Israeli Bedouin March against Resettlement Plan
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Thousands of Bedouin marched in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Thursday to protest a government plan to settle tens of thousands of their desert-dwelling people in permanent townships, media reported.
Public radio said the protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners of the Israeli Islamic movement, chanting "With our blood and our spirit we will redeem the Negev," referring to the desert where most Israeli Bedouin live.
The radio station did not give a number of participants, saying only that "thousands" filled the city center, blocking traffic.
Police said about 700 attended the main demonstration with another 2,000 people in the surrounding streets.
The broadcaster said 85,000 Bedouin children also stayed away from school as part of a community-wide general strike, with a large number of women and children at the rally.
The cabinet approved the resettlement plan in January and it is now before parliament.
The government has said it would "as much as possible" grant legal status to Negev villages that are currently unrecognized by the authorities if they met a minimum population criteria.
But those criteria have never been stated.
A cabinet statement has said "most" residents -- who do not currently receive government or municipal services -- would be able to continue living in their homes after the villages are granted legal status.
The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, which represents Arab communities in Israel, has described the initiative as a "disaster" that would have "dangerous" consequences.
Awad Abdel Fattah, a member of the committee, told Agence France Presse the struggle would escalate over the next 10 days, ahead of a debate on the decision in the Israeli parliament scheduled for June 24.
"People are angry," he said following the demonstration. "We prevented several clashes between young people and police."
Abdel Fattah, who lives in northern Israel and is not a Bedouin, said "the problem was not only of the Bedouin of the Negev, but of the general Arab population".
He said they were planning a general strike in the Arab sector and a sit-in by the prime minister's office in Jerusalem.
Abdel Fattah said that Israel has been expropriating lands from its Arab citizens over the years, and "now they want to take the remaining reserve of the land".
There are around 260,000 Bedouin in Israel, mostly living in and around the Negev in the arid south.
More than half live in unrecognized villages without utilities and many also live in extreme poverty.
13 June 2013, 20:02
11
"More than half live in unrecognized villages without utilities and many also live in extreme poverty."
I bet you wouldn't like to check their standard of living with those that have been kept in refugee camps for over 65 years in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
14 June 2013, 01:47
20
Look at that, the zionist propagandist snake magically appeared to defend israel once again. The diffirence between your comparison is that the Palestinians in occupied palestine that you call israel are banned from their own land and banned from developing their areas. Millions of Palestinian refugees in the countries you mentioned have actually been naturalized and do not live in refugee camps. And even though those who live in refugee camps still are opressed which is condemned, that doesnt excuse israel in any way. One minute your bragging about how much better israel is than arabs but once their filthy opression and injustice is exposed, you immediatly compare them to arabs. All of a sudden its suitable and the fact that you are supposed to be 1 million tomes better (according to what your propaganda tells us) is not relevant all of a sudden. You are more loyal to israel than you are to britain, always rushing to defend your zionists. No englishman would be that loyal to israel.
14 June 2013, 07:21
01
I am not defending Israel once more, I am simply stating facts.
No one needs to pay me in order that I see the whole situation out there.
Fortunately there are some of us in the world who have been all over and have seen with their own eyes the situation in both the Arab States and Israel. There are many of us who watch television, not just LBC and Al-Manar, so we can see all sides of the conflicts.
I am loyal to the country of my birth, but that doesn't mean that I can't speak out when I see the way other countries are seen from across their borders.
Just so that I can get updated, please tell me how many Bedouin doctors and lawyers are there in Lebanon? Then look up somewhere just how many there are in Israel.
