Updated 1/17/11: Al Arakib Demolished for the 9th Time, Residents Tear Gassed, Shot with Rubber Bullets, 5 Injured/Hospitalized

"We are making an effort to find a final solution to what's happening in Al-Arakib." - Israel Lands Administration Development Director Shlomo Tsizer (Ynet, Hebrew edition only - omitted from English version)

11 Israeli Human Rights Activists Arrested for helping Bedouin Rebuild the Village

New JNF-KKL bulldozer camp built near Al Arakib cemetery

ILA Development Director Shlomo Tsizer: "We are preparing the place for planting, to protect the ground." - implicating JNF-KKL as the body that will do the planting. (This statement appeared in the original Hebrew version of the Ynet article, translated by this blog's editor, and omitted from Ynet's translated report in English.)

Shows that JNF-KKL is party to Netanyahu-Lieberman government's effort to prevent Al-Arakib from ever being rebuilt.

This time everything is being removed to make it more difficult for the residents to rebuild.

11/17 11 pm Israel time update: Beer Sheva Court has temporarily stopped the ILA/Israeli govt's bulldozers from continuing to prepare the ground for JNF planting in the now demolished village of Al Arakib. The Bedouin have for the moment stalled the gov't's effort to permanently wipe out their village.

Click here to see our exclusive Flickr photos of the village's demolition and the wounding of residents with rubber or "sponge-tipped" bullets fired by the Israel riot police and beatings with batons.

Update 1/17/11 - 10 pm Israel Time: Haia Noach, executive director of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality - the leading Israeli advocate for human rights for Israel's Bedouin and winner of the Israel Association for Civil Rights Emil Grunzweig Prize - and 10 other Israeli human rights activists have been arrested in Al-Arakib for rebuilding the village. Haia's car was also confiscated. Mumtaz Khateeb, Amoz Gvirtz, Tel Aviv U Prof. Gadi Algazi, and activists of the Negev Coexistence Forum, the Recognition Forum and local residents have been arrested and are being held at the police station in Rahat. Efforts are underway to obtain their release from the Beer Sheva Court. (More updates from 1/17 below).

Report from Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality (Dukium):

5 am EST Sunday 1/16/11: I have learnt that the situation has now deteriorated further with the police resorting to the use of tear gas [and rubber bullets for the first time - Ed.] against the residents. I understand that at least four people have been so badly affected they have hospitalised and a further person is receiving treatment for a broken arm.

[Five have been hospitalized at Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva, and 3 people have been arrested. Ynet's report states that pepper spray was used rather than tear gas, and that the bullets fired at the residents were paint balls. But if the injuries to the residents were caused by paint balls, where's the paint? The cannisters that were fired, which are pictured up close at our Flickr photo set, do not appear to be pepper spray - but we are researching this and will provide more info here once available. - Ed.]

4 am EST: Just before 9am this morning (Israel time), the bulldozers and police force returned to Al Arakib to once again level it to the ground. This time, however, in order to cleanse the land of any indication that people once lived there, everything is being removed and dumped in dumpsters. No building materials or personal items will remain for the residents to salvage and rebuild the village. Again there was no opportunity for the families to rescue their belongings before the demolition started. Additionally it is thought that a few of the men were away in Rahat in mourning for a recent death in the community.

The bulldozers and lorries are still in Al Arakib as I send this email as there are many hours of work ahead of them to remove everything demolished.

The area is being flattened by bulldozers and heavy earth moving machinery to remove any trace of the village and a new road for JNF's forestation activists is being prepared. We suspect that these measures are being taken now ahead of Tu B'shvat on Thursday when many JNF volunteers are expected to be in the area planting trees. Removing the mangled mess makes certain that no awkward questions will be asked by JNF volunteers or dampen their festivities.

The police did not allow Haia Noach (executive director of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality) to enter village this morning; however, she has met with the residents. She reported to me that she has never seen the women as traumatised as they are this morning. The only blessing is that the children had already left for school for the day so did not have to witness, yet again, the complete destruction of their homes.

JNF-KKL has dismantled the bulldozer camp near the GOD TV forest and now has built a new bulldozer camp just in front of Al Arakib (where the government deep ploughed the residents' crops last year in Feb). JNF-KKL is even working today while all this is happening in Al Arakib.

[JNF's new camp is being built next to the Al Arakib cemetery to house heavy vehicles, storage spaces and accommodations for their people, according to the Regional Council for Unrecognized Bedouin Villlages in the Negev.]

Karen Douglas
Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality (Dukium) - email message

"The Israeli police claim they were taking measures to charge the residents of Al-Araqib with demolition expenses, which were incurred by the Israeli government and estimated at millions of Israeli shekels. The police added it was cooperating with the southern district prosecutor and planned to take civil action against the residents." (Israel razes Bedouin village for ninth time, Arab News)

"Knesset Member Talab El-Sana (United Arab List-Ta'al) was among those who tried to prevent the demolition. 'This is fascist-Nazi policy,' he said. 'The state is pushing its Bedouin citizens to the point where they may launch a popular intifada, which will have severe results.'"
"Bedouin Village Razed Again; Residents: Fascist State," Ynet, 1/16/11
Hebrew version: "Bedouin Village Razed Again: Fascist-Nazi Policy"
(A more accurate translation of the Hebrew headline, and the statement quoted in the article from the Bedouin Knesset Member who was at Al Arakib demonstrating against the demolition.)

Update 1/17/11 10 am Israel time from Karen Douglas of the Negev Coexistence Forum:

This morning saw the bulldozers and trucks return to Al Arakib to not only continue removing the debris from yesterday's demolitions but to flatten the temporary structures that the residents had erected quickly last night to protect the families from the wintry desert conditions. It was necessary to purchase all the materials as nothing was salvageable from the piles of debris which had not yet been cleared away.

All of the residents and activists who arrived this morning to support the residents, including NCF Director Haia Noach, have been restricted to Al Arakib's cemetery. At present police are preventing anyone from leaving this location and identification documents have been confiscated.

The road into Al Arakib has also been closed to prevent further supporters from arriving throughout the day. Dr. Awad Abu-Farikh who was arrested yesterday has now been released and we are still trying to find out about the other two residents who were arrested.

There were in fact about 20 structures demolished, all temporary structures made from light wood and tin sheet. JNF workers were not directly involved in the demolition but were in the area adjacent to the village doing massive work to prepare the ground for planting on Tu Bishvat on Thursday. Police were in full riot gear and were not identified with names. When Haia Noach asked one officer for his name, he replied '101'.

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In addition to eyewitness testimony from Bedouin at Al Arakib reported to Haia Noach and Karen Douglas at the Negev Coexistence Forum, and sources we have linked to above, additional sources for this report:

Na Lehakir - Regional Council for Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev (RCUV) (Hebrew)
Five People Injured by Rubber Bullets in Ninth Demolition of Al Arakib (English), RCUV

5 Children Injured following Israel’s Demolition of El Araqib Village for Ninth Time, The Alternative Information Center, Jan. 16, posted by the Recognition Forum

The Vengeance of the Occupation, by Gershom Gorenberg, American Prospect

There's a limit to how long a fragile democracy like Israel can maintain an undemocratic regime next door, in occupied territory, before democracy at home is corrupted.

I know that the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch didn't intend his classic play, God of Vengeance, as an allegory about Israel and the impact of the occupation. The play was first staged 60 years before Israel conquered the West Bank. All the same, what's happening in the Jewish state keeps tempting me to read Asch's drama as an allegory.

In "God of Vengeance," a character named Yankel Chapchovich in an unnamed Eastern European town runs a brothel in his basement while trying to bring up his daughter as a chaste Jewish girl on the floor above. To protect her purity, he installs a Torah scroll in his home. His plan naturally fails: There's a limit to how much tribute vice can pay to virtue before the line between them vanishes.

Likewise, there's a limit to how long a fragile democracy can maintain an undemocratic regime next door, in occupied territory, before democracy at home is corrupted. A border, especially one not even shown on maps, cannot seal off the rot.

Take, for example, the Admission Committees of Community Settlements bill, presently before the Knesset. A "community settlement" is a kind of membership-only exurb invented by West Bank settlers. The community is managed by an association responsible for "preserving the character of the settlement," in the words of a late 1970s report from the Gush Emunim settler movement. New residents have to be approved by an admissions committee, to ensure a shared "ideological-social background," the report states. Residents enjoy "single-family homes, quiet streets, fresh air" in a community limited to a few hundred families -- an "island" of a "selected population."

The design made it possible to enforce ideological conformity and social snobbery at the same time. It was assiduously implemented in settlements across the West Bank, then imported to sovereign Israel. In particular, the government has used the community-settlement model in efforts to "Judaize the Galilee" -- to draw Jews to northern Israel, which has a large Arab population. The policy applies the concept of the West Bank settlement enterprise to part of Israel: The land is treated as an arena where two ethnic groups struggle for control, acre by acre; the Arabs are seen as a hostile population rather than as citizens.

