This article is published by London Rhymes with Palestine & includes the full text of an article by Dr. Yeela Raanan, in an effort to raise awareness & generate solidarity to this campaign - full text of Dr Yeela Raanan's article appears here below).

‘The Praver Plan is now a new bill: Confiscation of Bedouin Lands Bill – to be passed soon in the Knesset.

By Dr. Yeela Raanan.

On January 3rd the Government of Israel published the memorandum of a bill named "Regulation of the Bedouin settlement in the Negev", in which in states the steps to be implemented in order to relocate the overwhelming majority of the residents of the unrecognized villages and confiscate about 2/3s of the land remaining in their possession. As can be expected, the Government of Israel is anticipating resistance to this new bill, so within the bill are violent measures to ensure its implementation. This bill is currently going through the legislative process in the Knesset, and soon will become law.

You can read about the bill in more detail (see below). In the meantime, in a nutshell, this is what the Bedouin are now facing:

1. The bill's main aim is to force the Bedouin to give up the little land they are still holding onto.

2. In order to do so, the bill spells out an intense, violent and destructive process, utilizing family pressure, bulldozers, and incarceration.

3. The bill is written in a confusing manner, so that the majority of the Bedouin community are incapable of even understanding what the government is putting before them. Ironically, they are expected to give their comments via the web...

4. The government is spending a very large amount of money in order to send emissaries to "convince" the Bedouin that accepting this bill is in their benefit. At the same time the media is cooperating with the government and remaining silent regarding all protests and criticisms against this dangerous bill. Thus, the two amazing demonstrations of the Bedouin – of over 10,000 in Beer Sheva and another 6,000 in Jerusalem was not covered at all by the Hebrew media. The media machine the government is utilizing of course also covers the Jewish community, so that even the friends of the Bedouin do not understand why the Bedouin community is not accepting this new bill with open hands.

Just a couple of items from the bill will show you the monstrosity of it:

1. Cynically utilizing family pressure in order to force more Bedouin to accept the bill:

Members of the Bedouin community are not interested in monetary compensation for their lands, they want the land itself. A person can receive up to 50% of his land in land compensation – IF – he convinces ALL his siblings and cousins to enter the process of the bill and sign that they are giving up their land claims too (again for 50% in land compensation.) however, if any of the siblings feels that he does not wish to play along with the government's plans, and is not willing to sign his land over to the government, then ALL other siblings will receive less land in compensation, and instead some insignificant monetary compensation.

What does this mean? It means that there will be strife in all the Bedouin families. As all Bedouin are people… they will not always agree. Therefore one person will receive far less land because his brother will refuse to sign his land away. From this point on, they will not speak to each other for generations... and to think that the government is creating this kind of strife within families – is horrendous.

2. According to the bill, when it is time to "clear" a piece of land from Bedouin this is the process:

a) The prime minister signs that this specific area is now to be cleared.

b) The Bedouin have two weeks in which to clear out everything: structures, animals, trees, people and movables.

c) The government may then demolish anything in the area and incarcerate for two years anyone remaining in the area.

d) The bill also prevents the intervention of the courts, as it states that there is no need for a court injunction to demolish the structures, and that the court may at the most postpone the "clearing" by one week.

This process will be implemented upon the entire area of the unrecognized villages within five years.

Where will the people go to? It is not specified. Does the gov't need to provide those it is clearing out with another place to go to? It is not specified. Do the residents of the villages, as they are being cleared off, have any say in where they will have to move to? It is not specified.

Nowadays the Bedouin do not have sufficient land in order to live their lives in ease. A stark statistic is that each Bedouin that lives in an agricultural community has an average of 1/2 acre of land for agriculture. In comparison every Jewish person living in an agricultural community in the Negev has over six acres. And it is important to remember that many more members of a Bedouin agricultural community actually make a living from agriculture than of the Jewish communities. This bill, if it succeeds, will reduce the 1/2 acre of agricultural lands to 0.001 of an acre per person … meaning this is an end, a total destruction, of Bedouin traditional life and the ability to live off the land. Taking into consideration that about 20% of the Bedouin today live from agriculture… it is devastating.

What can you do to help?

