of land and housing rights.

[15]     Furthermore, the state of Israel implements laws and policies that have a persecutory effect on Arab citizens. Item 13.9 indicates that the state’s ethnically based self-definition, coupled with the basic laws, have led to the enactment of further laws that grant privileges and powers to the Jewish majority in Israel in various spheres. These fields include control over land, and discrimination in land planning and construction, demographic control, and discrimination in citizenship and residency, discrimination in the realm of civil, political, economic, and social rights, and cultural dominance. The item further describes the state effort to limit political participation by Arab citizens and openly racist remarks by Israeli politicians.

[16]     I will also note that Item 2.1 specifically indicates that among the significant human rights abuses in Israel, includes that authorities are responsible for arbitrary or unjust detention, including of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories, restriction on Palestinians residing in Jerusalem, including arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, and home, and violence or threats against Palestinians and member of national, racial, or ethnic minority groups, and as well as labour rights abuses against foreign workers and Palestinian workers. Moreover, regarding the treatment that the male claimant received as a result of his participation in the protest, I also note that the same document indicates that Israeli authorities have arbitrarily arrested both Israeli and Palestinian citizens who participate in protests. And again, all of this is further corroborated by your own country condition documents, and that is found in Exhibit 7.

[17]     So, based on all of the evidence before me, I find that you have established a subjective fear and objective basis for that fear and, therefore, a well-founded fear of persecution.

State Protection

[18]     So, I have turned my mind towards this issue. However, given that it is the state itself that is among your primary agents of persecution and, as well, considering that the NDP indicates that there is discrimination and lack of protection for Arab-Israelis, and that is at items such as 13.11 and 2.1, I find that you cannot expect adequate state protection in Israel on a balance of probabilities.

Internal Flight Alternative

[19]     Again, because your agent of persecution is the state itself, I find that there is no safe and viable internal flight alternative available to you as Palestinian citizens of Israel, essentially considering that the discrimination against Arabs and Muslims exists throughout the entire country and the Israeli government has effective control over all of its territory, and this is corroborated by various items in the NDP, but I will reference specifically Item 2.1. So, for these reasons, I find that you do not have a viable internal flight alternative available to you in Israel on a balance of probabilities.

[20]     Based on all of the evidence before me, I find that you are all Convention refugees, and I accept all of your claims, and I do wish you the best of luck here in Canada.

——— REASONS CONCLUDED ———