The challenge to that approach came from Adel and Iman Kaden, a couple from the Israeli Arab town of Baqa al-Gharbiyah. In 1995, they tried to buy a lot in the community settlement of Katzir. As young professionals eager to live in a place with good schools so their daughters could get into the right universities, they fit the Katzir profile. As Arabs, they were rejected. As citizens of a democracy, they turned to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which filed suit before the Israeli Supreme Court. In its judgment five years later, citing sources ranging from Genesis to Brown v. Board of Education, the court ruled that "equality is one of the foundational principles of the State of Israel" and rejected housing discrimination. To evade that decision, Katzir's admissions committee claimed that the Ka'adans were "unsuited" to "fit in socially" and again denied their application. It took another round before the Supreme Court until the couple could start building their house in Katzir. More recently, a set of human-rights organizations has asked the Supreme Court to ban the entire admissions-committee procedure.

The Admission Committees bill is a bid to preempt the court. It will protect committees' authority to reject candidates who "do not match the social-cultural fabric" of the community. The lead sponsor is David Rotem, a West Bank settler and a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's far-right Israel Is Our Home Party. The bill is likely to pass.

The positive side of this story is that Israel's flourishing civil society is rich in human-rights organizations. The country's legal system allows them to apply directly to the Supreme Court, which is often sympathetic. Groups such as B'Tselem, Yesh Din, and Breaking the Silence also monitor and publicize what's happening in occupied territories. This has not escaped the Israeli right, which has been mounting an ever more vicious campaign to silence criticism.

The latest move: Last week, the Knesset approved a proposal for a parliamentary inquiry commission to investigate the funding of organizations purportedly engaged in delegitimizing the Israeli army. The sponsor was Israel Is Our Home legislator Faina Kirshenbaum, who railed that "these groups provide material to the Goldstone Commission."

After the vote, Likud Knesset member Danny Danon suggested that Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Oppenheimer "and the heads of other fifth-column organizations in Israel start fixing up their CVs because they'll be out of work soon." This week Danon started pressing for legislation that will require organizations filing suit before the Supreme Court to list their sources of funding in their suits. Since nonprofits must already file annual reports of their funding, the Knesset moves are pure propaganda. The aim is to convince the public that anyone criticizing government activities in the occupied territories or discrimination within Israel is an enemy of the state.

There is some funding that does deserve more attention, though: the money from the government itself that supports organizations of the anti-democratic right. One glaring example is the Od Yosef Hai yeshivah in the settlement of Yitzhar. The cash flow from the Education Ministry continued even after the yeshivah self-published a 2009 book, The Law of the King, that purports to elucidate religious law on when it is permitted for a Jew to kill a gentile. It took a letter from a lawyer at the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), a civil-rights wing of Reform Judaism, before anyone in the ministry questioned the yeshivah's budget. Yet the ministry insists that it's only reviewing the funding because the yeshivah might have misreported how many students it has. Officials appear frightened to admit that they might check the legality of funding a blatantly racist institution.

A couple of weeks ago, Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg surprised readers with a blog post titled "What If Israel Ceases to Be a Democracy?" I'm glad he's confronting the issue. But the scenarios he raises -- starting with Lieberman as prime minister -- are too obvious. Democracy doesn't necessarily end with a bang; it can fade out, bit by bit. Rather than wait for the end of the process, Israel's friends in America should be expressing their concern right now, publicly and in every conversation with an Israeli official.

Back to Sholem Asch for a moment: When God of Vengeance was first staged in English, in New York in 1923, the entire cast and the producer were arrested and convicted of giving an immoral performance. The judge, identified in a March 24, 1923, New York Times article only as "McIntyre," decried the play's "desecration of the sacred scrolls of the Torah." One of the leaders of the campaign against the play was Rabbi Joseph Silverman of the ultra-establishment Temple Emanu-El in New York. "This play libels the Jewish religion," he said. Neither Silverman nor McIntyre understood that Asch was defending Judaism against desecration. The rabbi and judge have been forgotten. Asch's literary reputation has not suffered.

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Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The Prospect. He is the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He blogs at South Jerusalem. Reposted from the American Prospect

Violence in Bil'in and oppression of Negev Bedouin in Israel's unrecognized villages, by Rachel Metz

At the dawn of this new Gregorian year and decade, Israel once again made the news for killing a demonstrator in the village of Bil'in. Bil'in lies on the “seam line,” the area outside the Green Line but within the path of the separation barrier Israel has unilaterally built to prevent terrorists from coming into Israel proper from the West Bank. Because the path cuts into the West Bank itself, many Palestinians complain that it de facto appropriates their land.

In 2007, Israel’s Supreme Court agreed with such complaints by the villagers in Bil'in and ordered that the barrier’s route should be moved. The IDF has yet to implement the decision, and when demonstrators literally take matters into their own hands by trying to dismantle the barrier, the IDF regularly fires tear gas at them. This has resulted in several fatalities, as the IDF also violates its own stated policy that the gas canisters should not be fired at close range and uses one of the more dangerous varieties of tear gas.

At its root, the ongoing violence in Bil'in is part of the same phenomenon oppressing the residents of Israel’s unrecognized Bedouin villages. The IDF’s actions in Bil'in are consistent with the longstanding policy of seeking to squeeze out Arab residents so as to enable Jewish development on the maximum land possible (it’s no coincidence that the Bedouin live on only two percent of the northern Negev despite comprising twenty-five percent of the population). Just last month, in response to people pointing out the racism of a bill that would allow small communities to discriminate in order to, “preserve their social and cultural character,” the Knesset amended the bill to”only” apply to the Negev and the Galilee. Israel presents itself as a Jewish, democratic state, but its actions show it be functioning only as a state for Jews.

When Arabs respond to Israel’s discriminatory zoning policies by building without permits, they face frequent home demolitions. Just in the latter half of December, hundreds of people in Lod, As-Sadir, and al-Araqib were left without a roof over their heads by Israeli government bulldozers. The last name is familiar to regular readers of Bedouin Jewish Justice – the village has been razed nine times in the not-even-six-months since the JNF announced plans for the area. In East Jerusalem, the rate of home demolitions has gotten so high – it increased 45% over the past year – that the U.N. humanitarian coordinator has expressed concern.

Even those Arab residents whose land claims the state does recognize may find obstacles placed in the path to living on their own land – one man has been fighting red tape for twelve years.

With instruments of the state leveraged against them (at times, in the form of a bulldozer, quite literally), Arab citizens of Israel are second class citizens. This situation should be anathema to anyone whose sense of Jewishness comes with a sense that “Never Again” should apply not just to Jews, or whose Jewish values say that pikuach nefesh, preservation of life, applies to all people. We must challenge Israel to act democratically and consistently with Jewish values.

Seeing the Unseen: The Forgotten Palestinian-Israeli Problem, by Devorah Brous - Jerusalem Report, Jan. 3, 2011

To view the article in PDF as it appears in the Jerusalem Report, please click here.

In late November, for the seventh time in the last five months, Israeli authorities razed the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in the Negev, evicting 300 Israeli citizens from their homes. And for the seventh time the residents began to rebuild in a Sisyphean struggle with the Jewish state.

Even before the desert dust had settled, two major Jewish National Fund (JNF) projects were almost completed in the immediate vicinity of the village. Funded by Evangelical Christian Zionists from the “Land of Promise” and “GOD-TV” “to invite the Second Coming of Christ,” half of a new one million tree "GOD-TV Forest" already extends in a vast swath near Al-Arakib. And the Israel Antiquities Authority auspiciously uncovered the ruins of a 6th century Byzantine church at the entrance to the brand new JNF settlement of Givot Bar next to Al-Arakib.

Both JNF projects highlight a familiar cycle: Arab land is expropriated, cleared and re-zoned for State use to prevent Arabs from returning. Despite national master plans designed to keep development accountable, there is no effective process in place that enables full democratic participation of all interested stakeholders in decisions on future building and planting schemes in the Negev.

For example, to the surprise and chagrin of watchdogs on the ground, Bedouin wheat and lentil fields were uprooted by the State over a five-year period to establish Givot Bar. Then the GOD-TV forest sprouted out of nowhere and now church excavations have begun without any public scrutiny. The Israel Lands Administration offered Al Arakib villagers a very low rate to rent ‘agricultural land’ from the State. Since development on such land is prohibited, Bedouin would be legally barred from building homes there, so they refused the offer. Beyond pragmatic concerns, it’s a matter of principle: Why should they rent what they have long tended, grazed and believe they already own?

Most people are largely unaware of the non-violent struggle waged by some 74,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel’s “unrecognized villages.” These villagers are resisting Israel's attempts to relocate them in government-built and Arab-only “recognized cities” where roughly 96,000 landless Bedouin have moved. Though these cities boast better government services than the unrecognized villages, they suffer from years of state underfunding and consistently report the country's highest rates of unemployment and crime. Furthermore, they have proven not only inhospitable but destructive to an ancient Bedouin culture of dry lands farming and animal husbandry.

