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The Negev Coexistence Forum Newsletter 18Th Edition, January 2013 Published in Hebrew/Arabic Bilingual Handout Format (See

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The Negev Coexistence Forum Newsletter 18Th Edition, January 2013 Published in Hebrew/Arabic Bilingual Handout Format (See פורום דו-קיום בנגב לשוויון אזרחי Negev Coexistence Forum For Civil Equality The Negev Coexistence Forum Newsletter 18th Edition, January 2013 Published in Hebrew/Arabic bilingual handout format (see www.dukium.org) A word from the editor This is the 18th newsletter of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality. As in previous issues, this issue presents a summary of events that have occurred in the Negev in recent months. During the last few months, a couple of incidents occurred in the Bedouin recognized village of Bir Hadaj, where the police used harsh violence while distributing demolition orders and demolishing houses. The Negev Coexistence Forum (NCF) calls for the immediate cessation of violence and for a prompt change in the state’s policy toward its Bedouin citizens. NCF will continue to support the struggle of the people of Bir Hadaj and the united Jewish and Arab struggle for civil equality in the Negev. Visit our website, Facebook, and Twitter to keep informed of current events and activities organized by the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality. We wish to thank the many volunteers who support the NCF’s activities and those who have shared their thoughts and efforts to help prepare and distribute this newsletter. We hope that this newsletter will help you stay informed about events taking place in the Negev. Recognition for the Sake of Control By Ofer Dagan The home demolitions that took place skirmish in which the police used a general strike and demonstration in September and October in the tear gas and rubber bullets. That in front of the Ministry of Interior recognized Bedouin village Bir Hadaj same day the residents rebuilt the in Beer Sheva. The demonstration revealed the logic behind the state’s house. On 10.10.2012 the inspectors took place on 18.10.2012. On the policy of recognition of the Bedouin returned to the village with demolition eve of the demonstration the police villages. Instead of fair distribution of orders. This time the residents were returned to the village to show its resources, infrastructure and rights, prepared and blocked the entrance power and detained 10 residents the policy is of control to the village. The following day the which, it claimed, had been involved in and reducing the Bedouin the violent incidents. The living space. In the last people were released the 3 years the number of same day. Unfortunately, house demolitions in some of the people that the Bedouin villages has were arrested on 10.10.12 risen. This policy of home are still detained. demolitions occurs also In 2003 the village in recognized villages and Bir Hadaj received its not only in unrecognized recognition from the state. ones. Also, contrary to the Allegedly this recognition claims of the authorities, has improved the status the demolition policy of the village compared to does not target only law the unrecognized Bedouin violations but rather villages in the Negev. serves the state as a tool However, until today, to control the Bedouin almost a decade since population and as means the recognition, not much to concentrate this has changed. Still there population into urban Children from Bir-Hadaj sit on the ruins of a house that was demolished in their village. are no building permits, settlements while denying them the inspectors returned accompanied by no infrastructure (roads, water, right to preserve rural agricultural a large police force which crashed sewage, electricity, etc.), and only communities. violently the residents’ resistance, basic services such as health and arresting many and using tear gas education are provided. The house On 27.9.2012 inspectors from the that even penetrated the school, demolition policy is enforced in Ministry of Interior, escorted by causing the staff to send the children this recognized village as in the police force, demolished a home home. Rubber bullets were used unrecognized villages. in the recognized village Bir Hadaj again resulting in some injured (south of Beer Sheva, near kibbutz The reason for the demolitions in Bir residents. Revivim). Residents of the village Hadaj was most probably the state’s attested that during the demolition Following the violent incidents the attempt to prepare the ground for the driver of the bulldozer spat on steering committee of the Bedouin of the implementation of the Prawer a resident. This triggered a violent the Negev convened and decided on plan, which was approved by the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality P.O. Box 130, Omer 84965, Israel Phone: 050-7701118/9 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.dukium.org