The "Law for Bedouin Settlement in the Negev," which the Knesset is
expected to pass soon, has angered the entire Bedouin population in the
south - one-fourth of all the Negev's residents - and threatens to drive
them to violence. Although the state dealt harshly with Bedouin in the
past by moving them from place to place, confiscating their flocks,
destroying their homes and even spraying their crops with poison, its
actions never resulted in an uprising, perhaps because these violations
were small-scale: a family here, a clan there.
The proposed law, on the other hand, will adversely affect almost all
the 200,000 Bedouin in the Negev. It will do so in two ways: by
rejecting their claims to ownership of most of their property, and by
destroying the homes of some 20,000 families, who will be transferred to
undeveloped plots in "authorized" locations. All of this is part of the
government's so-called Prawer Plan, upon which the law for settling the
Bedouin is based.
Israel has always denied Bedouin their rights to the land they owned
before 1948, because they had no official documents from the Ottoman and
British periods to prove their ownership. In those periods, however,
Bedouin acquired lands under their own tribal law, the law then valid in
the desert, which accepted such transactions based on oral guaranty and
dispensed with written proof.
In the 1970s, the state seemingly modified its stance, inviting Bedouin
to register their ownership claims, which amounted to 240,000 acres in
private claims. This procedure was not intended to make their claims
legal, but rather to enable the state to acquire their lands through
purchase, and that, moreover, at minimal prices, which the Bedouin
largely rejected. Over a 40-year period, the Bedouin sold the state only
16 percent of the land they claimed. Their characteristic patience
allowed them to sustain the hope that it would ultimately offer them a
just compromise that would not deprive them of land they once acquired
by law, albeit their own.
To their great dismay, however, the new law enables confiscation of 80
percent of this land, to be used for governmental projects, making it a
matter no longer affecting a family here or there, but rather the entire
Bedouin community. In addition, the compensation that the state is
offering for the remaining 20 percent of the land that the new law
acknowledges as Bedouin is again paltry and unlikely to be accepted,
leaving the state no choice but to use force to acquire these lands -
even if it is for the purpose of settling the Bedouin. Force, however,
will not benefit the state, as no Bedouin will agree to build his house
on land that another Bedouin still claims.
The destruction of the "illegal" homes of 20,000 Bedouin families will
also not help facilitate their resettlement in new places. Nor will it
transpire quietly. These homes were erected as an alternative to the
tents of the Bedouin after the state forbade them to continue their
migratory way of life and told them where to live until a permanent
solution was found for them. In the prolonged absence of a solution,
each house deemed to be located on "government land" was declared
illegal and subject to demolition. However, as no alternative housing
was prepared for those living in the illegal homes, not a single
developed plot exists today for a Bedouin who wishes to build a
permanent home in government-designated locations. Furthermore, it takes
five years to plan and establish a town or neighborhood with the
infrastructure needed for residential housing.
Despite this standing injustice, the new law threatens, in the first
phase, to destroy the homes of 30,000 Bedouin, who are to be transferred
to places that the government chooses - about one-third of those
ultimately destined to be moved. This means moving them out of homes to
which they have become accustomed over the course of a generation and
putting them in the desert without a house. These people, moreover, are
an educated generation of professionals, teachers and university
students.
If someone imagines that such an operation will go down easily, he is
mistaken. Indeed, the Israel Police has begun enlisting hundreds of
officers to keep the peace while these houses are being demolished, an
action scheduled to get under way as early as August. The pictures from
these demolition and relocation operations, seen around the world, will
make the recent assault by Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner on a Danish peace
activist seem like a marginal event.
A proper settlement of the Bedouin is crucial to them and the state
alike, but the new law is not the instrument for achieving it. The
Netanyahu government would do well to postpone its ratification by the
Knesset and devote more serious thought to the problem. Otherwise,
conflict with the Negev Bedouin will be our unhappy lot for ages to
come.
Dr. Clinton Bailey has studied Bedouin history and culture in the Negev for many years.
Read More - http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/get-ready-for-a-bedouin-uprising-1.433806