Bedouin in the “unrecognized villages” argue their land tenure cases vociferously in court and resist pressure to sign statements barring them from their lands. They choose to remain in tin shanties or cement block homes without electricity, sewage systems or running water, with one clear aim: to hold onto their village grounds. They challenge the discriminatory institutional, zoning and legal mechanisms used to deny building permits and keep Arab villages outside the state's planning frameworks.

Appeals to have their land rights recognized are doomed from the outset. Since the Knesset has passed laws enabling Bedouin acreage to be declared "state land," land claims are systematically denied under jurisprudence with a built-in bias. Deemed "illegal squatters" lacking land title, Bedouin are seen as "serial invaders" who "infiltrate and seize state land." Most recently, Israel’s parliament approved on preliminary reading a bill proposed by Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party that would require owners of “illegal construction” to pay for the demolition of their homes. Far from serving justice, the law has become the hand-maiden of Jewish ultra-nationalism.

Despite fierce criticism by environmentalists and civil rights advocates, the JNF is working to entice an additional 250,000 Jews to settle in newly built desert neighborhoods like Givot Bar. Their ambitious “Blueprint Negev” plan is bankrolled by private American charitable support, unleashing a “new Zionism” that heeds David Ben Gurion’s clarion call to settle the Negev.

Such development is sold as “progress.” Yet many donors remain unaware that planting Bar and Bat Mitzvah trees in the “barren desert” is not mere tzedekah (charity), but a political act that deepens the Jewish/Arab conflict over land and resources. What could have been a noble pursuit is, in actual fact, discriminatory development designed to corral Bedouin into ever more constricted tracts of land in order to reclaim Arab-held territory for Jewish or Evangelical Zionist use.

JNF claims that tree planting is a shared national symbol that benefits Jews and Arabs. But it is also an invisible agent of conquest. Within no time, trees will effectively conceal evidence of the former inhabitants of Al-Arakib and the Negev Arab land rights struggle will remain unseen.

The first step in truly transforming the Blueprint of the Negev is to stop the nearly 200 Bedouin home demolitions a year, which the Netanyahu government has promised to triple. The second step requires seeing the forest through the trees. The JNF and government bodies must work with local communities to develop Israel’s Negev in a way that is equitable, sustainable and culturally appropriate for the region’s diverse inhabitants, including the Negev Bedouin, Israel’s most disenfranchised minority.

Devorah Brous, the founder of "Bustan," a Jewish/Bedouin environmental justice NGO in the Negev, is now based in Los Angeles, where she serves as co-director of the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel, a project of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and the Jewish Alliance for Change (www.bedouinjewishjustice.blogspot.com).

Leading Bedouin rights activist imprisoned for 7 months - abuse of Israeli judicial system to persecute Bedouin

Nuri al-Okbi, head of the Association for Protection of the Rights Bedouins in Israel and also active for the rights of the Arab residents of Lod, many of whom were originally Negev Bedouins, was sentenced to seven months imprisonment on charges of "running a business without a license".

The business in question is a garage which al-Okbi has been maintaining since 1964 in Lod. Over the years, the Municipality of Lod's policy has undergone unpredictable changes, with the garage getting a permit in some years and being denied it in others.

Following the verdict, al-Okbi said: "I have become the target of politically-motivated discrimination and intimidation, with the intention of gagging me, putting an end to my speaking out against the municipality's policies - for example, the demolition of seven homes of Arab residents about a week ago. The Police, Fire Department, the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of the Environment all certified that my garage conformed to all regulations.

Nevertheless, the municipality had deprived me of a business license, while granting one to people in my neighborhood whose businesses were started after my garage. I am sure that if I had been ready to toe the line dictated by the municipality, I would have had no problem in obtaining a license. Their real problem is not my garage, but my public activity."

Following the harsh verdict, al-Okbi – who is 68 years old and suffers from a heart condition - felt ill and was hospitalized at the Assaf Harofeh Hospital, where he is hospitalized under police supervision and his hands and feet handcuffed to the bed. The police also prevented al-Okbi's son, who came to the hospital, from talking to him.

Originally, the court seemed inclined to let al-Okbi perform community service in lieu of imprisonment, and in fact he already made arrangements with a Ramla soup kitchen which was interested in having him. At the last moment, however, Judge Zachariya Yemini of the Ramla Magistrate's Court decided to act severely and imposed a seven months' term - rather than six months, the maximum term which under Israeli law can be commuted to community service.

In his verdict, the judge, referring to his human rights work specifically noted that "treating the defendant leniently would constitute a negative message to the public, and especially to the Bedouin" – i.e. his activism on behalf of the Bedouin community was the specific and explicit reason why he was treated severely.

Adv. Avi Dubin, al-Okbi's lawyer, asked the court to delay implementation so as to facilitate the lodging of an appeal, but the judge conditioned such a delay upon the immediate depositing of thirty thousand shekels at the court's treasury, a sum which al-Okbi could not raise – whereupon he was immediately taken off to imprisonment.

In addition to the prison term, the court imposed on al-Okbi a fine amounting to forty thousand shekels, failure to pay which would lead to his undergoing four hundred additional days in prison. Adv. Dubin filed an appeal against this verdict. "I hope that in the deliberations of a higher court, Israel's judicial system would show more consideration to Nuri al-Okbi. There is no justification for the severe treatment meted to him" says Adam Keller, spokesperson of Gush Shalom, who has long followed Nuri al-Okbi's struggle for the rights of the Negev Bedouin community.

Reprinted from

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=44306
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9355&Itemid=63

Bedouin tribes' land fears over God-TV's tree planting, by Jonathan Cook - The National

NAZARETH, ISRAEL - Half a million trees planted during the past 18 months on the ancestral lands of Bedouin tribes in Israel's Negev region were bought by a controversial Christian evangelical television channel that calls itself God-TV, US tax records show.

A sign posted a few kilometres north of Beersheba, the Negev's main city, announces plans to plant a total of a million trees over a large area of desert that has already been designated "God-TV Forest".

The Jewish National Fund, an international non-profit organisation in charge of forestation and developing Jewish settlements in Israel, received US$500,000 (Dh1.8m) from God-TV to plant some of the trees, according to the channel's filings to US tax authorities last year.

A coalition of Jewish and Bedouin human rights groups have denounced the project, accusing God-TV and the JNF of teaming up to force the Bedouin out of the area to make way for Jewish-only communities.

"The JNF, instead of promoting civic equality for all Israelis - the basis for trust and peaceful co-existence - is now supporting (and being supported by) an evangelical ministry that wishes to utilise Israel and the planting of trees to bring about the Second Coming of Christ," the coalition said in a statement.

"The Israel of the JNF, the Israel Land Administration and the Israeli Government is one where Bedouin Arabs are displaced and discriminated against so that forests funded by Jews and evangelical Christians and exclusively Jewish communities can be built, preventing Bedouin Israelis from ever returning to their land, forcing them to live in poverty and neglect."

No one from God-TV was available for comment, but in a video posted on its website, Rory Alec, the channel's co-founder, said he had begun fundraising for the forest after receiving "an instruction from God" a few years ago. He said God had told him: "Prepare the land for the return of my Son."

Standing next to the "God-TV Forest" sign, Mr Alec thanked thousands of viewers for making donations to "sow a seed for God", adding: "I tell you Jesus is coming back soon!"
Part of the forest has been planted on land claimed by the Aturi tribe, whose village, al-Araqib, is nearby.

Al-Araqib has been demolished seven times [sic: eight times] in recent months by the Israeli police as officials increase the pressure on the 350 inhabitants to move to Rahat, an under-funded, government-planned township nearby.

Earlier this year, Joe Stork, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, criticised the repeated attempts by Israeli authorities to eradicate the village and displace its residents.

"Tearing down an entire village and leaving its inhabitants homeless without exhausting all other options for settling long-standing land claims is outrageous," he said.

Human Rights Watch and other international human rights groups have criticised Israel for harsh measures taken against the people of al-Araqib and the other 90,000 Bedouin who live in Negev villages that the Israel refuses to recognise. They accuse the government of trying to pre-empt a court case moving through Israeli courts aimed at settling the Bedouin ownership claims.
God-TV's involvement in the dispute has prompted fresh concern.

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, said the JNF, which has semi-governmental status in Israel, had set a "dangerous precedent" in accepting money from God-TV.

"The Israeli authorities are playing with fire," he said. "This dispute between the Israeli government and the Bedouin is a long one that until now focused on the question of land rights. But the involvement of extremist Christian groups like God-TV is likely to turn this into a religious confrontation, and that will be much harder to resolve."

The JNF declined to respond to questions from The National about its involvement with God-TV or the Negev forest.

Mr Gordon said it was particularly worrying that Mr Alec was using the language of Biblical prophecy in justifying his decision to finance the forest.

The channel, which has become one of the most popular global evangelical stations since its founding in Britain 15 years ago, claims an audience of up to a half-billion viewers, including 20 million in the United States.

Stephen Sizer, a British vicar and critic of Christian Zionist groups, described God-TV as part of an evangelical movement that believes Israel's establishment and expansion are bringing nearer the "end times" - or the moment when, according to Christians, Jesus will return for the second time.

