Israel sues 34 Bedouin for costs of repeated demolitions of their homes (Ha'aretz)

Unprecedented law suit seeks NIS 1.8 million in damages from Negev Bedouin; Israel Lands Administration says defendants built homes on land belonging to the state. By Jack Khoury

The state filed an unprecedented suit against 34 Negev Bedouin in Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, seeking NIS 1.8 million in damages for the expense repeatedly incurred in evicting the defendants from state land and demolishing their homes.

The state, through the Israel Lands Administration, told the court that the defendants had built homes in the Al-Arakib area, northeast of Be'er Sheva, on what had been state land since the time of Ottoman rule.

"The squatters against whom the suit was brought, of the Abu Madigham and the Abu Jaber families, already have houses built on land the state gave them in the area of Rahat," the court was told by the ILA, representing the state. The ILA said the defendants keep returning to the disputed land, despite court orders prohibiting them from doing so.

The agency's representative told the court the fact that the Bedouin have homes in Rahat, some distance from Al-Arakib, shows they have no lack of housing, and that they are using public relations activities to accuse the state of repression, while they are the ones in breach of the law.

The ILA said that it had leased the lands in question until 1998 for seasonal agricultural activities for Bedouin in the area. But, in 1998, members of the defendants' families ousted the leasees and began squatting on the land.

In 1999, the state took action to evict the squatters, according to the prosecution.

In March 2000, the parties consented to a judgment in which a permanent injunction was issued barring the squatters from the land except to visit a cemetery and a small mosque, the only structures on the land at that time.

A source in the ILA said that suing for damages "can be an efficient way to deal with squatters and illegal construction."

Sheikh Siyah Abu Madigham al-Turi, the leader of the village of Al-Arakib, said neither he nor any of his family was told about the lawsuit, and that he first heard about it from the media.

"We also submit a lot of complaints but no one listens to us, about all the buildings of ours that they destroyed - and the state does not care. The first demolition cost us NIS 4 million. The trees that were uprooted in the village cost us NIS 500,000. They destroyed the village 27 times; that cost us NIS 150,000 each time.

The sheikh said the land belonged to them - and that the matter is still under consideration by the courts.

Dr. Awad Abu-Frih, a resident of Al-Arakib and an activist in the campaign against its demolition, told Haaretz the residents expect compensation from the state, not the other way around. "The state is afraid of a precedent over Al-Arakib, and so they talk to us in a language reserved for enemies who must be defeated, so the hold over the land won't be an inspiration to other Bedouin in the Negev."

Abu-Frih said hundreds of Bedouin, who are joined by Jewish and foreign volunteers, come to rebuild the village every time it is demolished.

The residents and activists are to hold a march Wednesday night from the Lehavim junction north of Be'er Sheva to Al-Arakib.

Dr. Thabet Abu Ras of the human rights group Adalah also said the matter is still before the courts. "The state recognizes ownership rights over the lands of Al-Arakib and is constantly offering them [the Bedouin residents] meager compensation for the land. What's more, a law requiring the builder of a house to pay for its demolition was not passed by the Knesset."

The state has demanded compensation for the demolition of illegally built houses in the past in the Galilee and the Arab communities of central Israel; those cases are still before the courts. However, most of those claims are against homes built on private land, not state land, for sums between NIS 300,000 and NIS 400,000. This is the first time such a large suit for damages has been brought against such a large number of defendants.

Published in Ha'aretz, July 27, 2011

Netanyahu gov't plans to build new Jewish settlement on the land of two Negev Bedouin villages, after forcibly expelling 1,000 Bedouin residents

Click here to view the map of the Negev showing the location of the two Bedouin villages the Netanyahu government plans to demolish for a new Jewish settlement, and to view their proximity to JNF's Wadi Attir Project.

Excerpts translated from Ha'aretz, June 3, 2011:

"The government is expected to approve in the coming weeks the [Praver] ‘Implementation Plan for the Goldberg Report’ and the evacuation of 30,000 Negev Bedouin to new neighborhoods in recognized settlements. From documents uncovered by the Adallah Legal Center which have reached Ha’aretz it is clear that in one of the areas of the Bedouin villages slated for evacuation, the government is planning a new Jewish settlement. This is despite the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office has claimed that the Bedouin who will be evacuated are living in settlements that are not appropriate for infrastructure and public buildings, or that this land is not included in the Development Plan for Metropolitan Beer Sheva.

“The Bedouin villages of Atir and Um Al-Hiran, on whose land the government plans to establish a Jewish settlement, are located in the area of Wadi Atir, near Road 316, east of Hura. The 1,000 residents of the village…are from the Bedouin tribe that has lived in a nearby agricultural area northwest of Beer Sheva since before 1948…In 1956, they were evacuated by the Israel Defense Forces so that the area could be used for military training, and were moved to the area in which they live now in Wadi Atir.

“In recent years, the government began planning the new Jewish settlement, to be called Hiran, which will have 2,400 residential units by 2030, and a population of 10,000. Based on these development plans, the government initiated demolition orders for the Bedouin homes in the two villages and the eviction of the Bedouin residents.

“Despite the fact that a professional Construction and Planning Committee of the local municipal authority in the area recommended that the two Bedouin villages be recognized, Ha’aretz reported in November 2010 that the Prime Minister’s Office intervened to prevent recognition for Atir and Um Al-Hiran.

“The Bedouin residents are currently engaged in a legal struggle against the evacuation and demolition orders…in the Beer Sheva District Court, the Kiryat Gat District Court and the Supreme Court…According to the new development plan for Hiran, the new Jewish residential units will be built in the area where Bedouin homes are currently situated in Um Al-Hiran…”

The article goes on to say that unlike many other Bedouin homes in unrecognized villages, the homes in Um Al-Hiran and Atir are built from stone (suggesting that the residents expected the village would be recognized and that their homes would be permanent and not subject to demolition; hence the use of more costly building material.)

It quotes Salim Abu Al-Kayan, a Bedouin resident of Um Al-Hiran, who describes the strong opposition of the residents to being forced out of their homes and lands again after having been compelled to move there by the IDF in 1956: “They are planning to build a Jewish settlement called Hiran here. There is no reason why we [the village of Um Al-Hiran] shouldn’t be annexed to the new Jewish settlement and allowed to remain on our land.” Salim’s brother, Najah, agreed: “We’re happy to become a neighborhood in the new Jewish settlement, or to be considered a neighborhood of Hura.”

