$12 SUMMER 2012 VOLUME 19, NUMBER 3 Palestinian Myths Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom Debunked Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings Alex Joffe Ofra Bengio Iraq and Turkey as The Rhetoric of Nonsense Models for Arab Democracy? David Bukay Ilan Berman Usurping Jewish History Iran’s Beachhead in Latin America Shaul Bartal Bruce Maddy-Weitzman Denying a Jewish Jerusalem The Arab League’s New Relevance Havatzelet Yahel, Hilal Khashan Ruth Kark, and Lebanon’s Shiite-Maronite Seth J. 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Rosenblum Terry Steen Henry Rosenfeld Lawrence Gould Amy Shargel Ronni Gordon Stillman Josiah Rotenberg Chairman Managing Director Leonard A. Sylk Melvin Salberg David Shifrin Thomas H. Tropp Lawrence Shelley Vice Chairman SUMMER 2012 VOLUME 19, NUMBER 3 FABRICATING PALESTINIAN HISTORY 2 3 Havatzelet Yahel, Ruth Kark, and Seth J. Frantzman, Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People? These nomad Arabs are invaders, not natives of the land 15 Alex Joffe, The Rhetoric of Nonsense Outlandish Palestinian historical claims resonate in the West 23 David Bukay, Founding National Myths Palestinians appropriate Israel’s historical narrative 31 Shaul Bartal, The Battle over Silwan An attempt to erase the Jewish historical attachment to Jerusalem 43 Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom, Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings Indians abandon the practice in the West. Pakistani Muslims continue it 53 Ofra Bengio, Are Iraq and Turkey Models for Democratization? Neither style has proven attractive to the Arab regimes 63 Ilan Berman, Iran Courts Latin America Tehran’s growing penetration poses dangers to the U.S. homeland 71 Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Arab League Comes Alive The league is suddenly more relevant to regional geopolitics 79 DATELINE: Hilal Khashan, Lebanon’s Shiite-Maronite Alliance of Hypocrisy Their collaboration seeks to curb Sunni power 87 Brief Reviews Jihadism in prisons ... Arab Christians ... Energy security ... Israel’s survival / 1 Editor Publisher and Review Editor Efraim Karsh Daniel Pipes Senior Editors Assistant Editors Patrick Clawson Alex Joffe Denis MacEoin Hillel Zaremba Michael Rubin Managing Editor Judy Goodrobb Board of Editors Fouad Ajami James R. Russell Johns Hopkins University Harvard University David Cook Franck Salameh Rice University Boston College Martin Kramer Philip Carl Salzman The Shalem Center McGill University Timur Kuran Saliba Sarsar Duke University Monmouth University Habib C. Malik Robert B. Satloff Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Lebanon Sabri Sayarø James Phillips Sabancø University The Heritage Foundation Kemal Silay Steven Plaut Indiana University University of Haifa Lee Smith Dennis Ross Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Steven L. Spiegel Barry Rubin University of California, Los Angeles Global Research in International Affairs Center Kenneth W. Stein Emory University 2 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2012 Fabricating Palestinian History Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People? by Havatzelet Yahel, Ruth Kark, and Seth J. Frantzman n the last two decades, there has been widespread application of the term “indigenous” in relation to various groups worldwide. However, the meaning of this term and its uses I tend to be inconsistent and variable. The expression derives from the interaction of different cultures—the meeting between the original inhabitants of a specific region (known variously as “first nations,” “natives,” “indigenes,” or “aborigines”) and new, foreign “set- tlers” or “colonizers,” who imposed their alien value systems and way of life on the indig- enous populations.1 In Israel, the indigenousness claim has been raised over the past few years by the country’s Bedouin citizens, a formerly nomadic, Arabic-speaking group centered in the southern arid part of the country, the Negev. They argue that Israel denies their basic indigenous rights such as maintaining their traditions and owning their own lands. Does this claim hold water? What are its implications for Israel as well as for other nations? tury onward, parallel to the emergence of sover- INDIGENOUS RIGHTS eign nation states, with the objective of regulat- IN THE ing relations between these new entities. Tradi- tionally, international law made no mention of INTERNATIONAL ARENA group rights, which were considered a domestic concern of the state.2 What is known today as international law International law was reluctant to further developed in Europe from the seventeenth cen- group rights for several reasons, among them concern for the integrity of the state and fear of separatism that would undermine its stability.3 Havatzelet Yahel is a doctoral candidate at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an attorney in the Israel Ministry of Justice. Ruth Kark is a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusa- 1 S. James Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law, 2d lem. Seth J. Frantzman is a post-doctoral re- ed. (Oxford and London: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 3. searcher at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2 Natan Lerner, Group Rights and Discrimination in Interna- tional Law, 2d ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and and a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute of Market Kluwer Law International, 2003), p. 112; Robbie Sabel and Hila Studies. The views expressed here are solely those Adler, eds., Mishpat Benleumy (Jerusalem: Sacher Institute, 2010), p. 241. of the authors. Yahel, Kark, Frantzman: Negev Bedouin / 3 Furthermore, group rights were considered con- This doctrine was upheld multiple times by the tradictory to the concept of a modern state based United States Supreme Court in the nineteenth on a direct social contract between the citizen century, and courts of additional nations fol- and the sovereign. lowed suit.6 In Australia, the British Crown used Over time, however, the idea of group rights the argument of terra nullius (empty land, namely for indigenous groups began to emerge. Indig- an unoccupied territory with no sovereignty or enous societies claimed that their position was recognized system of rights) to justify its classifi- unique in view of the great damage to the inde- cation as crown land.7 However, beginning in the pendent political frameworks that they had main- eighteenth century, it was conceded in courts of tained from time immemorial, their subjugation to various states that the population that lived in a a regime and lifestyle alien territory before the advent of the Europeans did to their culture, and the possess rights. Legal arguments focused on the The Declaration limitation of the physical question of whether, prior to the arrival of the on the Rights area in which they were colonizers, a system of land rights already existed of Indigenous forced