He said the funding of Jewish immigration to Israel and the planting of trees is far from innocuous. Rather, he said, it is a way for Christian Zionist groups to support the Israeli right's hard-line policies aimed at dispossessing Palestinians of their land and replacing them with Jews, thus expediting Jesus's return.

Mr Sizer said there was increasing co-operation between Israeli institutions and Christian evangelical groups, which have begun basing their operations in Israel.
God-TV has proclaimed itself the only television channel to broadcast globally from Jerusalem, following its relocation there from the UK in 2007.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the head of the Union of Reform Judaism in the US, has repeatedly called on Israel to sever contacts with Christian Zionist and evangelical groups, describing them as opposed to "territorial compromise under any and all circumstances".

However, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has sought out support from Christian evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel (Cufi), according to Shalom Goldman, a professor at Atlanta's Emory University, who recently published a book on the Christian Zionist movement.

Haia Noach, the director of the Negev Coexistence Forum, which campaigns for Bedouin rights, said her organisation feared more of God-TV's trees would be planted on Bedouin lands in the coming weeks. A depot has recently been established close to al-Araqib to store four bulldozers.

"The villagers refuse to abandon al-Araqib, even though it has been destroyed seven times. But once a forest is planted there, there will be no chance to go back," she said.

She said she feared the goal was to build Jewish communities on Bedouin land. She cited the case of Givot Bar, which was secretly established by the government on part of al-Araqib's lands in 2003.

Repeated letters to the JNF for information about their forestation programme had gone unanswered, she said.

Awad Abu Freih, a community leader at al-Araqib, said the house demolitions and forest-planting were only the latest measures by the government to remove the villagers.

Repeated destruction of the al-Araqib's crops by spraying them with herbicides was ruled illegal by Israel's Supreme Court in 2004.

Efforts to move 90,000 Bedouin off their lands close to Beersheba have been intensifying since 2003, when the Israeli government announced plans to move them into a handful of townships.
The Bedouin have resisted, complaining that the official communities are little more than urban reservations that languish at the bottom of the country's social and economic tables.

Originally published in the National on Dec. 28, 2010

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Negev Bedouin, the IDF and Religion in Israel: News Analysis by Rachel Metz - Special to the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel

The Israel Defense Forces
Israel’s Defense Ministry has recently requested funds to move several military units to the Negev. In theory this is a good idea – the taxpayers save money and a peripheral area of the country gets an economic boost. The problem is that the Israeli government has a bad history of using such development projects to displace indigenous Bedouin from their lands without providing compensation that allows them to provide for themselves.

Many of the Bedouin displaced by Israel’s military forces were moved to the seven government-established Bedouin towns. Unfortunately, these towns, like the rest of Israel’s Arab areas, suffer disproportionately from low state investment in public infrastructure and services.

Other Bedouin have opted to stay on, or as close as possible to, their land, living in villages that are unrecognized by the state. Because these villages do not appear on maps, the health of their residents is not taken into account in planning decisions, and these villagers, particularly those living near the Ramat Hovav industrial site, suffer disproportionately from cancer, birth defects, asthma, and other problems. (It’s worth noting that the Bedouin are hardly the only indigenous people to suffer and die from health ailments that nobody else cared enough to prevent. In the U.S. context, perhaps the most glaring example is the Navajo, whose cancer rates among teenagers living near uranium mine tailings are seventeen times the national average.)

With the IDF being the biggest polluter in Israel, construction of a new base begs the question of what will happen to those currently living on the construction site.

RELIGION
The U.S. State Department has released its annual Religious Freedom Report for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This report notes that Israel’s budget covers the costs of construction and maintenance for [orthodox] Jewish places of worship but does not cover construction at all, and maintenance only minimally, for non-Jewish places of worship. To put it bluntly, this discriminatory state policy forces members of some religions and denominations (including Reform and Conservative Jews) to subsidize the worship of orthodox Jews.

Living in Beer Sheva, I certainly felt the effects of this policy. Though there were several orthodox synagogues within walking distance of my apartment and dozens if not hundreds in the city as a whole (which no doubt benefited from the city tax that I had to pay but that they don’t), there is only one non-orthodox synagogue in the city, and it is privately funded.

The city’s historic mosque, which dates from Ottoman times, has been used for non-religious purposes since 1948. Despite efforts by the city’s roughly 5,000 Muslim residents, the city will not allow it to be reopened as a mosque. The religious needs of Israel’s non-orthodox residents are clearly not being met the way anyone committed to equality would want.

In Rahat, the largest Bedouin city with its population of over 40,000, Islamic Movement activists sought to fill this void by building a mosque. A few months later, in early November, the Israel Lands Administration demolished it. Over 1,000 local residents protested the demolition and the city declared a one-day general strike of all city services, including education, in protest as well. Were Israel trying to increase support for political Islamic groups it could not have done a better job of it.

Rachel Metz lived in Beer Sheva, Israel from 2007 through 2009 while earning her master's degree in Middle East Studies from Ben Gurion University. Her experiences in the Negev included interning for BUSTAN, a Jewish/Bedouin environmental justice NGO.

That same passion for social justice motivated her to combat U.S. poverty through AVODAH, the Jewish Service Corps, work on the largest reservation in the U.S., and write articles, opinion pieces and letters to the editor for publications including In These Times, The Jerusalem Post, and The Washington Post. She currently lives in the Washington, DC area where she works in environmental protection.

Background Analysis: Eight times Al-Arakib has fallen, and it will arise eight times, by Rabbi Arik Ascherman

From our partners at the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, who were on the ground at Al-Arakib:

The Negev Bedouin village of Al- Arakib was demolished this morning for the eighth time since the assault began on July 27.

The residents' resolve, however, has not been weakened to remain on their land and rebuild again.

There was also a second demolition for a family living in the orchard south of Al Arakib.

From Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights

Rabbis for Human Rights protests the insensitivity and violence of Israeli authorities in demolishing the homes of the residents of the “unrecognized” Bedouin Negev village of Al Arakib again and again, while not making the effort to work with the residents to find a compromise solution. We are terribly saddened that the State of Israel ignores hundreds of building violations in the Occupied Territories and inside the Green Line, but has adopted a hard line policy towards peaceful Israeli Bedouin citizens.

This latest demolition was carried out with tens of troops and bulldozers, just a day before the beginning of a two week vacation for now homeless schoolchildren.

RHR calls for all those desiring peace and good neighborliness with our country to support our Bedouin citizens and demand an immediate moratorium of all demolitions and evictions until the Beersheva District Court rules on the petitions by the Bedouin to reclaim their lands.
We pray that the Land of Israel will be good and gracious to all of her citizens.

Just last Friday, RHR organized an interfaith service in Al Arakib with over 300 participants and Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders.

In these difficult moments, the rabbis of RHR extend our sympathy and prayers to the residents of Al Arakib, and again call on people of faith in Israel and around the world to continue reciting RHR’s prayer prayer for Al Arakib this weekend in synagogues, mosques, in Christmas worship and in other places of worship.

General Background

In 1948, the Bedouin population in Israel’s Negev numbered approximately one hundred thousand persons. Following the War of Independence in 1948-1949, most of these individuals were expelled/fled to Gaza, Jordan, or the Sinai Peninsula, even though they took no part in hostilities against Israel. The Jahalin tribe were intimidated into leaving for the West Bank in the early 50′s, well after the war. Throughout the Negev, only about 11,000 Bedouin remained. Following international diplomatic pressure, relatively small numbers of expelled Bedouin were allowed to return to Israel.

Before the war, Bedouin lived in all parts of the Negev (an area of approximately 13 million dunams, or 3.25 million acres) and earned their livelihood by raising sheep and goats throughout the region, as well as by agriculture, growing wheat and other grains, on an area of approximately 2 million dunams (about half a million acres).

At the beginning of the 1950’s, the State of Israel decided to evict from their lands most of the Bedouin then residing in the central and western Negev, both fertile and well-watered areas, and resettle them in the eastern Negev, a barren area with very little rainfall.

Bedouin were either moved by force, or persuaded to “move temporarily” for the sake of military exercises, etc. However, even after being transferred from their lands and villages to the area of the eastern Negev, the Bedouin communities in their new locations were not recognized either. Governmental officials did not allocate other lands to them as compensation, nor did they see to it that these persons were provided with basic services and employment as was done for millions of Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Today, this sad and disgraceful situation still remains the lot of half of the Bedouin residents of the Negev, who reside in 45 unrecognized villages. Because these villages do not exist as far as the state is concerned, they are entirely lacking infrastructure for water, electricity, roads, education, and health care. An additional 95,000 Bedouin reside in seven towns that Israel set up for their settlement, but in which everyday living conditions are extremely difficult, with high rates of unemployment and inferior municipal services in comparison with the Jewish settlements in the Negev. These seven Bedouin towns are located statistically at the bottom of the socio-economic scale of all settlements in Israel.