Said Salim, “I have children serving in the IDF. What am I supposed to tell them when their country destroys the home in which they live?”

Translation of excerpts from an article which appeared only in the Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz, June 3, 2011, titled “Netanyahu government plans to build a Jewish settlement on the land of a Bedouin village that will be ‘evacuated.’” English translation by Gidon D. Remba, Co-Director, Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel.

Call JNF: Tell the Israeli gov't to cancel plans to expel 1,000 Bedouin and demolish 2 villages near JNF's Wadi Attir Project for a Jewish settlement

Click here for sample call script and JNF phone numbers

See also Umm al-Hieran: Objection to Planned Jewish Town that would Entail Demolishing Bedouin Village: Press Release, Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights, Jan. 16, 2011, English, below.

Adalah, Bimkom and Residents of the Unrecognized Village of Umm al-Hieran in the Negev/Naqab Submit Objection to Plan to Build Jewish Town of “Hiran” after Demolishing Arab Bedouin Residents’ Homes and Evacuating them from their Village:

The plan is another component of the discrimination against the Bedouin in the Negev/Naqab

On 12 January 2011, Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel who are residents of Umm al-Hieran, the southern area of the unrecognized village of Atir-Umm al-Hieran, in cooperation with Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights and Adalah submitted an objection to the National Council for Planning and Building (NCPB) against the building of a new exclusively Jewish town to be called “Hiran” on the land on which Atir-Umm al-Hieran is located (the Nahal Yatir area).

The master plan (Plan 15/02/107) aims to build the Jewish town of ‘Hiran’ after demolishing the homes of the 500 Arab residents of Umm al-Hieran and evacuating them from the area that falls within the plan's boundaries. According to the Hiran master plan, most of the Arab Bedouin residents’ homes are located in the zone designated for residential buildings, while others are situated on land designated for public use, including a proposed forest.

The objection argues that the plan would entail the demolition of Arab Bedouin homes and the forced eviction of the residents who have lived in the area for more than 55 years, resulting in gross violations of the constitutional rights of the residents to property, dignity and equality. In addition, the planners and planning authorities did not examine alternatives that would have avoided the violation of these rights, such as recognizing Umm al-Hieran and providing a planning solution that would regularize its status.

Cesar Yeudkin, an urban planner with BIMKOM, stated that: “The plan completely ignores the situation on the ground and the rights of the Bedouin residents. It is evidence of the government’s policy to concentrate the Bedouin into a few recognized towns. Furthermore, this plan represents another instance of discrimination against the Bedouin community in the Naqab in the division of land and resources .”

The objection recalls that after a seven year-long planning process, the NCPB decided, on 20 July 2010, to recognize the northern area of the village of Atir-Umm al-Hieran, where the residents of Atir live; and accepted the proposal that the residents of Umm al-Hieran would move to Atir, according to a specific time-line and process. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's office intervened in the decision and requested that the NCPB reconsider its decision. The NCPB committee members complied with the request and withdrew the recognition. It did so without hearing the position of the residents and in contravention of the rules of good governance.

Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara argued: “All the facts included in the objection lead us clearly to conclude that the plan was designed to give preference to the interests of the Jewish residents over and above the interests of the Arab Bedouin who have lived in this village for more than 55 years. This is a blatant violation of the people’s right to equality. The practical consequences of evacuating a certain group of residents in favor of another, based on nationality and/or religion, are very harsh. This constitutes a policy of segregation which is reminiscent of dark regimes from the past.”

For further details: Shani Sokol, Spokesperson for Bimkom, 052-429334
Attorney Suhad Bishara, Adalah, 052-2490669

Call JNF: Tell the Israeli gov't to cancel plans to expel 1,000 Bedouin and demolish 2 villages near JNF's Wadi Attir Project for a Jewish settlement

Click here for sample call script and JNF phone numbers

How does the Israeli government use the law to confiscate land from Bedouin in Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank?

An Ottoman law dating from 1858 allows uncultivated land to be declared by the Israeli government as state land. Israeli Supreme Court rulings in 1961 (Badaran) and 1984 (Al-Hawashli) defined "uncultivated land" so narrowly that areas not within 1.5 miles of an inhabited settlement that existed before 1858 can be declared by the Israeli government as state land.

These rulings, together with other discriminatory laws passed by the Knesset, enabled the Israeli government to render all Negev Bedouin villages "illegal" and turned the Bedouin into "trespassers on state land," subject to forcible expulsion and their homes and villages to demolition.

The rulings have also enabled the Israeli government to "legally" confiscate land from Palestinian villages in the West Bank, making it available for "lawful" development (under Israeli law) for Jewish settlements - despite the fact that such settlements are universally regarded as violating international law.

Map of the Unrecognized Negev Bedouin Villages and JNF/Israeli Government Forestation Plans

Click on the map to enlarge image

The two unrecognized Bedouin villages of Atir and Um Al-Hiran (spelled here "Um El Chiran"), slated for demolition by the Netanyahu government with the expulsion of 1,000 Bedouin to make way for a new Jewish settlement called Hiran, are located in the upper right within the blue-colored line, marked by red dots.

JNF's Wadi Attir project is located near Chura (also spelled Hura), just to the West (left) of the Bedouin villages of Atir and Um El Chiran.

Map provided courtesy of Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights, and the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality

Call JNF: Tell the Israeli gov't to cancel plans to expel 1,000 Bedouin and demolish 2 villages near JNF's Wadi Attir Project for a Jewish settlement

Scroll down to find the Jewish National Fund office near you and the national headquarters, and call to give JNF the message:

• Tell Israeli government leaders to stop demolishing Bedouin villages and displacing Bedouin Israeli citizens to make way for Jewish settlements and forests.

• Stop developing and foresting Negev land where the Israeli government has expelled Bedouin and demolished their villages.

Sample call script: "My name is ______ , [I'm an American Jew] and I care deeply about Israel and its increasingly eroding democracy. I’m calling today to urge you to tell Israeli government leaders that JNF is opposed to the Netanyahu government’s plan to forcibly expel 1,000 Bedouin men, women and children from their homes and demolish the Negev Bedouin villages of Atir and Um Al-Hiran, so that a new Jewish settlement called Hiran can be built on their land.

