Comments on: Bedouin village in Negev to be destroyed, Jewish settlement to be built on site

By: The JNF is starting to pay for dispossession «

The JNF is starting to pay for dispossession « — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:28:05 +0000

[...] and to make sure that they become irreversible. It is preparing the infrastructure for the next big dispossession project in Umm Hiran: another entire Bedouin village slated for demolition, to be replaced by a Jewish settlement. It [...]

By: Aaron the Fascist Troll

Aaron the Fascist Troll — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 07:44:39 +0000

I have total respect for Sheizaf’s journalism. He’s one of the main reasons I read this site. But this was apparently taken from the YNet report, and that report didn’t include much of a response from government spokesmen.

By: sh

sh — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 07:22:35 +0000

“It means to know every feature of your tribe’s or clan’s lands intimately and from memory alone.”
Which is why Bedouin have been of unique practical use to the IDF and the police over the years, enabling them to confidently rely on their tracking abilities to locate infiltrators (in the old sense) and solve a variety of crimes. Forcing them into towns with no lands will put paid to that expertise in a generation.

By: Greg Pollock

Greg Pollock — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:28:20 +0000

I’ve been following Noam’s work for some time; I think he is careful in what he says, which doesn’t mean he can’t get things wrong. But the journalists here, mostly, know that half reports can hurt the whole site overall. I think your ethical position right. And, ultimately, only Israelis can change what the State does. The fight within the law is over small things, leading hopefully later to big things.

By: Aaron the Fascist Troll

Aaron the Fascist Troll — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 06:07:41 +0000

I think I agree with you on the state aspect. My point is that even if you accept Kolumn9′s argument that there was no real state permission granted, removing these people is outrageously unjust.

If the Bedouin had moved there only last month, then yes, the state’s action would have been the salient fact.

Again, all this is taking the articles at face value, which is dangerous.

By: Greg Pollock

Greg Pollock — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 03:18:15 +0000

On prior State action: a ratchet, preventing some State action, needs to develop. If the State placed their ancestors there, then the bar to removal should be quite high. Such reasoning is necessary given the desert of principle which would otherwise bar this removal. It is actually a pretty weak bar on State action, overall.

By: Philos

Philos — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:55:41 +0000

The 19th century lives on in the Holy Land.
.
Also a word on the “nomads” argument. Nomads aren’t wondering vagrants. They travel from one part of THEIR ancestral lands to another part on a seasonal basis. Ask the Sioux, the Mongols, and the Berbers what it means to be nomadic. It means to know every feature of your tribe’s or clan’s lands intimately and from memory alone.

By: Vitus

Vitus — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:39:58 +0000

20 settlers starting with tent and 30 years later there is a guarded town on land that they don’t own. But hey, they are jews and god told them to do it.

By: Aaron the Fascist Troll

Aaron the Fascist Troll — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 06:49:41 +0000

I don’t think what the state did several decades ago is all that important here. What’s important is that these people have been living there all these years. Yes, illegally without building permits, but that seems to be just an excuse to kick them off their land. If this were just a legal problem it could be solved quite easily.

I don’t see any way you could even begin to justify what the government is doing here. That’s taking this account at face value, though. We should also be skeptical of this story, because it and the YNet story did not include a real government response.

By: Greg Pollock

Greg Pollock — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 05:15:27 +0000

If Jewish, 400 residents at homesteading begun over 50 years ago would have high salience. You neglect to say that they are to be removed for the sake of national-religious settlers, at a time when the demographic threat of such settlers to the Israeli economy is increasing substantially. Wait, did I just say “demographic threat?”

I love the logic. If YHWH is on your side, push em out. If YHWH is on your side, stay put yourself.

They do not want to go to the racially pure villages you mention; and, as the piece says in detail, further aggregation at those quite poor villages would not be healthy for anyone.

Overtly sick and religio-racist.