• Website: www.bimkom.org
  • Founded in 1999 “by a group of planners and architects, in order to strengthen democracy and human rights in the field of planning.” Located in Jerusalem.
  • Mission: “Drawing on values such as human rights, social justice, good governance and community participation, we seek to affect system-wide change by encouraging the development of new planning policies and procedures that are more equitable and responsive to the needs of the various communities.” “Bimkom employs a three-prong approach to achieve its objectives: community planning assistance; planning and legal advocacy; education and public outreach.”
  • In 2006-2009, the New Israel Fund (NIF) authorized grants worth $1,372,221 to Bimkom (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009).
  • Other funders include the EU (€174,116 in 2010-2012); NDC (governments of Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and Sweden); the governments of the UK (£22,978 in 2009-10), the Netherlands, Denmark; and Ford Foundation.
  • Engages in attempts to change Israeli government policy on issues such as spatial planning, planning procedures, housing rights,  and amending the “Planning and Building Law and the Freedom of Information Law.” Campaigns have included attempts to “retroactively legalize illegal construction in Arab neighborhoods.”
  • In 2006, Bimkom published a study accusing Israel of constructing the security barrier as a “land-grab” in order to annex territory and ignoring the context of terror. The Israeli Foreign Ministry criticized British financial support for the study, stating that “it is interference by Britain in an internal Israeli matter.... This is not acceptable in international relations.”
  • Bimkom’s June 2008 report, “The Prohibited Zone,” criticizes Israeli planning policies and obstacles created by the Security Barrier, while erasing the context of terror.
  • Regularly participates in political activity completely unrelated to planning rights, such as petitions against “collective punishment” in Gaza. Similarly, Bimkom petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court (along with other NGOs alleging that Israel attacked medical teams and ambulances.