As the government is set to introduce legislation which will institutionalise discrimination against Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, such inequality is already evident in the Negev. The Negev is home to 36 unrecognised villages. However Fadi Msamra, from the Regional Council of Unrecognised Villages, states that “in actual fact there are 46. There have been 10 recently recognised villages; however their situation has remained the same. They still face demolitions, are not provided with services, infrastructure or electricity; nothing has changed.” Unrecognised villages are left out of Israel’s planning and zoning policies and denied the right to basic services on the basis that they are illegal, despite their existence prior to 1948. In 1965 Israel enacted the Planning and Building Law, which made it necessary to have a plan for all building, and created a nationwide master plan “including maps of all existing communities and zones for residential and agricultural development”. This plan did not recognise or include over 50 Bedouin communities, which had existed prior to 1948, and claimed that most Bedouin land was actually state- land. “Under this master plan, buildings in these areas were considered illegal and could not be connected to infrastructure facilities like water or electricity”, Farah Mihlar reports for Minority Rights International. “This has prevented development of Bedouin communities and access to basic services. Najib Abu Gharbiyeh, a resident of Wadi Naam, describes how “Israel still denies us basic municipal services, such as water, electricity, clinics and schools.” Israel’s denial of basic services and planning permissions to the unrecognised Bedouin communities is part of its policy to prevent the development of such communities, aiming to silently displace them to concentrated townships. Instead of opting to provide already existing Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Negev with basic services and freedoms within their current residences, the Israeli state continues to deny them their basic human rights unless they move to townships. This is in opposition to the Bedouin way of life, which is based on agriculture and farming. Najib states that “whenever they decided to plan or establish homes and towns for our communities, they never took into consideration our life style. What do Russian and European architects know about our needs and way of life? They come from outside and they force us to change our customs and way of life, they should leave us alone.” Efforts to move Bedouin to townships were most evident in Israel’s Prawer Plan, which proposed the expropriation of Bedouin land and forcible transfer of tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins from 35 unrecognised villages. After mass demonstrations throughout Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory last November, the plan was ostensibly shelved. Najib, however, states that this is “basically an illusion, because the facts on the ground show that the plan is still on going through house demolitions.” Last year they demolished 1500 houses in the Negev. Fadi describes how “each time they come and demolish only a couple of houses. This is for two reasons. Firstly I think this is a policy because they are afraid of uprising. If they tried to demolish a whole village it would be a huge issue, rather what they are doing is a process of silent displacement. It’s making life for people impossible.” One of the biggest problems residents of the unrecognised villages face is that of housing for young couples who wish to marry. Fadi describes how “in our culture if you do not have a house, you will never get married.” The most recent house demolition in Wadi Niam was that of Duaa Sami Abu Sweilem. One week before she was due to marry the Israeli authorities demolished what was to be her future family home, during which she was also arrested for trying to protect her house. Najib states that “It’s not surprising the Israeli authorities have chosen to demolish her home, and arrest her with her relatives, it’s clearly a strategy to break down the will of young couples by demolishing physically, economically and morally their future.’ The disparity between the states attitude to Jewish and Palestinian communities is evident in a decision made last month, in which then Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar overrode a court decision against recognising a Jewish town in the Negev, stating that its recognition would “contribute to increased [Jewish] settlement in the Negev and will help strengthen the demographic makeup of the region”. This demonstrates the motive of Israeli policies: demography. Najib states that “to the Israeli state we represent a demographic threat, specifically, a threat to the Jewishness of the state. They claim we have too many children; this was publically said by Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir during a visit to the Negev, and he also pointed out that Israel should examine ways to lower the birth rate of the Bedouin community.” The racism present in Israeli policies on the ground will only be deepened with the proposed nation-state bill, which effectively legalises discrimination. Fadi states “I have come to understand that for these people, if you are not Jewish nothing counts. It doesnt count if you are a citizen of this country, if you have the passport of this country, you are paying the taxes of this country, you dont count; your life is worth nothing.” The disregard for Palestinian life is most striking in Fadi’s description of the treatment of the Palestinian Bedouin communities during Israel’s latest assault on Gaza: “In times of war, we are totally out of range of protection from the Iron Dome. They dont provide protection in buildings, there is only a mobile shelter. When a rocket falls in an unrecognised Bedouin village, they always say it is an open area and the Iron Dome does not target the rockets. It is capable to but it does not. I soon realised that this was because we do not exist on the official maps, and the Iron Dome is using this map. The Iron Dome is thus blind to the unrecognised villages, which explains why a lot of rockets fall in them. We paid the price for this, one man was killed and two girls were injured. We appealed to the high court for protection, although the government rejected this appeal stating that “the Bedouin Arab communities are not in our priority of protection; the community should provide itself with protection.” They say that we should protect ourselves, but how can we protect ourselves when we are not even allowed to build. Once you build a structure they will come to demolish it because it is illegal. So one of the high ranking army officers said dig a shack, dig in the ground. They want us to bury ourselves. This is the essence of how they look at us, we are not human.”
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:19:57 +0000
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