"Tell Israeli government leaders that these terrible acts are slated to take place near JNF’s Wadi Attir Project, and that JNF will not stand idly by as the Netanyahu government prepares to blatantly discriminate against Israel's Bedouin Arab citizens. These actions further undermine democracy in Israel and violate Israel’s commitment to equal rights for all citizens, Jewish and Arab alike, as enshrined in its Declaration of Independence and in human rights treaties which Israel has signed.

Please pass on my message to JNF CEO Russell Robinson and Chairman Ronald Lauder."

Let us know how it went! After your call, email us at editor@jews4change.com and let us know how your call went. Your feedback will be most valuable in planning the next steps in our campaign to persuade the JNF and the Israeli government to do the right thing. Please copy and paste the following into your email and provide us with your responses:

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Zip/Postal Code:

Date of Call:

Which offices did you call?

Tell us about how your call went.

What was the response?

JNF-US and JNF-Israel Phone numbers:

National Office (NY) 212-879-9300 (For international callers to the US, please add 001 before the number)

Jerusalem Office: 972-2-563-5638

Regional Offices:
Florida West Coast, Central, and Northern Florida: (727) 536-5263 or (813) 960-5263 Tampa: (407) 804-5568 South Florida (561) 447-9733 Miami/Dade (800) 211-1502 or (561) 447-9733

Greater New York (212) 879-9300
Greater Los Angeles (323)964-1400
MidAtlantic Baltimore/ Delaware: (410) 486-3317 Washington, DC (301) 589-8565
Midwest Chicagoland (847) 656-8880 Michigan (248)324-3080

Midwest States (Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) (888) 563-0099 Northern Ohio (216) 464-3888 Southern Ohio (513) 794-1300 or (888) 563-0099 Western Pennsylvania (412) 521-3200 Wisconsin (414) 963-8733
Northeast New England (617) 423-0999 Eastern Pennsylvania (215) 832-0690 New Jersey (973) 593-0095

West Arizona (602) 277-4800 Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming & Utah (303) 573-7095 Northern California and Pacific Northwest (415) 677-9600 or (888) JNF-0099 Orange County, CA (949)-260-0400 San Diego (858) 824-9178 Palm Springs (760)864-6208 Las Vegas (702) 434-6505
South (404) 236-8990

For background on this issue see:

Netanyahu gov't plans to build new Jewish settlement on the land of two Negev Bedouin villages, after forcibly expelling 1,000 Bedouin residents

Go here to view a map of the Bedouin villages to be demolished and their proximity to JNF's Wadi Attir Project.

Israel expropriates Palestinian land in order to legalize West Bank settlement: Ha'aretz

Move is Netanyahu government's first confiscation of land in the territories.

By Chaim Levinson

For the first time in three years, the state has confiscated uncultivated land in the West Bank. The land will be used to legalize a nearby settlement outpost.

Last week, acting on orders from the government, the Civil Administration declared 189 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian village of Karyut to be state land, so as to retroactively legalize houses and a road in the Hayovel neighborhood of the settlement of Eli. This would seem to violate Israel's long-standing commitment to the United States not to expropriate Palestinian lands for settlement expansion.

An Ottoman land law dating from 1858 allows uncultivated land to be declared state land. This law, which is still in force in the West Bank, is what was used to carry out the expropriation.

According to last Sunday's decree, the lands in question belong to the village of Karyut. Hayovel was built on these lands in 1998 as a temporary outpost, and later permanent houses and an access road were built. A 2005 report on the outposts by attorney Talia Sasson concluded that Hayovel was built on private Palestinian land.

After the Peace Now and Yesh Din organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice against the construction in 2005 and 2009, the Civil Administration reviewed the land's legal status. Since Jordan, which ruled the West Bank from 1948-67, had never registered them in its land registry, the Civil Administration reclassified them as under review. This meant that any place that was still cultivated in the late 1990s would remain private land, but the rest could be declared state land.

In 2004, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised U.S. President George W. Bush to stop this practice, and this promise was later reiterated by his successor, Ehud Olmert. In his speech at Bar-Ilan University in 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We have no intention to build new settlements or set aside land for new settlements. But there is a need to have people live normal lives and let mothers and fathers raise their children like everyone in the world."

This is the current government's first such expropriation of lands. The last lands to be similarly expropriated were 20 dunams near Betar Ilit that were declared state land in November 2008 to allow the construction of a gas station.

The declaration is another move toward retroactively legalizing Hayovel. The Palestinians now have 45 days to appeal to the military appeals committee. But the road to full legalization is still long, as the entire settlement of Eli lacks an approved master plan.

Peace Now chairman Yariv Oppenheimer said Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were going to great lengths to legalize isolated outposts deep in the territories, even if this involves land expropriations, but "as far as evictions are concerned, the state is dragging its feet." He said this will encourage settlers to keep building illegally.

Eli's mayor, Kobi Eliraz, said he is glad the state is making progress toward formalizing the status of the Hayovel neighborhood.

Published in Ha’aretz, July 8, 2011

For background on the state-funded building of the illegal settlement outpost of Hayovel near the West Bank settlement Eli, on privately-owned Palestinian land, see "New Support for West Bank Outpost," BBC, March 26, 2009

“Cabinet ministers will vote on the evacuation of 30,000 Bedouin from their homes" - translation from the Hebrew, with commentary

“Cabinet ministers will vote on the evacuation of 30,000 Bedouin from their homes,” Ha’aretz, June 2, 2011, Hebrew edition

“The Prime Minister’s Office has prepared a new report for resolution of Bedouin settlement in the Negev. 40% of the 71,000 residents of the “unrecognized” Bedouin villages will be relocated from their homes, at a cost of 6 – 8 billion shekels.” http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1230017.html

“The new plan is the Praver Report for Implementing the Goldberg Commission Recommendations for Resolution of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, and will be presented for approval by the government in the coming weeks. The cost will come to 6 – 8 billion shekels, of which 1.2 billion will be allocated for economic development plans for the recognized Bedouin villages.

