Between 3000 and 4000 protesters gathered outside of the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem yesterday to demonstrate against the Prawer Report–Israel’s plan to relocate tens of thousands of Bedouin from their homes in the Negev to impoverished townships.
Protesters demonstrate against Israel's plans to relocate tens of thousands of Bedouin (photo: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours)
Bedouin and Palestinian citizens of Israel also held a general strike yesterday, Sunday December 11, in protest of the state’s plans to expropriate Bedouin land. According to Ynet, a number of Arab schools, municipal offices, and Arab-owned businesses inside of Israel were closed.
On the same day, representatives of the Israel Land Authority delivered demolition orders to the Bedouin community of Wadi el Naam, informing them that they had 48 hours to vacate the premises. (See photo below)
Document from the Israel Land Authority notifying the residents of Wadi el Naam that they have 48 hours to vacate the premises. (photo: John Brown)
The Israeli cabinet approved the Prawer Report in September. The government estimates that between 20,000 to 30,000 Bedouin–all of whom are citizens of Israel–will be relocated. But human rights organizations say that as many as 45,000 Bedouin will be forced from their homes and sent to live in underdveloped cities in the south.
Amnesty International condemned the plan, saying that it contradicts Israel’s international obligations to human rights. Thabet Abu Ras, director of the Negev Project at Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, likened it to a declaration of war against the Bedouin. Knesset Member Talab al-Sana (United Arab List-Ta’al ) called the government’s announcement of the plan “a defining moment in the history of the Bedouin of the Negev.”
Some observers are concerned that an Israeli attempt to implement the plans outlined in the Prawer Report could lead to violent clashes between the Bedouin and the state.
Representatives of the Bedouin community have said that they will appeal to the international community to stop the relocation.
In what some analysts consider the Israeli government’s “test case,” Israeli forces have demolished the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Araqib over 30 times. The demolitions began in 2010. With the assistance of Israeli and international activists, the residents have rebuilt the village each time.
Tens of thousands of Bedouin live in “unrecognized” villages in the Negev. Because the state doesn’t acknowledge these places, the residents go without basic services like electricity, water, and education.
This post was cross-published on the AIC website.
December 12, 2011
8:17 am
A close friend of mine from Tel Sheva told me that just the experience of Bedouin women protesting publicly together, along with those from unrecognized villages who are usually doubly-invisible, has been very moving. Thank you, Mya, for giving the protests the visibility they warrant. I haven’t checked any mainstream media today; hope they got coverage.
December 12, 2011
8:21 am
hi ayla, thanks for the comment. it’s always a pleasure to see your name pop up on my posts.
best, mya
December 12, 2011
10:02 am
awww–means a lot, Mya! thank you. I appreciate your posts especially for how on-the-ground you are.
December 12, 2011
11:21 am
Well at least you are taking note of what is happening..but then that’s what this site is supposed to do isn’t it?
OK, so what have you nice Israeli women decided to do to ‘help’ those Bedouin women?
Are you organizing a ‘sister’ demonstration supporting them and their families? Are you organizing alternate living quarters for the coming displaced? Come on now girls, when will the world see that not all Israeli’s are the same? That you could demonstrate for Human Rights and for other worthy causes besides ‘low rents’ for yourselves?
Does Israel provide living arrangements for those whose villages they destroy and/or whose homes they demolish? I would think that would be obvious so as not to appear accomplices to outright theft.
Have you ever asked yourselves any of these questions? So how many new homeless Bedouins and recent homeless Palestinian families are you willing to take in?
TATA
December 12, 2011
7:08 pm
There’s much planning to be done. In 1902, when the Arab leadership became aroused, they encouraged itinerant farmers from Syria and Egypt to pour into the area and ultimately required Jewish services. The sudden blessed arrival of the Mizrahim after 1948 made new difficult demands. To properly accommodate our Bedouin, we cannot end up attracting and serving hundreds of thousands of non-native Bedouin as well. Planning!
December 13, 2011
9:01 am
@ Dr. Lombard: It is rare to witness totally made up assertions on a serious subject. It is a remarkable feat to write such fiction, unless the only books you have ever read on the subject are written by hasbaristas such as Joan Peters et al. You write: “In 1902,(12 years before Balfour mind you) Arab Leaders (who didn’t exist because Palestine at the time was a province, nay two provinces, of the Ottomman empire) ecouraged itinerant farmers from Syria and Egypt (pure fiction) to pour into the area( I would really like to know this source) and ultimately required Jewish services ( Since when has Israel ever provided ‘services’ to the Bedouin, let alone the Palestinians?).” At least write better fiction. And how is Israel going to ..”attract and serve..” hundreds of thousands of non-native Bedouin? Is Israel going to let them in? Israel, which has never provided services to anyone excepting Jewish citizens?
Sometines, the lie is so transparent. And you ask for “plsnning”? Planning what? How to steal more land? How to destroy and leave homeless generations who have lived on the land in question? How to ensure Zionist Jewish supremacy? How to humiliate these people more? Defending the indefensible through propaganda without even a kernel of truth is the way of the hasbarista. And you seem to wish to be placed among the pantheon of such despicable fiction writers.
December 13, 2011
9:47 am
@Dr.E.S.Lombard
Are you saying the planning was obvious to astute Arabs in 1902? Be careful, you’re saying Arabs might be smarter then we think.
Your argument is Arabs were encouraged to migrate to Palestine to thwart the coming Jewish invasion, that Palestine was just vacant property for the taking??? Are you serious?
That’s a PR line Israeli’s have been floating for years and it’s not only ‘not’ true, it’s a blatant lie. There were no Arab leaders in ’02 of any significance to encourage migrations to anywhere let alone Palestine. Have you forgotten the Ottomans’?
That nonsense was thought up right after ’48 to delegitimize Palestinians and Bedions of their natural rights to their own historic lands. All manufactured lies to superimpose Zionist ‘rights’ with the myth of a ‘Jewish Homeland’.
But it’s a done deal now and Israel is still running amok on Palestinian/Bedouin lands with confiscations, demolitions and settlements. So it seems those ‘smart Arabs’ weren’t as smart as ‘you’ said they were, right!?
How could anyone compete with Zionist PR and lies, especially when the Zionists already had the myth of a Jewish Homeland ready to ‘rock & roll’ in the early ’20′s.
Maybe you can explain why there has never been any proof of that ‘Jewish Homeland Myth’?
Your dialogue is useless and unacceptable..60+ years of digging and finding nothing is proof enough for me!
So after all is said and done…What’s the planning picture going to look like?
http://jewishlight.tumblr.com/
@ The Girls: So again, what’s new with you girls? Have you decided to do something beside moan and kvetch on how bad things are?
TATA