The Mossawa Center, in cooperation with the National Committee for the Heads of Arab Local Authorities and Knesset members from the Joint List, have created a special team to advocate fair state budget allocations to the Arab community in Israel. The team – supported by the Economic and Advocacy Departments of the Mossawa Center – includes nine heads of Arab local councils as well as Knesset members who will deal with economic development and Arab local councils.

The team has already convened three times and has put together a work plan to release currently held funds for Arab communities amounting to more than NIS 664 million retroactively from the beginning of this year. Furthermore the team will call for the allocation of NIS 5.5 billion for the development of the Arab population in the state budget for 2015-2016. As a result of the team’s efforts, a conference has been organized in the Knesset to discuss future budgetary needs of the Arab minority to be met from the state budget.