"Under the plan, residents who live or work land on which they claim ownership will receive replacement land equal to half the area they claim; residents who claim land of which they are not in actual possession will receive monetary compensation at double its value.” [However, Clinton Bailey, one of the leading experts on the Negev Bedouin, has pointed out in a Ha’aretz op-ed that the net value of the monetary compensation amounts to one-sixth to one-eighth of the market value per dunam of land in this area of the Negev.[1]]

“The report attributes great importance to law enforcement mechanisms, both in terms of significant augmentation of the police force and the legal system,” possibly including new courts. Many Bedouin leaders and heads of the Jewish municipalities in the area are unhappy with the plan and are planning to take legal action against it once it is approved.

“Dr. Awad Abu Freich, one of the most prominent Bedouin activists in the Negev, described the plan as a disaster that would lead to harsh conflict with the Bedouin residents of the Negev.”

The Netanyahu government’s new plan contradicts the findings of the Goldberg Commission: “The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages, together with Israeli human rights organizations, have stressed in an Open Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Cabinet ministers, that the new plan stands in complete contradiction to the Goldberg Commission’s recommendations, thwarting entirely the Praver Committee’s purpose, which was to develop a plan to implement Goldberg’s recommendations.”

“They point out that the Praver Report runs contrary to the main principle of the Goldberg Commission’s recommendations, which was to ‘recognize [and develop] the unrecognized villages wherever possible.’ The Praver Plan also goes entirely against the norms of modern planning policy, by requiring the forced relocation of 20,000 – 30,000 citizens from their homes without valid reason and completely against their wishes.”

All of the following material is also omitted from the English version of the Ha’aretz article:

2. The government’s plan suffers from a democratic deficit: Razi Abu-Kaf, director-general of the Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev, stated that “during the entire period during which the ‘Praver Implementation Committee’ in the Prime Minister’s Office worked on its plan, we asked them to enable us, along with other representatives from the Negev Bedouin community, to participate in the plan’s development. To our regret, we were ignored. The plan perpetuates the government’s unilateral, force-based approach of steam-rolling over the Bedouin, which has caused great suffering and failed to bring about a real solution.”

Bedouin Israeli Attorney Rauya Abu Ravia added that “the Goldberg Commission found that the government has committed an ongoing injustice to the Bedouin that must be remedied….The Praver Plan cannot be implemented; it is cruel and perpetuates discrimination against the Bedouin” as a non-Jewish minority in Israel.

She continued: “There are today 112 Jewish communities in the Negev, with an average population of 350 per community. By contrast, the average population in 35 of the Bedouin unrecognized villages is 1,700. I ask the government to apply the same standards to the Bedouin that it uses for the Jewish population in the Negev.”

“This means recognizing and developing the unrecognized villages [as the government did with many originally unauthorized Jewish settlements and single-family farms in the Negev,] providing them with basic infrastructure and public buildings as the government does for Jewish communities in the Negev. The government’s failure to do so has caused environmental neglect and great harm to open areas in the Negev, polluting both water and land. The government’s proposed 1.2 billion shekel 5-year development plan, expected to be approved along with the Praver Plan, deals only with the recognized Bedouin villages.”

[Comment: No one objects to the government’s interest in providing economic development for the Bedouin. But the government can develop the unrecognized Bedouin villages, as the Goldberg Commission recommended, rather than uprooting tens of thousands of citizens against their will and attempting to concentrate them in urban townships in a limited space.

By contrast with Bedouin Israelis, Israeli Jews who live in the Negev can choose the type of community they wish to live in, including single-family farms, moshavim or towns; they can choose between agricultural, urban or village communities. The state established the seven Bedouin urban towns without consulting the Bedouin, without asking them how they wished to live, or how they perceive their needs. The government then pressured some 60% of the Negev Bedouin to relocate to these townships and to surrender their agricultural land, by denying recognition and essential services to their existing settlements, demolishing homes and consistently rejecting their claims to land ownership.]

“Dr. Sandy Kedar, a professor of law at the University of Haifa who specializes in land administration in Israel, said that it’s clear that the Praver Committee has committed a serious error by failing to include the Bedouin in the planning process. ‘I believe that the fact that Bedouin are being treated by the government as if they are not a party to the discussion, and that the entire process is being [imposed] on them without their participation, greatly harms its chances for success.’

“Kedar’s proposal for resolving the conflict between the Bedouin and the state is, among other things, to provide the Bedouin with fair compensation comparable to the market value compensation that the [Jewish settler] evacuees from Gush Katif [in Gaza] received. They should also be provided with agricultural land on which to live, like all other Israelis who wish to live in the Negev. It’s unreasonable that every Tel Avivi who decides that his great life’s wish is to raise goats in the Negev, receives land for this purpose without any problem, whereas the government ‘proposes’ to the Bedouin, whose connection to the land is part of their identity, to move to urban townships.”

A substantially abridged and re-written version of this article also appeared in the English online edition of Ha’aretz under the headline “Netanyahu's office promoting plan to relocate 30,000 Bedouin,” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-s-office-promoting-plan-to-relocate-30-000-bedouin-1.365409), which attempts to present the plan so as to make it appear justified, inserting a pro-government slant into its reportage. The more complete Hebrew article, which is twice as long as the English version, is considerably more critical of the plan. We have provided an English translation of key passages from the Hebrew article.

Ha’aretz English edition rectified the omission of the many criticisms of the plan in the original Hebrew article by publishing a separate piece in a different section of the paper (The Marker): Bottom shekel / Civil rights groups: Prawer plan for Bedouin won't work; The Association for Civil Rights in Israel argues that the conditions the Prawer Report sets for recognizing Bedouin villages are prejudicial, June 2, 2011, English.

Text is above is a translation by the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice of the Hebrew article: “Cabinet ministers will vote on the evacuation of 30,000 Bedouin from their homes,” Ha’aretz, June 2, 2011, Hebrew edition

---

[1]Clinton Bailey, “Time to Settle Bedouin Claims,” Ha’aretz, April 8, 2011, English. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/time-to-settle-bedouin-claims-1.354755

Israel and the Polarization of American Jews, by Gidon D. Remba, Jerusalem Report

In “Israel and the Polarization of American Jews,” (The Jerusalem Report, June 20, 2011), I suggest that the controversy over Tony Kushner’s views on Israel highlight the ways in which the gap between liberal and conservative Jews regarding Israel is becoming an unbridgeable chasm. At the same time, I question the value of defining who is “inside the Jewish communal tent” and who is “outside,” as leaders in the organized Jewish community have suggested, on the basis of whether a person or organization “recognizes Israel as a democratic Jewish state.”

