The Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs is set to discuss the Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev on Monday 6 May. The Bedouin community and human rights organisations strongly object to the bill and want it removed from the Knesset’s and government’s agenda. The bill is based on the Begin Plan, approved by the government on January 27, 2013, which effectively constitutes a modified version of the Prawer Plan for Bedouin settlement in the Negev, approved by the government on September 11, 2011.
Background
Today
the Bedouin number 210,000. About 120,000 live in seven Bedouin towns
established by the State. Most of the towns suffer heavily from poverty and
unemployment resulting from discrimination and their residents’ severance from
traditional livelihood and sources of income. The rest of the community - around 90,000, live in 11 villages currently
undergoing recognition, plus 35 more villages with more than 500 inhabitants
each. The State of Israel does not recognise these 35 villages. These 46
villages together constitute around 5% of the entire land of the Negev.
These
Israeli citizens in unrecognised villages are denied their most basic
rights: their villages are not connected to the state’s water and sewer systems
nor to its electrical grid; education and health services are only partially
provided to them, and are inadequate; and the state refuses to recognise villagers’
historical claims of ancestral ownership of the land.
Until
1948 the Negev served as home to
65,000-100,000 Bedouin who inhabited and worked somewhere between 2 and 3
million dunams of land. After the war
only about 10% of the population remained, under a military regime. In the
1970’s the State of Israel allowed the Bedouin to submit claims of land
ownership. The Bedouin asserted they owned about 1.5 million dunams of land. Of
those, about 500,000 dunams of pastureland were not granted recognition;
different sources disagree over the exact total and the number of dunams
formalized through court rulings. The estimates range from 200,000 to 350,000
dunam. In some cases they received compensation, but in the vast majority of
cases they were not given the right to remain on the lands they had claimed to
own, and many of the resolutions were forced on the Bedouin. About 650,000
dunams of land remain unresolved.
The
desire to develop the Northern Negev prompted the government of Israel to
recognize the need to resolve the ownership of the lands.
In
2008 a committee under a retired judge, Eliezer Goldberg, determined that
historical Bedouin rights to the land must be recognised. A series of
recommendations were made but the government did not ratify these and instead
established the Praver Committee in 2009, which was to oversee implementation of
the Goldberg Committee report. The Praver committee altered both its approach
to the issue and its recommendations. According to the Praver proposal the
Bedouin would only receive 180,000-200,000 dunams, whereas their claims cover
approximately 600,000. About 40,000 Bedouin will be removed from their villages
if the proposal is adopted.
A
reading of the Praver Committee report indicates that the committee did not
involve the Bedouin community in determining its fate; it did not even hear its
claims.
As
a result of vehement public criticism of the Praver report, former Minister
Benny Begin embarked on a “listening mission” aimed at fixing the Praver
report. The Begin Outline was approved by the government on 27 January 2013,
but despite its softer rhetoric, the latest report does not contain any redress
for the government’s unwillingness to recognize the 36 unrecognized Bedouin
villages and to fairly resolve the land ownership claims of Bedouin citizens
whose property was appropriated by the State.
The
bill outlines a framework for the implementation of government policies toward
the Bedouin population on two separate issues: (1) the evacuation of
unrecognized villages in the Negev, and (2) the settlement of ownership of
lands in the Negev. The bill is
based on the absolute negation of the Bedouin population’s rights to property
and historical ties to the land, in violation of the residents of the
unrecognized villages’ basic rights.
Like
Prawer, the Begin Plan is also based on the notion that Bedouin are “squatters,”
ignoring the fact that most of the villages have been in existence in their
current location since before the establishment of the State of Israel. Other
villages were established by government transfer during the period of
martial law.
What
will happen if the plan is implemented?
The
plan will lead to the uprooting and forcible eviction of dozens of
villages and 30-40,000 Bedouin residents, who will be stripped of their
property and their historical land rights. Thousands of families will be
condemned to poverty and unemployment. The communal life and social fabric
of these villages will be destroyed. Like its precursor, the current plan also
seeks to restrict the Bedouin to a specific area and to forcibly
apply this policy.
A
fair arrangement is needed to benefit all the Negev
residents
A
significant choice now confronts the State of Israel. At stake is not only the
fate of about 40,000 Bedouin threatened with expulsion from their homes, but
the future of all the Negev inhabitants. The
decision before us is whether to perpetuate and exacerbate the tension and
sense of deprivation already worsening the situation in the Negev,
or to arrive at a just resolution that will allow closer relations and promote
growth and development of the area.
A
just and feasible solution means, first and foremost, recognizing the fact
that the Bedouin in the unrecognized villages are citizens with equal rights.
- It will be arrived at only with real involvement from the Bedouin community institutions.
- Ownership claims to land made in the 1970's must be considered fully with recognition for all existing villages.
- Unique agricultural nature of the villages must be taken into account, along with the Bedouin’s patterns for settlement, land ownership and family and social customs.
- The Negev must be developed equally for all its citizens.
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