Ben White has written an excellent article in the New Statesman today, subtitled, 'The separation and "ethnic purity" currently seen in Israel disturbs even the honest among its advocates.' This is certainly true of us who regard ourselves as the real 'friends of Israel'.
Ben White observes,
"An analysis that makes the links between what is happening in the hills of the West Bank and the Negev desert is a necessary part of imagining a future solution "that protects the rights of both the Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis", a redefining of self-determination whereby both groups share a common homeland based on equality White highlights a long-standing example, now receiving more coverage, is the treatment of Bedouin Palestinians.
A striking case study is the village of Atir-Umm al-Hieran in the Naqab (Negev), whose story has been told by the Israeli NGO Adalah in their report 'Nomads Against Their Will'.
Pointing out that the new attempts to expel and dispossess the Bedouin population "perpetuate a policy that was conceived of and initiated more than sixty years ago", Adalah's report details how after 1948 the village residents were repeatedly relocated until "the Israeli military governor in the area finally ordered them to move" to their current location -- a village still "yet to be granted official recognition by the state":
Israel now wants to demolish their homes and expel them yet again, for a fourth time, to a small number of specially-designated reservation-like towns created to "contain" the Bedouin whom it has expelled from their homes. In parallel, the state plans to settle Jewish citizens of Israel on the land, on top of the ruins of their village.The Israel Land Administration (which manages 93 percent of the land in Israel) described these Bedouin citizens as "a special obstacle" in its plan to 'develop' the area with new Jewish towns. Described in court proceedings as "intruders", the residents of Atir-Umm al-Hieran are being targeted for eviction because of "[the state's] desire to set up a new Jewish community on their lands, by the name of Hiran".
This is one example of routine policies in a state still defended by some as a bastion of progressive democracy, and these stories of discrimination and state-sanctioned ethno-religious privilege are appearing in the western media with greater frequency. Yo Zushi has blogged on the subject for the NS. The Economist recently reported on the Israeli government's plan to remove around an estimated 30-40,000 Bedouin from their villages and "pen...them into cities", while the BBC made the link between this mass-eviction and another one planned in the West Bank.Read it all here.