1. First of all – contact your representatives, and ask them to ask Israel difficult questions regarding the policies towards the Bedouin. You have quite a lot of information here and in the file attached. Please feel free to use it.

2. Help spread this information. Since the Bedouin are a weakened community, the government of Israel feels it can do anything it wishes to this community, and no one will care. Let's show them we care!

3. Start bombarding the government officials with your faxes, emails, phone calls… Here are the important figures right now:

a) Minister Binyamin Begin. He is the person the gov't assigned to listen to the community and make amendments to the bill according to the needs of the community. (Unfortunately, all he is doing is trying to convince the Bedouin that this is the best deal for them and they must join the process, and officially forgo their land claims…) Email:  bbegin@knesset.gov.il ; Tel: 02-6408022, 02-6703382; Fax: 02-6703386

b) Yehuda Bahar, the one in charge of implementing the plan, head of the Authority for the settlement of the Bedouin. Tel: 08-6268735; Fax: 08-6268729; Email:  YehudaB@moch.gov.il

c) Our Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, tel: 02-6705512; fax: 02- 5664838

d) The Israeli Ambassador in your area.

e) Your Ambassador in Israel.

We call to the Government of Israel to take measures concerning the integration of the Arab-Bedouin community of the Negev into the region based on the principles of partnership, equality, human rights, and a future of prosperity for all the Negev residents.
For more information: Dr. Yeela Raanan,  negevbedouin@gmail.com '

******************************More Detailed Information**********************************

'Confiscation of Bedouin Lands Bill – to be passed soon in the Knesset.

On January 3rd the Government of Israel published the memorandum of a bill named "Regulation of the Bedouin settlement in the Negev", in which in states the steps to be implemented in order to relocate the overwhelming majority of the residents of the unrecognized villages and confiscate about 2/3s of the land remaining in their possession. As can be expected, the Government of Israel is anticipating resistance to this new bill, so within the bill are violent measures to ensure its implementation. This bill is currently going through the legislative process in the Knesset, and soon will become law.

We call all our friends to help us prevent the Knesset and government from passing this disastrous bill.

Following is a short history bringing us up to this legislature, then a short description of the bill, with a highlight on its most dangerous aspects.

(The memorandum can be found at this address (Hebrew only):  http://www.tazkirim.gov.il/Tazkirim_Attachments/41151_x_AttachFile.doc)

(1) Very brief description of current situation

Coerced urbanization: Israel has had destructive policies towards its Bedouin minority for decades. The results of these policies are seven Bedouin towns, which are always rated as the poorest municipalities in Israel, with severe social breakdown, harsh unemployment, and the absence of any traditional or modern positive roles for the women in the communities. Israel created these towns with willful disregard for the traditions and the needs of the community, rather with the lone aim of minimizing the land available for the use of the community. Over the last half century Israel has managed to "settle" half the Bedouin community in these failed towns.

Policies of non-recognition: The other half of the community has been adamant in holding on to its traditional lands and culture. The price the government has made these people pay is withholding any basic services and infrastructure through the policies of non-recognition. 45 villages, of 1,000 -10,000 residents each are not recognized, making the people live without roads, no connection to the electric grid, no running water or sewer system, and very minimal health and education systems, and worst of all – no administrative system by which to request building permits, rendering all the homes "illegal" and therefore slotted for demolition.

Land use: Before 1948 the 90,000 Bedouin were virtually the only residents and the lords of the Negev. By 1952 there are only 12,000 Bedouin, the rest had been persuaded one way or another to leave the country. Today there are about 200,000 Arab-Bedouin, comprising 1/3 of the Negev population, and who are using only 320,000 dunams of the 13,000,000 of the Negev. The new bill will reduce this even further – to less than 150,000 dunams.

For comparison sake: the Jewish farmers in the Negev are using 1,000,000 dunams of land for agriculture, the Bedouin are currently using about 195,000 dunams, and this will be reduced by the new bill to close to zero. On the other hand – there are more people that make a living as farmers in the Bedouin community than among the Jews of the Negev. Needless to say the new bill will bring the Bedouin community to be even poorer and more dependent on governmental handouts than it is already; accordingly this will further decimate the community.