Today, many human rights activists and groups which are not avowedly Zionist work closely with pro-Israel groups like ours that are fighting for justice and equality in Israel. Our Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice (a project of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America and the Jewish Alliance for Change), for example, has brought together American Jewish and Israeli Arab groups across the ideological spectrum, including some in Israel and the U.S. who would be defined as “outside the tent” by the conventional definition. Acting in concert has enabled us all to be more effective in our efforts to stop the demolition of homes in unrecognized Negev Bedouin villages and the violent expulsion of Bedouin Israeli men, women and children by the Israeli government.

By working together to advance equal citizenship for both Arab and Jewish Israelis, aren’t non-Zionist human rights activists doing more to secure Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish state than some Zionists who pass the conventional test of “kashrut” for membership in the “communal tent”? The misbegotten controversy in Israel’s Knesset and at the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council over whether J Street is “pro-Israel” enough to be included in Jewish communal institutions is another case in point.

Perhaps the time has come to do away with the impulse to excommunicate Jewish groups engaged in activism for peace, human rights and justice in Israel if they take unorthodox political stands or do not speak in ways that representatives of the mainstream community deem politically correct.

Click here to read “Israel and the Polarization of American Jews.”

Bedouin Israeli Human Rights Attorney Sana Ibn Bari Statement at the UN Forum on Indigenous Issues

Tenth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
(New York, 16 to 27 May 2011)
Presented by Sana Ibn Bari on behalf of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality

Thank you Mr Chairman. I am Sana Ibn Bari and I will speak on behalf of Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality. I wish to draw your attention to State of Israel’s efforts to displace the indigenous Bedouin from their ancestral land. Since the creation of the sate in 1948, Bedouins have lived as internally displaced citizens within Israel.

Today nearly 80,000 indigenous Bedouin live in so-called “unrecognized villages” which are characterized by a lack of basic services. They are denied running water, electricity, telephone lines, paved roads, schools, medical services and other public institutions.

Further, the Bedouin are not secure in their own homes. All buildings in these villages (about 50,000 structures) are considered illegal by the government even though it is impossible for the Bedouin to apply for building permits. Thus homes can be demolished by the government at any moment, increasing poverty levels and inflicting great hardship on the most vulnerable who are the women and children. In the last 12 months alone, the unrecognized village of Al Arakib has been demolished 21 times, leaving 300 residents exposed to the hot days and bitterly cold desert nights. The recent spike in the number of homes lost this year seems to be in line with the government’s policy decision early last year to triple the demolition rate.

As a Bedouin myself, I am compelled to remind the Committee about these challenges facing the unrecognized villages and the seriousness of the state’s action against its own people. The Arab-Bedouin face the harshest consequences of discrimination through laws as well as policy and practice.

I draw your attention in particular to a new government plan to deal with the Bedouin. The plan resulting from the Praver Commission, established to implement the recommendations of a previous commission, is yet to be publicly released. However, portions of the leaked document reveal that the government will recognize less than a third of the area claimed by the Bedouin under the Israeli legal system to be recognized as their traditional land. Additionally, thousands of Bedouin will be displaced when their villages are transferred to new locations. The implementation of this Praver Commission will have a serious detrimental impact on the Bedouin population in southern Israel. It has become clear to us that the government is moving to disinherit the Bedouin from their ancestral land.

Thank you for turning your attention to these issues.

JNF Challenged on Discrimination: The Forward

But No Precedent Bars Group’s Land Sale Restrictions in Israel

Getty Images: What Remains: In the village of Al-Arakib, a Bedouin woman sits amid the ruins of her family’s house, demolished last year by Israeli officials because it was built without a government permit.

By Josh Nathan-Kazis, Published April 20, 2011, issue of April 29, 2011, The Forward

A challenge to the tax-exempt status of Jewish National Fund’s American arm introduces a new wrinkle into an ongoing debate over how the Internal Revenue Service should treat charities whose foreign operations run counter to public policy of the United States. A coalition of anti-Zionist groups has claimed in its challenge that JNF ethnically discriminates by refusing to sell or lease its land in Israel to non-Jews.

It has long been established that a tax-exempt organization that violates the laws against racial and ethnic discrimination within American borders would likely lose its exempt status. But the IRS has not taken action when that discrimination occurs overseas.

Tax law experts say that the coalition’s argument has little chance of success. “We could argue that this would clearly be illegal and therefore violate the public policy doctrine in America, but the question is, since it’s happening in Israel, can we apply the same analysis?” asked Nicholas Mirkay, a law professor at Widener University.

The current narrow ban on tax-exempt organizations opposing the public policy of the United States has only been applied by tax authorities to organizations that break American law, practice racial discrimination in an educational environment in the United States or advocate civil disobedience.

The ban was affirmed by a landmark 1983 Supreme Court ruling in a case involving Bob Jones University, an evangelical Christian school in Greenville, S.C., that sued the IRS after the agency revoked its tax exemption over the school’s policy banning interracial relationships. The Supreme Court sided with the IRS, stating that “an institution seeking tax-exempt status must… not be contrary to established public policy.”

But the ruling did little to define what the Supreme Court meant by “established public policy.” So far, the precedent has been applied in only a narrow set of instances. Efforts to lobby the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of American groups that fund exclusively Jewish settlements in the Israel-occupied West Bank, for instance, have gained little traction. Some opponents of these settlements have argued that they conflict with long-established American foreign policy that labels the settlements as “impediments to peace.” But legal experts say American foreign policy has never been interpreted to fall within the rubric of established public policy.

The new complaint takes a different tack. In a March letter to the IRS, the groups opposed to JNF’s exempt status focus on the alleged racial discrimination practiced by the organization’s Israeli arm — a set of facts closer to the facts of the Bob Jones case, which also dealt with racial discrimination.

The letter targeting JNF was issued by the Stop the JNF Campaign, an international effort targeting the historic Zionist organization, which owns about 13% of all land in Israel. The campaign’s website criticizes JNF for its role in the “on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land.”

The campaign is endorsed by 108 organizations internationally, according to the website, including American Jews for a Just Peace, Al Awda-NY: The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, Churches for Middle East Peace and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Jodi Bodner, an American spokeswoman for JNF, did not respond by press time to questions she had requested be submitted by e-mail.