Despite the Bedouin appeals to allow them to choose for themselves the type of settlements in which they will live — whether urban, rural, or community-based — the State of Israel insists on settling the Bedouin in newly established towns clearly inappropriate for the Bedouin way of life. Israelis are concerned about Bedouin taking over the Negev and feel that the land is needed for the Jewish population. However, the lands claimed by the Bedouin are only 3% of the entire Negev. When Bedouin attempt to return to their ancestral lands, they are portrayed as trespassers, squatting and taking over land that belongs to the State.

During the 1970’s, when given the opportunity to do so, 3,200 Bedouin landowners filed claims of ownership for lands covering approximately 900,000 dunam in area (today the outstanding claims pertain to 650,000 dunams) out of a total of 13 million dunams over which the Negev extends. (There are four dunam to an acre) Today, after decades, most of the claims for ownership have still not been brought to court, most of the witnesses to the ownership of the lands have died, the lands have not been returned to their owners, and the injustice has been left uncorrected.

If this were not enough, recently the State of Israel has used the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to further the eviction of Bedouin in the Negev by planting trees on lands to which the latter claim ownership. As the battle over these lands intensifies, Israeli authorities have stepped up the demolition of homes, destruction of crops, preventing of grazing, etc. There is no possibility of building legally in an unrecognized village, because there is no building plan. All use of the land for agricultural purposes or grazing is deemed to be an illegal intrusion.

In recent years, the Bedouin have been trying to use the Israeli legal system to regain their lands. The Bedouin have brought evidence regarding continuous Bedouin occupation and cultivation of the lands around Beersheba. They have brought documentation of the fact that Bedouin lands were governed for generations by a well functioning traditional land ownership system, sanctioned by the Ottoman and British authorities. Unfortunately, the Bedouin did not register their land in the British land title books.

Another reality is possible. Some one dozen villages have been recognized in recent years. These villages were previously in the exact same situation as Al-Arakib, slated for evacuation. A committee set up by the government has called the situation of the unrecognized villages untenable and recommended recognizing many more, but the government does not wish to do so.

The Family Farms Law legalized the status of 60 Jewish (and one Arab) family ranches and farms set up without planning approval in the Negev. This is another precedent which could be used to grant a legal status to Bedouin communities.

Al-Arakib
Al-Arakib is a community of some 300 men, women and children approximately 10 kilometers north of Beersheva. The cemetery with the graves of generations of the El-Turi tribe testifies to the fact that this community existed long before the establishment of the State of Israel. The tribe says that it has lived there since the 19th century, and they have Turkish and British documents showing that they worked, the land and paid taxes. There are also bills of sale and purchase between tribes. In 1907 and in 1929 the El-Turis purchased land from the El-Ukbi tribe totaling some 1,600 dunams.

At the beginning of the 1950’s, Israel evacuated by force the Bedouin living in Al-Arakib, north of Beersheva. The evacuees were told that their lands were needed for military exercises, and promised that within six months they would be allowed to return to their village. This promise that was not kept. Instead, by means of the Land Purchase Legislation of 1953, various government agencies used the forced absence of the Bedouin from the area to transfer ownership of their lands to the State.

Many of the members of the El-Turi tribe had been moved to the nearby town of Rahat. They maintained some grazing rights, and would return to Al-Arakib to try and farm the land, or to be buried in the cemetery. However, the lands largely remained fallow for some 50 years.

The Israel Land Administration (ILA) transferred by lease the lands of Al-Arakib to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for the purpose of forestation. Following approval authorized by the ILA, the JNF began land works of unprecedented proportions on the lands of Al-Arakib resulting in massive changes in the region’s topography and the forestation of these lands. The JNF last week established a large new bulldozer camp just one kilometer from Al Arakib, and is now planting one million trees in Israel, including many near the village of Al Arakib, as part of the “God-TV Forest.” JNF has accepted substantial donations from an evangelical Christian ministry called God-TV, who claim to have received “instructions from God…to prepare the land for the return of my Son…[to] plant a million trees.”

Approximately ten years ago, understanding that the plan was to erase their village by means of forestation, they returned and built homes, and began pressing their claims in court. Their case is currently in front of the Beersheva District Court, but these cases can take years to adjudicate. There have been constant attempts to demolish these homes, and every year agricultural crops are sprayed and killed.

The struggle has reached new heights since the summer of 2010. The ILA has demolished Al- Arakib seven times between July and November. While they have not tried to rebuild their more permanent structures, they have time after time attempted to rebuild simple tents, shacks and other forms of shelter with makeshift materials. Each time massive numbers of police, helicopters and bulldozers come to demolish the village, the families to take refuge in the cemetery, the one area where they are left alone. From the cemetery and the temporary shelters that are built anew after every demolition, one can see the forests approaching from several directions, even as helicopters whip up dust in the nearby military training zone.

“We are not invaders, nor squatters,” said Sheikh Sayyah. “It is the state that has invaded us.”

Recite This Prayer for El-Arakib This Weekend, Recite This Prayer for Israel, by Rabbi Arik Ascherman

Please take two small steps this weekend (and in the coming weeks) on behalf of justice and the rededication of Israel to the ideals of her Declaration of Independence. See below the prayer that we are asking you to read in your congregation/place of worship.

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving weekend and Jews around the world prepare for the joyous and thankful holiday of Hanukah next week, there is no cause for joy or thanksgiving in the Negev Bedouin Village of El-Arakib. The entire village, sitting on lands in the possession of the El-Turi tribe for tens of years before the State of Israel, was demolished this week for the 7th time because it is "unrecognized," and in the way of approaching JNF forests being planted on tribal lands. Even though the claims of the El-Turi tribe are now before the court, a village not on the map can not possibly get permits to build legally.

In Parashat Va'Yeshev we read the awful story of how Joseph is sold by his brothers. Perhaps the essence of human rights work is that all humanity are brothers and sisters, and that we must prevent one human being from selling another in any way. When we abandon the weakest and poorest Israelis, leaving them without home or a safety net, we have sold them. When we allow violence against women, we have sold them. We sell out our citizens when we allow corporations to make huge profits from our natural resources such as Israel's undersea natural gas reserves, instead of using those profits for the benefit of our society. When we deny Palestinians the right to water or access to their lands or a roof over their heads, we have sold them into despair and oppression.

Nafal d'dvar b'Yisrael. This week the unrecognized Negev Bedouin village El-Arakib was demolished for the seventh time. My heart cries for them, and we need to reflect on how we have betrayed our fellow Israeli citizens. This is a community that has existed for dozens of years, before the founding of Israel. Their case is in court. The intent appears to preempt the court and to be to wipe out any memory that it existed, as three JNF forests are closing in on in from all sides.

As a partner in "The Recognition Forum" and "Negev Coexistence Forum" working on behalf of the unrecognized villages, we were asked to write the prayer which appears below for use this weekend in synagogues, churches, mosques, and other places of worship in Israel and around the world. If you are a congregational rabbi or lead a congregation of any faith, please include this prayer in your worship this weekend and/or on one of the coming weekends.

If you are a lay person or non-congregational rabbi/spiritual leader, please ask that this prayer be read in your congregation/place of worship. Please notify us at info@rhr.israel.net if you recited this prayer and tell us about the experience, as it is very important to us to know in how many places it was read and what happened. Next week, we in Israel will hold an interfaith prayer at El-Arakib, and it would be great to announce how many congregations around the world remembered El-Arakib in their prayers.

You can also click here to sign a petition on the Jewish National Fund asking them to cease efforts to plant forests on the ruins of Bedouin villages and to include the Bedouin in their plans for developing the Negev.

As we celebrate on Hanukah the rededication of the Temple which once stood in Jerusalem, let us light a candle of justice and rededicate ourselves to the dream ensconced in our Declaration of Independence of an Israel "Based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel " that will "Ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender."

B'Vrakha (In Blessing),
Arik
Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman
Rabbis For Human Rights

The English translation follows this prayer in Hebrew.

I will put the background in a separate note.

תפילה למען תושבי/ות אל-עראקיב
לשבת וישב תשע"א

איכה ישבה בדד אל-עראקיב היתה כאלמנה זו הפעם השביעית? ויצא מבת ציון כל הדרה. ייחלנו שמדינתנו "תקיים שויון זכויות חברתי ומדיני גמור לכל אזרחיה, בלי הבדל דת ומין", והנה נכזבה תוחלתנו.

אלוהינו ואלוהי קדמונינו (אבותינו; אבותינו ואמותינו) בקש את הנרדפים/ות, על לא עוול בכפם/ן. עמוד לצד אחינו ואחיותינו, אזרחי/יות המדינה ושותפים/ות לגורלה, שאוהליהם/ן שדדו וכל מיתריהם/ן ניתקו. תחזקנה את ידיהם/ן בעוד חורשי/ות רעה מתכוונים/ות לחרוש בתיהם, לנטוע יערות במקומם, ולהותיר רק את בית העלמין שלהם, עדות לדורות הרבים שחיו במקום. יהי רצון שבקרוב ובימינו נראה יערות רבים בכל הארץ, אבל לא על הריסותיהם של ישובי הבדואים.