(2) The bill:

The policy starts with a call to all Bedouins to ratify their land claims, if their father or grandfather filed a land claim in the procedure the Government of Israel initiated in the 1970's: and thus entering the bill's process. Then the conditions of the land holdings are examined by the government: Did the ancestor utilize the land during the 70's?/ Is the land utilized by the descendent today?/ Have all siblings and cousins ratified their land claim?/ And some more conditions. If all conditions are met – then the person will receive a promise from the government to receive a land parcel up to half the size of the land claim he/ she is giving up. However the government will keep its promise only if the Bedouin person will clean off the land they are using now of all buildings, people, animals and trees at the demand of the government, and the land parcel will be allocated only at a location the government will decide on in the future.

(3) The threats the bill poses for the Bedouin community:

Its aim - land confiscation: As stated earlier, this bill further reduces the availability of the land, an important resource for the residents of the Bedouin villages, who still mainly live by farming. This is further disturbing as the Bedouin are recognized by the U.N. as an indigenous people, and thus deserving of land (and other) compensation – not land confiscation.

Extra Power to Governing Bodies: Articles #71-#73 permit the Authority for the Settlement of the Bedouin (after a formal claim by the Prime Minister), to render a certain area to be cleared out immediately, and demolish all buildings and evacuate all people, without the necessity for a court injunction, as is the law today. Further the bill states that the courts have very limited possibility in preventing this process from being carried out. All the Bedouin villages are to go through this process.

Unwarranted Creation of Family Strife: Articles #42-#43 state that the percentage of the land that a person will receive as compensation depends on the percentage of the original land claim that has been ratified. In plain language what this means is – if all cousins (the grandfather being the original land claimer) enter the process this bill suggests, then (if all other criteria are met) all can receive compensation in land (which is strongly preferred to monetary compensation) of up to 50% of the size of their personal land claim. However if some choose not to enter the process, then the other cousins will receive less land as compensation. This is set by the bill to create family pressure on the descendants of the original land claimer to enter the process and officially forgo their land claims. The end result will be the creation of family strife among most Bedouin families in the Negev, strife that will probably continue on for generations, destroying even further the delicate social fabric already decimated by forced urbanization and dislocation. It is unimaginable that a government will pass a bill that is so destructive to family life, all for the purpose of forcing people to forgo some more of their historical claims to land.

Diminished protection by the courts: The bill also prescribes that in cases of conflict with other laws, it is above other existing laws in Israel, reducing further the possibility for members of the Bedouin community to turn to the courts for protection.

Another blatant racist ruling in this bill is that Bedouin may not receive land compensation and may not settle west of route #40, but rather within a clearly delineated area, mapped in the bill, which is clearly reminiscent of a reservation or a "Badu-stan".

No allowance for settlement planning: Furthermore, the bill does not include any discussion or procedures for recognition of villages, processes for planning the villages, or possibilities for people of the community to make choices as to where they may live, and the character of their communities. So when the clearing process described in articles 71-73 comes into effect, the government will be the sole decider of the new locations for tens of thousands of people.

Impeded process of consideration: The government has nominated Minister Beni Begin to listen to the grievances of the Bedouin men, and to implement change in the bill according to the needs and wishes of the Bedouin community. However, we have heard Minister Begin's talks, and unfortunately we find that he has no real ability or wish to listen to members of the Bedouin community. Rather, we find him frustratingly eloquent and an emissary of the government in convincing members of our community to enter this destructive bill.

Implementation of this bill will create severe suffering: We do not believe this bill can be implemented, as its aim – further reducing the ability to hold on to what is left of the Bedouin ancestral lands – is an abomination for members of the Bedouin community. However, if this bill passes, and if there is an attempt to implement this bill, the Bedouin community will suffer greatly: with bulldozers razing villages to the ground, land confiscated by force, many incarcerated because of their refusal to give up their lands, and possibly the eventual success of the bill – total urbanization and loss of land as a source of income to the Bedouin people, and the destruction of their culture.

Thousands of Bedouin have demonstrated in Beer Sheva and in Jerusalem, showing their abhorrence to this bill. The Israeli media, cooperating with the government, completely ignored these demonstrations.

Our request to you is that you do all that you can to help us defend our rights, our resources and our culture.

For more information: Dr. Yeela Raanan,  negevbedouin@gmail.com '


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