Recognition for the Sake of Control (continued from page 1) government in November 2011. Jewish single family’s ranches which population: either to survive as This plan continues the state’s are spread in the area. exotic nomads with no lands, or policy of concentrating the Bedouin to live as residents of planned The residents of Bir Hadaj oppose population in small townships urban townships, resembling the the state’s attempt to turn their rural with limited territory, thus paving development towns built for the Jews village into a backward township and the way for as much as possible in the 50s. The common ground for their struggle is met by the state’s Jewish settlements in the region. both of the above imaginary ways forceful and violent reaction. The The way to do it is either to restrict of living is the dispossession of the violent confrontations reveal the the growth of Bedouin agricultural Bedouins from their historic rights logic and intention that guide the villages that are spread on relative to their lands and the denial of their state’s policy of recognition of the large territory and turn them into rural way of living on these lands Bedouin villages in the Negev. This urban settlements, or to transfer in the last couple of centuries. The is not a policy of fair distribution of their residents to existing urban destructive combination of these two resources, infrastructure and rights, townships, claiming that the state imaginary ways of living directs the but rather a policy of control and cannot provide infrastructure to policies of recognition and violent limitation of the space where the so many scattered agricultural house demolition. Thus, normative Bedouin live. settlements. However, this claim does life is denied again and again from not prevent the state from initiating It seems that the functionaries the Bedouin citizens of the Negev new Jewish rural communities in the who are laying out the policy see in favor of the fantasy to Judaize Negev, nor does it prevent approving only two options for the Bedouin the space. A Review of News in the Negev, June – October 2012 At end of June, Haia Noach, NCF’s in the elections for the council. The council a forum of experts. Ms. Haia Noach, NCF’s June executive director, and Aziz Abu- was established in 2003 and until today no general manager, explained to the ambassador Mediem, resident of the village of Al-Arakib, elections were held. the activities of the Jewish National Fund. participated in a seminar in Sweden. During During the visit the Ambassador said that On July 5th, the European Parliament passed the seminar they lectured about the situation he was familiar with the challenges Bedouin a resolution condemning Israel’s treatment in the Negev, explained the Bedouin struggle citizens were facing in the Negev and that of its Bedouin citizens, and urged the Israeli for justice, and talked particularly about the he would take up the issue with the South government to annul the Prawer Plan, which long ongoing struggle of Al-Arakib. African government. is expected to forcibly displace 30,000 Bedouin from their On July 27th a protest march to the village of homes in the Negev. Al-Arakib took place. The march marked two years of the first demolition of the village. At On July 10th, the committee the end of the march the participants were of the village of Wadi Al-Na’am invited to take part in Iftar, the meal ending the initiated an emergency meeting, Ramadan fast and watched the film Sumoud in response to a conference together with the residents of Al-Arakib. held 10 days earlier in Segev Shalom by the Authority for On July 31st the annual Iftar meal of NCF the Regulation of the Bedouin took place in the Multaka-Mifgash. As in Settlement in the Negev. At each year, tens of activists, Arabs and Jews, the conference, held by the participated in the meal which was followed by authority, its officials presented a short review of NCF’s activities throughout a new plan for the expansion of the year. the township of Segev-Shalom In July, NCF submitted a report to the United in order to transfer residents of Haia Noach, NCF’s executive director, during a seminar in Sweden, Nations Human Rights Council. The report June 2012 Wadi Al-Na’am into the town. focused on Israel’s human rights record During the first week of July, During the conference at Wadi Al-Na’am, the regarding the Arab-Bedouin population in the July volunteers from the movement speakers emphasized their opposition to the Negev-Naqab and pointed out how Israel had Habonim Dror, in cooperation with NCF, Prawer-Amidror plan and made held a summer day camp in the Bedouin it clear, that they do not approve village of Umm-Mitnan. 40 kids from the the plan to move them into Segev- village participated and enjoyed the variety Shalom. The residents of the village of activities. demanded to stay in their village and to be recognized there.
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