Long before Israel was created, the Bedouin had a way of life that enabled them to survive in the harshest of habitats. Now they are faced with military deportation to desolate townships, while settlers get water-fed gated communties in the Negev. Catrina Stewart reports

The Bedouin are in Israel’s sights. After sustained attacks on the Bedouin of the Negev (see e.g. Israel’s war on its Bedouin citizens at http://jfjfp.com/?p=21672) it is now the turn of those on the West Bank who stand in the way of the expansion of the illegal settlement at Maale Adumim. This report by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours expands on Amira Hass’s , carried a while back (see http://jfjfp.com/?p=25422).

Many Bedouin have lived in the Negev for centuries, with clear ownership rights. But these are not recognised by Israel which wants the land as an agricultural resource. The Bedouin are thus being evicted and deported to towns, with predictable consequences. Dr. Awad Abu Freih of ‘Recognition Now’ and others speak at venues across Britain

The Israeli government has a ‘master plan’ for Area C, West Bank, and the Negev – which does not include many of the villages of the traditional inhabitants, the Bedouin. Two reports of these decisions are followed by two extracts from a position paper on how to ‘recognise’ Bedouin habitations in the Negev published by ACRI last May

Treated as outlaws under Mubarak, the Bedouin of the Sinai have acted as entrepreneurial smugglers for the Gazans, shifting anything from a tiger to fuel – but not suicide bombers. With Al Qaeda trying to recruit them, reports Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, only Egypt can bring them in from the wilderness.

Bedouin villagers have documented claims to land in the Negev – which the Israel Land Administration wants for a forest and so repeatedly destroys their village. Amnesty International is running a campaign to help the Bedouin which JfJfP fully supports. Go to Amnesty’s web-page to find out how you can add your support

Two writers and activists from the new Israeli left tell the story of its emergence in the joint struggle Of Palestinians with Israelis against the wall at Budrus, Bil’in, Nil’in – and now with Solidarity Sheikh Jarrar, against the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, and against the expulsion of Bedouin from their villages in the Negev.
“We are going to places where the occupation and expulsion actually take place, and we do it together with the local community,” says Avner Inbar, an activist with Solidarity Sheikh Jarrah. “We are not that interested in large rallies in Tel Aviv, where Jews stand on their own and declare that the occupation is wrong. We want to confront racism and discrimination where they happen. This joint effort, together with the local Palestinian communities, is something new for everyone involved in it, and for many people it becomes a transformative experience.”.

“Since 27 July, the village has been demolished at least 18 times, most recently last Thursday. Each time the bulldozers and soldiers come at dawn to tear down the makeshift structures that have replaced the 40 concrete buildings that used to house the villagers, the men of al-Arakib rebuild them. Each time their footprint gets a little smaller.”
Harriet Sherwood reports.

Amit Ramon tells the story of the demolition of Al Arakib, for the 9th time now, while Yehudit Keshet reponds to the smooth-talking propaganda of the Friends of the Arava Institute for the Environment which, in partnership with the JNF/KKL is “developing” the Negev, “preparing future Arab and Jewish leaders to cooperatively solve the region’s environmental challenges”, while totally ignoring the fate of Al Arakib.

An Open Letter to the JNF has been signed by a big tent of 36 ideologically diverse Israeli and American Jewish organizations – 28 NGOs, human rights organizations and social movements from the Negev and Israel and 8 American Jewish organizations – protesting about the JNF’s role in the “development” of the Negev which is synonymous with massive dispossession of Arab Bedouin from their lands.
There is also a petition to the JNF which we urge all to sign…

Oren Yiftachel is a researcher and human rights activist. He teaches political geography and urban planning at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba. He writes: “Even veterans of human rights struggles cannot recall such a horror show as took place in the Negev Desert, 10km north of Beersheba, last Tuesday…It was a violent showcase operation designed to display force and sow fear…

A disturbing follow-up to our earlier reports on the new war against the Bedouin in the Negev, highlighting the use of high school student volunteers in what Arab Negev News publisher Ata Abu Madyam called ‘a summer camp of destruction’. Max Blumenthal writes: “The spectacle of Israeli youth helping destroy al-Arakib helps explain why 56% of Jewish Israeli high school students do not believe Arabs should be allowed to serve in the Knesset – why the next generation wants apartheid…”

Gadi Algazi writes: What are the Bedouin accused of? How did their very existence become a “real threat”? The Negev, says Netanyahu, might become a “region without a Jewish majority.” This is truly a good one: you can move from region to the next throughout the country and discover that in a particular area within Israel, there isn’t a Jewish majority, for example between Kafr Qara’ and Umm al-Fahem, or between Sakhnin and ‘Arabe. Well, then don’t we have to do something against this threat? Yes, of course, and so we do! [...]

The demolition of more than 40 houses in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Araqib in the Negev desert on Tuesday has triggered fears for the future of other Bedouin communities, who see Araqib as a test case in the long-standing struggle against Israeli government attempts to ‘judaise’ the Negev…

‘Tarabut’ seeks to bring together the dispossessed and the oppressed in Israel through involvement in social struggles. This article exposes the role of the state, the army and the JNF in the dispossession of the Bedouin in the Negev since the 1950, a process which is intensifying today…

Dr Yeela Raanan, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, writes: On Tuesday this week the Government of Israel destroyed crops in the Bedouin village of Al-Mazraa. “Crops” hardly defines the one inch high wheat that the community has managed to grow in the desert land. The Bedouin farmers do not have water allocations like their Jewish counterparts, and are dependent on rain. The annual average is 2 inches of rain [...]

The JNF is holding a conference in London on Sunday 13 December on the theme of developing the Negev. It will be the Bedouin inhabitants there who continue to pay the price of ‘development’. As Jonathan Cook reports: “Some 35,000 Bedouin residents of Israel’s southern Negev have been denied the right to hold their first local council election after the Israeli parliament passed a law at the last minute to cancel this month’s ballot…”

Hundreds of Negev residents, Jews and Arabs, as well as friends and supporters from all over the country, gathered Saturday afternoon in the lands of el-Malichi el-Arakib, near the Lehavim-Rahat junction in the Negev.
They have gathered to support the struggle of el-Turi, el-Ukbi, el-Talalka and other Bedouin tribes – with the support of the el-Arakib Land Defence Committee and the Recognition Forum – against the government of Israel and the Jewish National Fund, which seek by force and deceit to take over the Bedouin land in the Negev…

Gideon Levy tells a human story of the harassment of the Bedouin of the south Hebron hills by Israeli settlers and the Civil Administration…