In its letter to the IRS, the Stop the JNF Campaign writes that JNF activities in Israel and the West Bank “are both contrary to the public policy of the United States and inconsistent with activities of a charitable or environmental organization.” It cites what it calls “discriminatory” JNF policies against selling land to Palestinians, among other things. “We want to make it clear that this is an issue of popular concern, that this is an issue of concern among taxpayers,” said Emily Katz Kishawi, an activist with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and a spokeswoman for the campaign.

Legal experts who give the campaign little chance of success highlighted the fact that charities violating the public policy doctrine abroad face no risk of losing their exempt status. “If you denied housing to an Arab here in the United States, that would probably violate some housing statute. It would seem to me you have some illegality there,” said Mirkay.

But Mirkay said that this doesn’t mean a charity would lose its exempt status for practicing racial or ethnic discrimination abroad. “There’s nothing that says you can take what would be an illegal act in the United States and say if you’re doing it abroad, that somehow violates public policy,” he said. But he pointed to signs that the agency is taking a hard look at the question.

In March 2010, an official with the IRS division that handles exempt organizations told a tax law convention that the agency was preparing to address the international activities of tax-exempt groups in a new publication, according to The Exempt Organization Tax Review, a trade publication. And in August, a right-wing pro-Israel organization called Z Street filed a lawsuit claiming that its application for tax-exempt status was being delayed because it opposed the Obama administration’s Middle East policies. Tax law experts called the Z Street claims far-fetched, though the case is still pending.

Recent statements “seem to point to the fact that the IRS has definitely got its radar up on this issue,” Mirkay said. “The question is how they’re going to proceed.” Another tax law professor warned that the alleged discriminatory activities of JNF and the facts of the Bob Jones case are not necessarily parallel. “I do not think racial [discrimination] in America, with our own unique history, is the same as the unique situation of Israel and the Palestinians,” Ellen Aprill, a professor at Loyola Law School, wrote in an e-mail. The Stop the JNF Campaign comes at a time when land-use policies of JNF are coming under increased criticism. The U.S. Department of State’s annual report on human rights in Israel, released in March, noted that the organization does not allow land it owns to be leased or sold to non-Jews.

And JNF has come under fire in relation to the repeated demolition of Al-Arakib, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev that sits on land where JNF plans to plant a forest.

Still, not all of JNF’s critics support the campaign’s tactics. “I don’t disagree with the basic statements that the authors of this campaign put forward in their letter,” said Doni Remba, executive director of the Jewish Alliance for Change, which has partnered with Rabbis for Human Rights — North America in its own campaign against JNF policies toward the Bedouin. Remba said that he, too, opposed JNF policies barring land sales to non-Jews.

But he criticized the effort to strip the organization of its not-for-profit status. “This tactic is the tactic of a movement that is anti-Zionist,” Remba said. “It is opposed to the very existence of the Jewish National Fund, and of institutions like it, and of the State of Israel. We are a pro-Israel and Zionist organization, so we support, obviously, the State of Israel, and we want there to be a Jewish National Fund. We believe that JNF has to redefine itself for this day and age.”

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter @joshnathankazis

Call JNF today and tell them: Stop planting forests on confiscated Bedouin land!

New JNF bulldozer camp near Givot Bar, 1 mile from Bedouin village of Al-Arakib

(Photo Credit: Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality)

Scroll down to find the Jewish National Fund office near you as well as the national headquarters, and call to give them the message: Stop planting forests on confiscated Bedouin land.

Sample call script: My name is ______ , [I'm an American Jew] and I care deeply about Israel and its fragile democracy. I’m calling today to tell you that I'm opposed to JNF continuing to plant and build on land that the state has stolen from the Bedouin - even while they're fighting the theft of their land in Israeli courts.

I urge JNF to refrain from sending its bulldozers from its new work camp at Givot Bar onto the nearby land of the Abu-Freih family, or onto any other Bedouin land in the Negev.

I call on JNF to announce a freeze on all home demolitions, development and forestation on all Bedouin land, until a just solution is agreed upon with the Negev Bedouin community.

Please pass on my message to Russell Robinson and Ronald Lauder:

Stop planting JNF forests on confiscated Bedouin land.

Stop sowing conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Negev!

It’s time for JNF to change course and issue a public commitment that JNF will end these wrongful acts. JNF must no longer hide behind unjust laws to justify its own irresponsible acts, which are harmful to Israel and to JNF itself.

Response to Objections: If the JNF person starts changing the subject and talking about some other JNF project, tell them that whatever good the JNF may do elsewhere is far outweighed by its its willingness to plant forests on confiscated Bedouin land - and previously on the land of demolished Bedouin villages which it helped destroy.

Let us know how it went! Then email us at editor@jews4change.com and let us know how your call went. Your feedback will be most valuable in planning the next steps in our campaign to persuade the JNF to do the right thing. Please copy and paste the following into your email and provide us with your responses:

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Zip/Postal Code:

Date of Call:

Which offices did you call?

Tell us about how your call went.

What was the response?

JNF Phone numbers:

National Office 212-879-9300 (For international callers to the US, please add 001 before the number)

Jerusalem Office: 972-2-563-5638

Regional Offices:

Florida West Coast, Central, and Northern Florida: (727) 536-5263 or (813) 960-5263 Tampa: (407) 804-5568 South Florida (561) 447-9733 Miami/Dade (800) 211-1502 or (561) 447-9733

Greater New York (212) 879-9300

Greater Los Angeles (323)964-1400

MidAtlantic Baltimore/ Delaware: (410) 486-3317 Washington, DC (301) 589-8565

Midwest Chicagoland (847) 656-8880 Michigan (248)324-3080 Midwest States (Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) (888) 563-0099 Northern Ohio (216) 464-3888 Southern Ohio (513) 794-1300 or (888) 563-0099 Western Pennsylvania (412) 521-3200 Wisconsin (414) 963-8733

Northeast New England (617) 423-0999 Eastern Pennsylvania (215) 832-0690 New Jersey (973) 593-0095

West Arizona (602) 277-4800 Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming & Utah (303) 573-7095 Northern California and Pacific Northwest (415) 677-9600 or (888) JNF-0099 Orange County, CA (949)-260-0400 San Diego (858) 824-9178 Palm Springs (760)864-6208 Las Vegas (702) 434-6505

South (404) 236-8990

Los Angeles Event: Civil Rights and Wrongs in the Negev, with Devorah Brous, April 23, 2011 12 noon

When: Saturday, April 23, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Where: IKAR, 5870 West Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 (map)

Description: Join us after Shabbat lunch for a special discussion. For some Jews, Israel's Negev Desert is the "last Zionist frontier," a "barren wasteland" in need of development. For Israel's Bedouin citizens, it is an ancestral homeland, rich with tradition and sustenance. Arabs and Jews live side by side in the Negev, but their access to basic necessities such as water, energy, and medicine varies widely. With a rapidly expanding population on a small land mass with dwindling resources, the age-old Zionist question to develop or to preserve continues to arise. The development of the Negev for a new wave of Jewish settlements is increasingly undermining Israel's commitment to democracy and civil rights. Must we support development at the expense of democracy in the Negev?