שבת היא מלזעוק, אך עוד לא אבדה תקוותנו למדינה שכן "תהא מושתתת על יסודות החירות, הצדק והשלום לאור חזונם של נביאי ישראל". חזק את רוחנו למען לא נחשה, כדי שחזון נביאך יוגשם, "יקרא לך עיר הצדק קריה נאמנה. ציון במשפט תפדה ושביה בצדקה".

ויהי נועם ה' אלוהינו עלינו
ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו
ומעשה ידינו כוננהו

מראה מקומות:

איכה ישבה בדד אל-עראקיב היתה כאלמנה זו הפעם השביעית? (מבוסס על איכה א:א)
ויצא מבת ציון כל הדרה (שם א:ו)
תקיים שוויון זכויות חברתי ומדיני גמור לכל אזרחיה בלי הבדל דת, גזע ומין"(מגילת העצמאות)
בקש את הנרדפים/ות (מבוסס על מדרש תנחומא אמור סימן ט)
שאוהליהם/ן שדדו וכל מיתריהם/ן ניתקו (מבוסס על ירמיהו י:כ)
שבת היא מלזעוק (מן התפילה),
אך עוד לא אבדה תקוותנו
"תהא מושתתת על יסודות החירות, הצדק והשלום לאור חזונם של נביאי ישראל.(מגילת העצמאות)
למען לא נחשה (מבוסס על ישעיהו ס"ב:א)
"יקרא לך עיר הצדק קריה נאמנה. ציון במשפט תפדה ושביה בצדקה". (ישעיהו א:כז)
ויהי נועם ה' אלוהינו עלינו
ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו
ומעשה ידינו כוננהו
(תהילים, מזמור צ: יז)

A Prayer For the Residents of El-Arakib
Shabbat VaYeshev 5671

How is it that El-Arakib sits alone and desolate, like a widow a seventh time? "The Daughter of Zion has lost her glory." For, while we had dreamed that our state would "Ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender," our prayers have not yet been fulfilled.

Our God and God or our ancestors (God of our fathers; God or our fathers and mothers), side with those who are oppressed, although they have done no wrong. Stand with our brothers and sisters, fellow citizens and partners in Israel's destiny, whose tents have been ravaged and all their tent cords broken. Strengthen them even as planners of evil prepare to replace their homes with forests, leaving only their cemetery testifying to the generations that once lived in that place. May it be your will that forests will arise in Israel speedily and in our day, but not upon the ruins of Bedouin communities.

"Shabbat is not a time for lamentation," and "Our hope is not yet lost" for a country that is based on "Freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel." Sustain our determination not to remain silent, so that we may help bring about the vision of Your prophet, "You shall be called 'City of Righteousness, Faithful City.' Zion shall be redeemed through justice, her repentant ones by righteousness."

"May the favor of Adonai, our God, be upon us;
Let the work of our hands prosper
O proper the work of our hands."

Citations:
מראה מקומות: How is it that El-Arakib sits alone and desolate, like a widow a seventh time? (Based on Lamentations 1:1, 'How is it that the city sits alone and desolate')

The Daughter of Zion has lost her glory (Lamentations 1:6)

Ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender (Israeli Declaration of Independence)

Side with those who are oppressed (Based on Midrash Tanhuma: Emor 9, ('God sides with the oppressed [the one being pursued]')

Whose tents have been ravaged and all their tent cords broken (Based on Jeremiah 10:20, 'Mytents zare ravaged, all my tent cords are broken')

Shabbat is not a time for lamentation (Prayerbook)

Freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel (Israeli Declaration of Independence)

Not to remain silent (Based on Isaiah 62:1, 'For the sake of Zion I will not be silent')

You shall be called 'City of Righteousness, Faithful City.' Zion shall be redeemed through justice, her repentant ones by righteousness (Isaiah 1:27)

May the favor of Adonai, our God, be upon us;
Let the work of our hands prosper
O prosper the work of our hands (Psalms 90:17)

Click here for background on the Negev Bedouin, the Unrecognized Villages, JNF and El-Arakib

Background: The Bedouin of the Negev, Unrecogonized Villages, the JNF, and Al-Arakib, by Rabbi Arik Ascherman

General Background:

In 1948, the Bedouin population in Israel’s Negev numbered approximately one hundred thousand persons. Following the War of Independence in 1948-1949, most of these individuals were expelled/fled to Gaza, Jordan, or the Sinai Peninsula, even though they took no part in hostilities against Israel. The Jahalin tribe were intimidated into leaving for the West Bank in the early 50's, well after the war. Throughout the Negev, only about 11,000 Bedouin remained.

Following international diplomatic pressure, relatively small numbers of expelled Bedouin were allowed to return to Israel. Before the war, Bedouin lived in all parts of the Negev (an area of approximately 13 million dunams, or 3.25 million acres) and earned their livelihood by raising sheep and goats throughout the region, as well as by agriculture, growing wheat and other grains, on an area of approximately 2 million dunams (about half a million acres).

At the beginning of the 1950’s, the State of Israel decided to evict from their lands most of the Bedouin then residing in the central and western Negev, both fertile and well-watered areas, and resettle them in the eastern Negev, a barren area with very little rainfall. Bedouin were either moved by force, or persuaded to "move temporarily" for the sake of military exercises, etc. However, even after being transferred from their lands and villages to the area of the eastern Negev, the Bedouin communities in their new locations were not recognized either.

Governmental officials did not allocate other lands to them as compensation, nor did they see to it that these persons were provided with basic services and employment as was done for millions of Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel during the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Today, this sad and disgraceful situation still remains the lot of half of the Bedouin residents of the Negev, who reside in 45 unrecognized villages. Because these villages do not exist as far as the state is concerned, they aree entirely lacking infrastructures for water, electricity, roads, education, and health care. An additional 95,000 Bedouin reside in seven towns that Israel set up for their settlement, but in which everyday living conditions are extremely difficult, with high rates of unemployment and inferior municipal services in comparison with the Jewish settlements in the Negev. These seven Bedouin towns are located statistically at the bottom of the socio-economic scale of all settlements in Israel.

Despite the Bedouin appeals to allow them to choose for themselves the type of settlements in which they will live — whether urban, rural, or community-based — the State of Israel insists on settling the Bedouin in newly established towns clearly inappropriate for the Bedouin way of life. Israelis are concerned about Bedouin taking over the Negev and feel that the land is needed for the Jewish population. However, the lands claimed by the Bedouin are only 3% of the entire Negev. When Bedouin attempt to return to their ancestral lands, they are portrayed as trespassers, squatting and taking over land that belongs to the State.

During the 1970’s, when given the opportunity to do so, 3,200 Bedouin landowners, filed claims of ownership for lands covering approximately 900,000 dunam in area (today the outstanding claims pertain to 650,000 dunams) out of a total of 13 million dunam over which the Negev extends. (There are four dunam to an acre) Today, after decades, most of the claims for ownership have still not been brought to court, most of the witnesses to the ownership of the lands have died, the lands have not been returned to their owners, and the injustice has been left uncorrected.

If this were not enough, recently the State of Israel has used the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to further the eviction of Bedouins in the Negev by planting trees on lands to which the latter claim ownership. As the battle over these lands intensifies Israel authorities have stepped up the demolition of homes, destruction of crops, preventing of grazing, etc. There is no possibility of building legally in an unrecognized village, because there is no building plan. All use of the land for agricultural purposes or grazing is deemed to be an illegal intrusion.

In recent years, the Bedouin have been trying to use the Israeli legal system to regain their lands. The Bedouin have brought evidence regarding continuous Bedouin occupation and cultivation of the lands around Beersheba. They have brought documentation of the fact that Bedouin lands were governed for generations by a well functioning traditional land ownership system, sanctioned by the Ottoman and British authorities. Unfortunately, the Bedouin did not register their land in the British land title books

Another reality is possible. Some one dozen villages have been recognized in recent years. These villages were previously in the exact same situation as El-Arakib, slated for evacuation. A committee set up by the government has called the situation of the unrecognized villages untenable and recommended recognizing many more, but the government does not wish to do so.

The Family Farms Law legalized the status of 60 Jewish (and one Arab) family ranches and farms set up without planning approval in the Negev. This is another precedent which could be used to grant a legal status to Bedouin communities.

El-Arakib:
El-Arakib is a community of some 300 men, women and children approximately 10 kilometers north of Beersheba. The cemetery with the graves of generations of the El-Turi tribe testifies to the fact that this community existed long before the establishment of the State of Israel. The tribe says that it has lived there since the 19th century, and they have Turkish and British documents showing that they worked, the land and paid taxes. There are also bills of sale and purchase between tribes. In 1907 and in 1929 the El-Turis purchased land from the El-Ukbi tribe totaling some 1,600 dunam.

At the beginning of the 1950’s, Israel evacuated by force the Bedouin living in el Arakib, north of Beer Sheba. The evacuees were told that their lands were needed for military exercises, and promised that within six months they would be allowed to return to their village. This promise that was not kept. Instead, by means of the Land Purchase Legislation of 1953, various government agencies used the forced absence of the Bedouin from the area to transfer ownership of their lands to the State.

