One lot of Israeli citizens is to be expelled from its village in the Negev to make way for another lot of Israeli citizens. The first is made up of Bedouin who cannot get building permits and whose village is to be demollshed. It will be replaced by a new-build settlement for Jews. Adalah’s appeal against the decision by the National Council of Planning and Building was rejected. Reports from Ynet and Adalah.

The Israel Land Administration ordered the demolition of an ‘unprecedented’ number of Bedouin homes last week (including El Araqib for the 41st time). It will band together with the Ministry of the Interior and police to speed up demolitions and evacuations of Bedouin villages in the coming weeks. AIC keeps count.

In a text-book case of how to exterminate a way of life, settlers and the IOF have taken the water storage tanks as well as most of the land, killed sheep and ‘confiscated’ the cattle on which Bedouin people have susbsisted for hundreds of years. The occupiers no longer bother to hide their aim. “The soldier looked at me and said: ‘You can leave’.” Three news items.

Once upon a time, generous American Jews gave unstintingly to the Jewish National Fund who would use their money to make Palestine – an imagined barren, unpopulated desert – bloom. Now it is clear that the clearance of people, flora and fauna and over-use and abuse of fresh water, has created massive degradation of land and water as well as Arab displacement. Ben Lorber provides a shocking account.

Posted here is the whole of Adalah’s new campaign to raise support to block the Prawer Plan – the programme to move tens of thousands of Bedouin from their unrecognised – by the Israeli state – homes in the Negev to concentrations in set areas. JfJfP supports the rights of the Bedouin to stay in their traditional homes.

Three Bedouin families living in the Jerusalem area again lost everything when the army evicted them from their caravans and tossed away all their belongings on Sunday night. Their previous built homes were demolished last November. They were instructed to move their caravans to an unspecified somewhere else – but a legal challenge is being prepared.

The Bedouin way of life – nomadic and pastoral – is gradually being destroyed in Israel as land-use authorities (in effect, the national government) decree that these Palestinians must leave the West Bank – and set up camp on Israel’s waste spaces. Fresh air and freedom of movement, central to the Bedouin tradition, are thus destroyed. Yet they are touted as a tourist attraction for their romantic freedom. Plus link to ‘Nowhere left to go’, a film from the Jahalin Association.

In pursuit of its once-proud dream of making the desert bloom the JNF (Jewish National Fund) has started forestation work in southern Israel. In the way of the dream is reality: there are villages in many places in the desert, the traditional homes of the Beduoin. The village al-Arakib has just been destroyed yet again. Support for Bedouin rights is a primary campaign of JfJfP. +972 and Meretz USA.

The indigenous peope of the Negev, the Bedouin, face massive displacement and dispossession by the Israeli state. JfJfP is committed to speaking up for their rights. One way anyone can do this is to sign the petition set up by Care2, an online network to help connect activists and causes. anywhere in the world.

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…