About the Speaker: Devorah Brous lived in Israel and worked with Bedouin for 15 years. She is the founder of BUSTAN, a Jewish/Bedouin civil rights and environmental justice NGO in the Negev, where she served as Executive Director for 9 years. She currently 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. She holds two Masters degrees in Israel Studies and Development Studies.

Listed on the IKAR website events calendar

Trees without Bulldozers: Environmental Justice for the Bedouin, by David Krantz of the Green Zionist Alliance

NEW YORK (March 17, 2011)

When David Ben-Gurion envisioned making the desert bloom, bulldozing Bedouin villages to make way for new groves of trees is not exactly what he had in mind. But, in the name of environmentalism, that is exactly what Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael / Jewish National Fund did recently, bulldozing the village of al-Araqib for the 21st time since last July as part of its $600-million Blueprint Negev project.

It gets worse: In order to plant the new grove of trees, KKL-JNF also bulldozed about 850 olive trees owned by the villagers of al-Araqib.

And the bulldozing has not been bloodless: Village residents and protesters have been greeted by police with rubber and paint bullets that sent some of them to the hospital. When most people buy trees through KKL-JNF, they don't think they're financing the bulldozing of a village and the injuring of protesting civilians — neither of which are roles with which KKL-JNF was charged when it was founded at the fifth World Zionist Congress in 1901. Theodor Herzl, like Ben-Gurion, would be ashamed.

KKL-JNF was first proposed in the early 1880s by the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement and by Prof. Hermann Schapira as an organization for acquiring land for a Jewish national state, encouraging every farmer to work his/her own land, supporting collective farming and building large communities. In his 1896 book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and his 1902 book AltNeuLand, Herzl proposed a Jewish people-funded “National Association for Trees” that would be tasked with afforestation. The leading Zionist thinkers behind the founding of KKL-JNF endorsed Jewish settlement and afforestation of the land; none of them endorsed the destruction of existing villages. Herzl, in fact, called for the creation of a model state, a state where all of its citizens would be treated fairly.

As beneficial as planting trees is, and as much as afforestation is needed and valued, new saplings should not come at the cost of displacing people from their homes, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or land-owning status. Because today is the fast of Esther, and Sunday is Purim, it's all the more important for us to remember the dangers of being a minority. Our collective history should spur empathy for minority groups such as the Bedouin.

Since Blueprint Negev was announced in 2005 by KKL-JNF's sister organization JNF-USA, the Green Zionist Alliance has challenged the project's virtues. The GZA also has channeled its carbon-offset efforts through the Good Energy Initiative, where one of the organization's carbon-mitigating efforts is replacing diesel power generators with solar power in off-the-grid Bedouin villages such as al-Araqib.

The Green Zionist Alliance representatives on the KKL-JNF board of directors — Dr. Alon Tal and Dr. Orr Karassin — have been working to stop KKL-JNF and JNF-USA from bulldozing al-Araqib and other Bedouin villages again. Tal has been meeting with Bedouin representatives and he and Karassin are urging the rest of the KKL-JNF board to put a stop to the evacuation and displacement of Bedouin in the Negev.

Part of the problem stems from questions of land ownership. More than 100,000 Bedouin live in villages like al-Araqib, unrecognized by the Israeli government. Although many of the villages predate the founding of the modern state, Israel declared state ownership over unrecognized villages after the War of Independence, leading, most significantly, to limited animal-grazing rights and to villages' exclusion from access to the energy grid, water and sewer lines, and paved roads. Still, the bulldozing of Bedouin villages en masse only began in earnest with the implementation of Blueprint Negev.

The state has given KKL-JNF the land to many unrecognized villages, including al-Araqib, to develop and forest because, under Israeli law, the land is owned by the state. But that arrangement may be coming to an end soon. The Israeli government is in negotiations with the Bedouin over disputed lands, with the latest Israeli offer likely to be a state handover of half of the Bedouin-claimed lands and billions of shekels in state compensation for the other half.

In the meantime, the Green Zionist Alliance position is clear: KKL-JNF should not be involved in the displacement or evacuation of people, regardless of whether or not they can be considered legally as trespassers. And KKL-JNF should not plant trees on lands whose ownership is being disputed through the country's judicial system.

Fortunately, the Green Zionist Alliance is not alone in this fight. Rabbis for Human Rights North America and the Jewish Alliance for Change have teamed up for the Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel Campaign to raise public awareness about the issue and gather signatures on petitions to KKL-JNF and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And Bustan and the Negev Coexistence Forum have long sought environmental justice for the Bedouin.

Planting forests shouldn't mean destroying villages, and it's time that KKL-JNF ends that equation for the Israeli Bedouin. It's time for a greener, more just KKL-JNF for all Israelis.

Reprinted from Green Zionist Alliance: The Grassroots Campaign for a Sustainable Israel

Accomplishments of our Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel

Here’s a selection from what we’ve accomplished in the public arena in our Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel, creating mounting pressure on the Jewish National Fund to end the demolition of Bedouin homes in order to plant forests in the Negev:

1) After many months of mounting pressure by us and our coalition partners, JNF in Israel completely dismantled its work camp near the demolished Bedouin village of Al-Arakib on March 24, 2011, removing all its bulldozers and other heavy earth-moving machines. JNF did not finish digging holes for tree planting over the village grounds.

