By Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel A new Adalah report documents the parallels between two Palestinian villages, Al-Araqib in Israel and Susiya in the West Bank, which share a single story of struggle against home demolitions and forced displacement. The report sets out the methods of displacement used by Israel to expel Palestinian communities from their land on both sides of the Green Line, and examines the legal context in which it takes place. Read more: PHOTOS: Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day with rallies and protests Remembering the Nakba, understanding this is a shared land…

The Prawer-Begin Plan is not the first time the state has displaced Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev). But it is a sign of how, 65 years after the state’s establishment, Israel still treats thousands of its Palestinian citizens no differently than those in the territories. By Amjad Iraqi On April 25, a bus carrying Bedouin residents of Al-Araqib drove from the Naqab (Negev) in Israel to the Palestinian village of Susiya in the West Bank. The people were meeting for the first time to watch a screening of a new film by Adalah (the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights…

Parties agree to put a five-year time limit on the evacuation of the unrecognized Bedouin villages. Rights groups warn that if the government plan is implemented, some 30,000 Palestinian-Bedouin will be expelled from their homes and resettled in unsuitable townships. Members of the four leading coalition parties have reached an agreement that would further cut the land designated for resettlement of the Bedouin population in the Negev (Naqeb), Israeli daily Maariv reports. Israeli governments have been working on a policy that would solve the issue of the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev for the past decade. Under the latest…

The latest revision to the Prawer Plan, which will eventually displace tens of thousands of Arab Bedouin from their ancestral land in the Negev (Naqab), in some ways improves its tone toward the Bedouin. But the Arab Bedouin community has resolutely rejected the Prawer Plan, and Benny Begin's latest report reminds us succinctly that the law was never intended to be a friend to the oppressed. By Nadia Ben-Youssef On the day after the Israeli elections, outgoing MK Benny Begin finished writing his recommended revisions to the Prawer Plan. The Minister without portfolio had been charged with responding to public grievances about the government-approved…

In September 2011, the Israeli government approved the Prawer Plan for mass expulsion of the Arab Bedouin community in the Naqab (Negev) desert. If fully implemented, this plan will result in the forced displacement of tens of thousands Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel and the destruction of 35 “unrecognized” villages. According to Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, "the Israeli government’s policy is grounded in widespread myths, misconceptions and stereotypes." The document challenges some of the most widespread myths on which the Prawer Plan relies for legitimacy.  Adalah - The Arab Bedouin of the Naqab -…

Photos by: Oren Ziv, Yotam Ronen, and Keren Manor/Activestills.org Al-Araqib is one of the 45 “unrecognized” Bedouin villages in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Since July 27, 2010, the village has been demolished 39 times. Despite daily harassment, ongoing house demolitions and the Israeli government's determination to forcefully transfer the Bedouin population out of their historical land, the residents of Al-Araqib continue to struggle. Following the 1948 War, the Bedouin population in the Negev (Naqab) Desert, in southern Israel, was forced to change its way of life. Prior to that time, Bedouins wandered freely in the deserts which are…

After having their homes destroyed by the State over 30 times in the last two years, the residents of al-Arakib can do little else but watch as a forest is built on the ruins of their homes.  The Jewish National Fund resumed cultivating land Monday morning in al-Arakib, an unrecognized Bedouin village in southern Israel which the quasi-governmental agency has earmarked for a large forestation project. A week ago, the families in the village got word that the JNF would return and asked for activists to come and support them. JNF equipment, escorted by heavy police presence, showed up Monday…

Plans to move entire communities and put them in townships would deprive them of their livelihood and land rights. By Neve Gordon Beer-Sheva, Israel - "It is not every day that a government decides to relocate almost half a percent of its population in a program of forced urbanization," Rawia Aburabia asserted, adding that "this is precisely what Prawer wants to do." The meeting, which was attempting to coordinate various actions against the Prawer Plan, had just ended, and Rawia, an outspoken Bedouin leader who works for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, was clearly upset. She realised that the possibility of…

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. 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…