07/05/2007
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Hundreds of Bedouins, men, women and children were left homeless in the freezing
night of the Negev Desert, as the Israeli Land Authority had demolished their
homes at a moment's notice to make way for new Jewish community villages. The
new refugees were residents of two unrecognized villages, Yatir and Um El Hiran;
the new Jewish villages will be called Yatir and Hiran. Such villages are usually
meant to draw middle-class Israeli from the centre of the country, in order to
enlarge the Jewish sector of the Negev population.
The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages said that the demolition orders
for the unrecognized villages were handed over two years ago. As the demolition
inspectors began to arrive to the village Sunday night, the understanding was
that a evacuation and compensation settlement will be signed in the morning; the
inspectors were hosted with a Bedouin feast, a lamb was slaughtered in their honor
and they were offered accommodation for the night. But as the morning dawned on
the villages it became clear that the ILA backed off from the agreement: instead
of officials carrying documents, the villagers they were attacked by bulldozers,
policemen, IDF soldiers, and teenagers illegally employed by a manpower agency.
Eyewitnesses reported shocking scenes, as the security forces refused to let families
to clear their possessions from the homes. Mothers were not allowed to take out
their children from their homes; soldiers and the teenage workers carried out
the cots and beds of the children from the houses, and concentrated them in one
area, denying access to the mothers until the demolition was complete. Several
hours later, the villages were completely flattened; not a single house remained.
The state declined to provide alternative accommodation for the families, and
they were forced to spend the night in the freezing night of the desert, which
can reach as low as 5C at this time of the year. It remains unclear whether the
families would receive alternative accommodation after all, and whether a compensation
agreement will be reached.
A strategy of legal traps. The residents of the unrecognized Bedouin villages
Yatir and Um El Hiran are evacuees themselves. Like many other Bedouins in the
Negev, which is within Israel proper, they have been expelled from their ancestral
lands in 1956. Their original lands became annexed to Kibbutz Shoval (established
ten years earlier by socialist ha Shomer ha Tzair). The evacuees were driven eastwards,
and were not normally offered alternative accomodation or alternative agricultural
or pasture lands. The villages these refugees established were termed illegal
by the Israeli authorities; consequently, they are always in danger of demolition
and expulsion, which happen annually. Along with older villages that the state
decided not to recognize officially when it was established in 1948, there are
around 40 such villages in Israel, housing over 100,000 people. Almost none of
these villages are connected to electricity or water, and the Israeli press regularly
puts out alarming reports of terminally ill residents dying because the homes
lack the electricity to power respiratory machines and other vital medical equipment.
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An israeli journalist tells the demolition of two bedouin villages in Negev
Written by
Dimitri Reider*
Two Bedouin villages of the Negev desert, Yatir and Um El Hiran, had been completely
demolished by the Israeli Army and Israeli Police to make a way for new Jewish
community villages. In a twist that can only be defined as perverted, hundreds
of Bedouins, men, women and children were brutally left homeless in the freezing
night of Monday 25 of June in a revival of 1956, when Bedouins were forced out
of their original land. Dimitri Reider, an Israeli journalist, writes about their
story which is repeating itself and their plight which is ignored by most of Jewish
citizens of Israel.
Hundreds of Bedouins, men, women and children were left homeless in the freezing
night of the Negev Desert, as the Israeli Land Authority had demolished their
homes at a moment's notice to make way for new Jewish community villages. The
new refugees were residents of two unrecognized villages, Yatir and Um El Hiran;
the new Jewish villages will be called Yatir and Hiran. Such villages are usually
meant to draw middle-class Israeli from the centre of the country, in order to
enlarge the Jewish sector of the Negev population.
The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages said that the demolition orders
for the unrecognized villages were handed over two years ago. As the demolition
inspectors began to arrive to the village Sunday night, the understanding was
that a evacuation and compensation settlement will be signed in the morning; the
inspectors were hosted with a Bedouin feast, a lamb was slaughtered in their honor
and they were offered accommodation for the night. But as the morning dawned on
the villages it became clear that the ILA backed off from the agreement: instead
of officials carrying documents, the villagers they were attacked by bulldozers,
policemen, IDF soldiers, and teenagers illegally employed by a manpower agency.
Eyewitnesses reported shocking scenes, as the security forces refused to let families
to clear their possessions from the homes. Mothers were not allowed to take out
their children from their homes; soldiers and the teenage workers carried out
the cots and beds of the children from the houses, and concentrated them in one
area, denying access to the mothers until the demolition was complete. Several
hours later, the villages were completely flattened; not a single house remained.
The state declined to provide alternative accommodation for the families, and
they were forced to spend the night in the freezing night of the desert, which
can reach as low as 5C at this time of the year. It remains unclear whether the
families would receive alternative accommodation after all, and whether a compensation
agreement will be reached. A strategy of legal traps. The residents of the unrecognized Bedouin villages
Yatir and Um El Hiran are evacuees themselves. Like many other Bedouins in the
Negev, which is within Israel proper, they have been expelled from their ancestral
lands in 1956. Their original lands became annexed to Kibbutz Shoval (established
ten years earlier by socialist ha Shomer ha Tzair). The evacuees were driven eastwards,
and were not normally offered alternative accomodation or alternative agricultural
or pasture lands. The villages these refugees established were termed illegal
by the Israeli authorities; consequently, they are always in danger of demolition
and expulsion, which happen annually. Along with older villages that the state
decided not to recognize officially when it was established in 1948, there are
around 40 such villages in Israel, housing over 100,000 people. Almost none of
these villages are connected to electricity or water, and the Israeli press regularly
puts out alarming reports of terminally ill residents dying because the homes
lack the electricity to power respiratory machines and other vital medical equipment.
While there is active involvement with the villages on the fringes of the left
camp of Israel, most Israelis are unaware of the history and plight of the Bedouins.
Israeli Jews tend to view them at best as "exotic", and enjoy taking pausing at
Bedouin tents for midday and midnight meals, making use of the legendary Bedouin
hospitality. Outside of tourism, though, Bedouins are seen as dangerous, primitive
vagabonds, untrustworthy and unsanitary. The marginalization and persecution of
the Bedouin citizens of Israel included evacuations, demolitions, a severe lack
of educational facilities and soaring unemployment. The natural result of this
were unprecedented crime rates in the community, often affecting the Jewish residents
nearby; for instance, the Beer Sheva suburb Omer, established on Bedouin lands,
is number one in Israel both for urban quality of life - and for property related
crime. Another example is the dangerous, careless and some claim desperate driving
by Bedouin youths, which cause a substantial number of fatal incidents every year.
This contributes to the enmity of the Jewish residents of the Negev, and makes
rallying support and solidarity extremely difficult. Also, most Jews in Israel
are deeply ignorant of the real situation and history of the Bedouins, consequently
often using arguments on "law and order", state property etc when they support
the evacuation.
The result of it all was that the actions of the ILA were completely legal under
Israeli law; the villages were established "without permission" on "state land",
which means that the government could have evacuated them at any time. A change
of attitude in the Israeli society - from ethnocentrism to cross-community solidarity
- and a substantial rise in international attention to this policy would be necessary
for the policy to be significantly challenged.
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