Many of the members of the El-Turi tribe had been moved to the nearby town of Rahat. They maintained some grazing rights, and would return to El-Arakib to try and farm the land, or to be buried in the cemetery. However, the lands largely remained fallow for some 50 years.

The Israel Land Administration (ILA) transferred by lease the lands of el-Arakib to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for the purpose of forestation. Following approval authorized by the ILA, the JNF began land works of unprecedented proportions on the lands of el-Arakib resulting in massive changes in the region’s topography and the forestation of these lands. The JNF last week established a large new bulldozer camp just one kilometer from El-Arakib, and is now planting one million trees in Israel, including many near the village of Al-Arakib, as part of the “God-TV Forest.” JNF has accepted substantial donations from an evangelical Christian ministry called God-TV, who claim to have received “instructions from God…to prepare the land for the return of my Son…[to] plant a million trees.”

Approximately ten years ago, understanding that the plan was to erase their village by means of forestation, they returned and built homes, and began pressing their claims in court. Their case is currently in front of the Beersheba District Court, but these cases can take years to adjudicate. There have been constant attempts to demolish these homes, and every year agricultural crops are sprayed and killed.

The struggle has reached new heights since the summer of 2010. The ILA has demolished El-Arakib seven times between July and November. While they have not tried to rebuild their more permanent structures, they have time after time attempted to rebuild simple tents, shacks and other forms of shelter with makeshift materials. Each time massive numbers of police, helicopters and bulldozers come to demolish the families take refuge in the cemetery, the one area where they are left alone. From the cemetery and the temporary shelters that are built anew after every demolition, one can see the forests approaching from several directions, even as helicopters whip up dust in the nearby military training zone.

"We are not invaders, nor squatters," said Sheikh Sayyah. "It is the state that has invaded us."
See also this piece in the NY Times.

Israeli and American Jewish Groups Condemn Israeli Government and JNF for 7th Demolition of Negev Bedouin Village of Al-Arakib

Media Advisory: For Immediate Release

JNF-KKL establishes large bulldozer camp near Al-Arakib for massive “God-TV Forest”

Funded by JNF Donations from Evangelical Christians for the Second Coming of Christ

We call on all who care about Israel to join the 10,000 who have already signed petitions of protest to JNF Leaders and to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israel Government

November 23, 2010—A large Israeli police force, accompanied by bulldozers from the Israel Land Administration, demolished the Bedouin village of Al-Arakib yesterday, destroying the temporary homes constructed by the village residents since the previous demolition. With the help of volunteers, the residents have already begun the reconstruction of the village, and have vowed to keep rebuilding until the Israeli government recognizes their rights to their land.

We, a coalition of Israeli and American Jewish organizations, condemn the Israeli government’s continued demolition of Bedouin villages in the Negev and the expulsion of their residents. We condemn the Jewish National Fund for its complicity in displacing Bedouin citizens of Israel from their homes and land to make way for forests and new Jewish-only communities in their place. The Bedouin have no comparable opportunities to create new agricultural or livable communities. They are being forced to leave their homes, lands and way of life for overcrowded urban centers plagued by crime, unemployment and despair.

We call on the Israeli government, with the support of the JNF in Israel (KKL) and JNF-US, to negotiate a just and mutually agreeable solution to the plight of the 190,000 Negev Bedouin, Israel’s poorest and most disadvantaged minority – half of whom live in “unrecognized villages” without electricity, running water, sewage disposal, schools or health clinics, and with the constant fear of demolition and expulsion.

JNF’s New Bulldozer Camp Near Al-Arakib for Planting the “God-TV Forest” from Evangelical Christian donations: JNF-KKL last week established a large new bulldozer camp just one kilometer from the village of Al-Arakib, and is planting one million trees in Israel including many near the village of Al-Arakib as part of the “God-TV Forest.” JNF has accepted substantial donations from an evangelical Christian ministry called God-TV, who claim to have received “instructions from God…to prepare the land for the return of my Son…[to] plant a million trees.”

(See their video on http://www.god.tv/excavation at minute 21:00).

The JNF, instead of promoting civic equality for all Israelis – the basis for trust and peaceful coexistence - is now supporting (and being supported by) an evangelical ministry that wishes to utilize Israel and the planting of trees to bring about the “Second Coming of Christ.”

Photos of the God-TV forest signage and the new bulldozer camp are available at http://bit.ly/9CL8b6

We believe in an Israel where Jews live in partnership and equality with their Bedouin and other Arab and Palestinian neighbors. The Israel of the JNF, the Israel Land Administration and the Israeli Government is one where Bedouin Arabs are displaced and discriminated against so that forests funded by Jews and Evangelical Christians and exclusively Jewish communities can be built, preventing Bedouin Israelis from ever returning to their land, forcing them to live in poverty and neglect.

A Call for Open Discourse with the JNF: JNF has continued to side-step the concerns we have raised and has responded only with misdirection and misinformation. We again issue this call to JNF for open and honest public discourse on these issues.

We call on the Jewish National Fund to rededicate itself to the ideal enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence of equal development for all of Israel’s citizens, regardless of religion, nationality or gender, by:

1) Publicly stating to the Israeli government that it will stop funding or participating in the forestation or development of any area that is the site of an existing or demolished Bedouin village.

2) Stopping all activities on lands for which Bedouin have made legal claims of ownership until their cases have been fully adjudicated in Israeli courts or a mutually agreeable just settlement is reached.

3) Submitting JNF’s development plans for the Negev to independent scrutiny by environmental, human rights and social justice organizations to work toward truly sustainable development of the Negev for ALL its inhabitants, Jews and Arabs alike.

4) Funding projects for Israel’s Bedouin citizens and communities at levels that are proportional to the size of this population in the Negev—nearly 30%—recognizing the contribution of the Bedouin to the flourishing of the Negev.

5) Joining with human rights organizations in Israel to allow the Bedouin to live on their traditional lands, as they have for many generations.

These facts, among others, establish JNF’s complicity:

A. JNF-Israel (known as JNF-KKL), the body entrusted exclusively with forestation throughout Israel’s territory, plays a major role in deciding where forests are planted.
B. JNF-KKL continues to push through a massive forestation plan intended to double the area of the Destiny Hills forest project from 14,000 to 28,000 dunams. Several Bedouin communities in this area are slated to disappear along with 11,000 dunams of agricultural land.
C. JNF-USA, together with JNF-Israel, the Or Movement, Ayalim and the Government of Israel, are funding and implementing a plan for developing the Negev to bring 250,000 Jews there, creating Jewish-only communities and forests in place of Bedouin villages.
D. In 2009, the Or settlement movement was the third largest recipient of funds from JNF-US.

Until it takes a stand against the demolitions and expulsion of Bedouin citizens, and aligns its forestation and development practices with human rights and the universal values enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, JNF cannot begin to remove the moral stain of complicity in such acts.

Endorsed by:

From Israel:

■ Al-Arakib Village Committee ■ Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality ■ Rabbis for Human Rights ■ Shatil – Leading Social Change, An Initiative of the New Israel Fund ■ Physicians for Human Rights – Israel ■ Hit’habrut-Tarabut – Arab-Jewish Movement for Social and Political Change ■ Al-Arakib People’s Committee ■ Sikkuy – The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel ■ Association for Civil Rights in Israel ■ Recognition Forum ■ New Profile – Movement for the Civil-ization of Israel Society ■ Coalition of Women for Peace

From the US:

■ Jewish Alliance for Change ■ Rabbis for Human Rights-North America ■ Meretz USA ■ Jewish Voice for Peace ■ The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring ■ Tikkun Community ■ Network of Spiritual Progressives ■ The Shalom Center

Check above for updates to the list of organizations endorsing this statement.

Bedouin Village of al-Arakib razed for 7th Time

Israel Land Administration representatives and the security forces demolished the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib in the Negev for the seventh time.
The village's houses, which were constructed illegally, have been destroyed by the authorities six times in the past few months. (Ilana Curiel)

11.22.10, YNET http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3987944,00.html

Are Israel's Harsh Policies Toward the Bedouin Justified? Response to a Critic, by Gidon D. Remba

A critic and friend wrote to us the following: "A prominent oncologist attended a cancer conference in the Negev on Bedouin health care and made the point that by being nomads, living in tents, etc. the Bedouin short-change both their medical care and their children's education. The oncologist, who happens to be a peacenik, says that both Palestinian and Israeli doctors have seen the most horrendous, advanced breast cancers among Bedouin women who don't go for treatment until their cancers literally burst from their skin.

"Israeli methods with the Negev Bedouin may be harsh, but their motivation is to bring Bedouin into the 21st century so they can live healthier lives and their children can excel beyond their parents. This requires that they live in places where there are schools and clinics."

It’s a mistake to cast the Bedouin issue as if it’s a dispute between those who favor bringing the Bedouin into the 21st century – modernization – and those who want to preserve the Bedouin lifestyle in their existing villages, with all the good and the bad, including the abysmal health conditions. All of us who defend the land, housing and healthcare rights of the Bedouin – including Amos Oz, AB Yeshoshua, David Grossman, Naomi Chazan, Shulamit Aloni, and many Israeli peace activists, American Jewish progressives, and every human rights organization in Israel and the US – aren’t arguing in favor of preserving the conditions that make for the horrific health practices you alluded to. None of us are arguing against modernization or against bringing the Bedouin into the 21st century.