2) We and our partners in Israel – Rabbis for Human Rights and the Negev Coexistence Forum - have been quietly meeting both with supporters of JNF-US and board members of JNF-Israel (KKL-JNF), arranging meetings for them with Bedouin leaders, giving them the facts and urging them to support a freeze in home demolitions in Al-Arakib and other Negev Bedouin villages.

As a result, JNF Israel Board members from Reform Judaism (the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism), the Green Zionist Alliance and Meretz, and a growing number of JNF Israel board members have been won over to our stance and are expressing their views to top JNF officials in Israel.

Please support our work by making a tax-deductible gift to Rabbis for Human Rights-North America for the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel – click here to contribute to our efforts to build a Jewish democratic Israel where Arabs and Jews in the Negev enjoy truly equal rights as citizens.

3) Our coalition invited our supporters to phone JNF offices to deliver the message to JNF, clogging phone lines and voicemail boxes at JNF-US headquarters in New York, L.A., and other cities.

4) We and our allies invited people to post messages of protest on JNF’s Facebook page, and hundreds of messages were posted, exposing thousands of JNF supporters, many for the first time, to the facts about what JNF is doing in the Negev.

5) The Forward carried a hard-hitting feature article “A JNF Drive To Make the Desert Bloom Means Destruction for a Bedouin Village” about our campaign and what JNF and the Israeli government have been up to in the Negev. Read the Forward article here.

6) Ha'aretz columnist Bradley Burston described our and the villagers’ struggle to end the demolitions of Bedouin homes at Al-Arakib as one of two prominent examples, along with Sheikh Jarrah, of the emerging democratic revolution in Israel.

7) Peter Beinart delivered a powerful keynote speech at the J Street conference, before an audience of several thousand activists, calling on American Jews to embrace "our task, in solidarity with the Israelis and Palestinians risking their lives in places like Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Arakib and Bil’in...to resanctify the land." Watch the video of his stirring speech, or read the text, here.

8) Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights published an “Open Letter to the Jewish National Fund: Just Say No!” in the Jerusalem Post.

9) Devorah Brous, co-director of our Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice, published “Where are the Jewish Greens?” in Tikkun, and “Seeing the Unseen: The Forgotten Palestinian-Israeli Problem,” in the Jerusalem Report.

10) JNF Washington DC Board Member and Chair of the JNF-funded Friends of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies urged JNF in a Jerusalem Post op-ed to end the demolition of homes in unrecognized villages and the planting of trees on lands that are in dispute with the Bedouin. (“JNF, BDS and the Beduin,” Jan. 19, 2011)

11) Our campaign has helped generate over 8,000 signatures on online petitions of protest to Prime Minister Netanyahu and JNF leaders, and continues to grow. If you've not yet done so, please click here to add your voice now.

12) We've forged and maintained an international coalition of 36 Israeli and American Jewish groups who are now working in concert for the first time to end the plight of the 200,000 Negev Bedouin.

13) Working with our partners in Israel and the US, we're proud to have broken the story of the role with JNF of GOD-TV and other Evangelical Christian groups in planting a one-million tree forest, many near Al-Arakib, as part of the government's plan to displace the Bedouin. For the latest media coverage, please go here.

We're working for a Jewish democratic Israel where Arabs and Jews in the Negev, and throughout the land, enjoy fully equal rights as citizens.

Support our work by making a tax-deductible gift to Rabbis for Human Rights-North America for the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel – click here to contribute whatever you can. Help us go from strength to strength!

A Day of Catastrophe in Israel, by Rachel Metz - Special to the Campaign for Bedouin-Jewish Justice

March 23rd was one hell of a day in Israel. Anyone following the news there probably saw the major stories, but experience in the Negev lends some insight into their implications for Bedouin–Jewish justice.

For residents of Beer Sheva and neighboring areas, Wednesday started bright and early with a siren and rocket at 5:30 a.m. Even living seven time zones away, when I read about the rocket, I felt like I was straight back during the 2008-2009 war. I can only imagine how palpably people still in the area experienced that as they felt the rush of adrenaline that comes with the siren and hurried to seek shelter. My heart goes out to the residents of Beer Sheva and the rest of the Negev as they're assaulted by rocket fire. Both during Cast Lead and today, though, when the Israeli news media report that a rocket hit an "open area" in the Negev, I can't help but wonder if that "open area" was an unrecognized Bedouin village. Is damage there excluded from the official news the way the villages are from the official map? As people in Beer Sheva justifiably complain about locked shelters, where are the complaints on behalf of their neighbors for whom the threat of home demolition precludes not just having shelters but even living in houses big enough to provide the relative protection of stairwells?

Elected in the wake of Cast Lead as people’s defensiveness manifested in a political shift to the right, the Knesset continued to add to the bad news on Wednesday for those Jews who support change towards improved human rights. It passed two highly problematic laws proposed by Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party. The first law bars public funding for groups that "undermine the foundations of the state and contradict its values." The potential for this bill to be used in a McCarthy-esque way is troubling, especially when coupled with Wednesday’s Knesset hearing that questioned whether J Street has the right to criticize Israeli policy while supporting Israel.

More immediately troubling for Bedouin-Jewish Justice is the second racist bill passed that same day, which allows Negev and Galilee communities with up to 400 families to screen potential applicants based on cultural characteristics.* Bedouin in Israel are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Those who have tried to move into predominately Jewish areas (including Beer Sheva) have long contended with de facto discrimination, and now in many places it will be de jure discrimination as well. They can move to one of the government-created Bedouin towns, where the legacy of decades of underfunding means they will face rundown roads and schools, minimal-at-best government services such as libraries, and, unsurprisingly given these other issues, the highest unemployment and poverty rates of all Israeli towns. Alternatively, they can remain on their land in unrecognized villages without water, electricity, roads, medical clinics, etc. and hope their homes aren’t destroyed nor their crops defoliated.

The biggest news story on Wednesday, however, was of course the bus stop bombing in Jerusalem. Violence against innocent people is never acceptable. But anyone concerned with that type of explosive physical violence should also be concerned with the disenfranchisement of Israel’s Bedouin citizens. It, too, leads to the loss of innocent lives.

*Israeli civil rights groups are also concerned about the potential of this being used to discriminate against Ethiopian-Israelis, foreign workers, same-sex couples, single-parent families, and other stigmatized groups.

__________________________________________________________________

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.