You wrote that to bring the Bedouin into the 21st century, “this requires that they live in places where there are schools and clinics.” But none of us are advocating that they should not live where there are schools and health clinics. This is arguing against a straw man, rather than against the actual views of those who are working for Bedouin human rights. In a nutshell, we’re arguing instead that schools and health clinics should be built in the unrecognized villages – that’s what would happen if the government recognized and developed them, making them legal. (In fact that’s what will ultimately happen in the cases where the government is recognizing a few of the unrecognized villages.)

The Olmert government appointed a blue-ribbon commission – the Goldberg Committee – to develop a solution to the state’s dispute with the Bedouin, and the Committee recommended that most of the unrecognized villages should be recognized – which means to legalize them as recognized villages and towns. That in turn means that the government would develop them and provide health clinics, schools, running water, sewage disposal, and other basic services that the state provides to all other communities in Israel. So we are all in favor of modernization and ending the scourge of breast cancer and other diseases among the Bedouin that you describe. That isn’t what divides us from those who justify the government’s brutality against the Bedouin, and presenting the issue this way, miscasts the debate, and gets its fundamentals wrong.

Given that we all agree that Bedouin life should be brought into the 21st century, the real question is how? And what we, who are defending the human rights of the Bedouin, are saying to the Israeli government is essentially what Ahad Ha’am said of the early Zionist settlers’ treatment of Palestinian Arabs a century ago: this is not the way.

You wrote that a “prominent oncologist who attended a cancer conference in the Negev on Bedouin health care made the point that by being nomads, living in tents, etc. the Bedouin short-change both their medical care and their children's education.” But this oncologist is poorly informed about the basic facts of Bedouin life: in fact, the Negev Bedouin are not nomads, and most do not live in tents. They have lived in settled villages for more than a century. Many homes in the unrecognized villages are built from wood frames and corrugated metal because they are in danger of repeated demolition, and because of the cost of more durable housing.

Second, the oncologist has misdiagnosed the causes of the lack of healthcare and education in the unrecognized villages, which is mainly the result of the lack of livable conditions and jobs in the recognized towns, and the fact that the government has refused (in violation of the Bedouin’s human rights) to provide healthcare and schools to the Bedouin who refuse to surrender their land in the unrecognized villages in exchange for paltry compensation with no employment prospects and a squalid life in the urban towns.

Moreover, the unrecognized village of "Wadi el-Naam suffers from a very high incidence of cancer, asthma, severe birth defects, miscarriages, and skin diseases because" the Israeli government allowed toxic chemical plants to be built near the Bedouin village. "For, example, there is a 45% higher cancer rate here than in Israel as a whole," writes Natalie Becker. One can’t treat the problem if one doesn’t properly understand its causes.

You suggest that the government’s harsh and brutal policy may be justified because it is supposedly serving just ends. But there are a number of real problems with this. Setting aside for the moment the aims of Israeli government policy, is the brutality of forcing Bedouin off their lands by expelling them from their homes and demolishing their villages ultimately (whether intentionally or unintentionally) serving their well-being, their and their children’s health, and promoting their human rights by bringing them into the 21st century? Decidedly not. The 7 urban towns into which the Israeli government has been trying to force the Bedouin are the most neglected and impoverished of all the communities in Israel. To cite one of many examples, the infant mortality rate in Rahat – one of the seven urban Bedouin towns built by the government – was double that of Beersheva (in 2000) – 11.6 per thousand babies born vs. 5.4.

Nor is there room in them for the other 90,000 Bedouin from the unrecognized villages, and even if there were, there are no jobs, the government hasn’t established industrial zones for them, or provided them with alternate forms of livelihood once they force them to give up their land and the farming which supports the Negev Bedouin community. All serious students of the subject agree – including Israeli and American social scientists – that the government’s forced urbanization policy has been an abysmal failure, and remains so.

Far from this being a case of brutality in the service of the good, what we have is a brutal policy that is causing more harm and more suffering. One study by a Ben-Gurion University scholar sums it up this way: “Neglect of the [urban] Bedouin towns has made them Third World enclaves in the surrounding affluent society.” Compare Rahat – the largest Bedouin urban town – to the nearby Beersheva suburb of Omer, and on every measure the Bedouin urban towns suffer from severe discrimination and grossly inadequate services.

Let’s first see the government treat the Bedouin decently in the urban towns before we even consider justifying any kind of forced urbanization – and we are still very far from that – and even then, I think the case for forced urbanization, is extremely problematic. One could instead make a case for the government simply providing appealing opportunities and strong incentives for Bedouin to choose an urban lifestyle. That is what liberal democracies and civilized societies do. It’s very far from what Israel does.

Equally important, the Goldberg Committee concluded that in those cases where it doesn’t make sense to legalize an existing unrecognized village, and where it would be best to relocate the Bedouin in that village, then it should make a fair offer of compensation to them in exchange for their land. But again, that isn’t what the government has been doing. It forces the Bedouin out of their homes and villages, offering no decent livable alternative to them, and fails to provide them with the option of fair compensation for their land when it wants to expropriate it and declare it state land for its own (Jewish-supremacy driven) development purposes.

There would be no need for the brutality of expulsions and demolition if the government were recognizing and modernizing the unrecognized villages – providing healthcare, schools, running water, sewage disposal, electricity, paved roads and public transportation to the now unrecognized towns, or to most of them. So you have to ask yourself: why does the government prefer to expel Bedouin from their land and force them into over-crowded, blighted urban towns? And the answer is: because they covet the land, not because they care about the well-being or modernization of the Bedouin.

If the government were offering a just solution to the Bedouin, one that would be agreed upon by the state and the Bedouin community, the brutality would not be necessary to get the Bedouin to accept it. The government’s brutality is a product of the absence of justice. You must force people to live with injustice, not with justice.

Then there’s this problem: even if the government were offering a just solution which really was good for the Bedouin – improving their health and well-being, bringing them into the 21st century, but did so by requiring them to give up all their land claims and move into urban towns with no land and no ability to continue to engage in agriculture, and if there were Bedouin who still preferred their traditional lifestyle in the villages on their ancestral land, there would still be a serious question about whether brutal expulsions and demolitions would be morally justified.

Cigarette smoking causes nearly half a million cancer deaths in the US each year (5.4 million annually worldwide – 1 billion deaths worldwide are projected from tobacco use in the 21st century), and the US government takes various steps to discourage cigarette smoking, including banning advertising. But nonetheless 47 million Americans still smoke, and millions die as a result. Given the grave damage to the health and well-being of these legions of people, and the burden cigarette smoking imposes on our society and economy, you would think that it would be morally justified to violate people’s rights to enforce a complete ban on smoking: arresting and punishing them for breaking a ban on smoking, enabling the police to get warrants to enter people’s homes to look for illegal cigarettes, closing down cigarette factories, and so on. But we don’t do that, and no non-totalitarian country does.

So even if it were uncontroversial that the goal is clearly good – people’s health and well-being, saving millions of lives – we don’t and we shouldn’t deprive people of their basic rights, including their right to privacy, to ensure that they make the decisions that will be best for their health and spare them and our society from the enormous evil of millions of cancer deaths. And we certainly shouldn't deprive people - citizens - of their right to healthcare and schools wherever they live now, on the grounds that we want to bring them into the 21st century to enable them and their children to be healthier and better educated! Yet that's what the Israeli government does to 90,000 Bedouin citizens in the unrecognized villages of the Negev.

We all believe that the government should pursue good ends, but it can’t use any means necessary – including brutality and the violation of human rights – in order to bring about the good, assuming that it really is aiming at or at least doing that which serves the good. But in the case of the Israeli government, it’s hard to see that the government is either aiming at, or even unintentionally serving, the good with expulsions, demolitions, forced urbanization, and a policy of systematic discrimination and neglect towards the Bedouin – both those in the urban towns and in the unrecognized villages.

Finally, I have serious doubts that the Israeli government’s intent is to serve the well-being of the Bedouin through these policies. The overriding motive, in my view, for the government’s approach is to gain control over nearly all of the land in the Negev for Jewish use, to preserve a Jewish majority in the Negev by developing it with new Jewish communities, forests and more, to deprive the Bedouin of their land so as to eliminate what ultra-nationalist Zionists see as the “threat” of a territorial secession in Bedouin areas near the West Bank if the Bedouin were to demand cultural autonomy or wanted to become part of a neighboring Palestinian state. This is an unrealistic fear; but irrationality has never been an obstacle to the Israeli government’s policies towards Israel’s Palestinian and Arab minorities, or towards the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It’s certainly never gotten in the way of the government’s blind and self-defeating approach to the Negev Bedouin.

Gidon D. Remba is Executive Director and President of the Jewish Alliance for Change, co-sponsor with Rabbis for Human Rights-North America of the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel.