Israel's Plan to Displace Thousands is a 'War on the Arab Bedouins'

Adalah urges the government of Israel to reject the Prawer Report as it violates the rights of the people.

This is the 9th demolition of Bedouin village Al Arakib in the Negev, on January 16, 2011. Photo: Bedouin-JewishJustice

(SALEM, Ore.) - On 4 September 2011, Adalah sent an urgent letter to the Israeli government and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urging them not to approve the Prawer Committee report. The Prawer Committee was established in 2009 to implement the recommendations of the Goldberg Committee.

Adalah is the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

In the letter, Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara revealed previously unpublished evidence of Arab Bedouin ownership of their lands and called on the government to recognize the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab (Negev).

Dr. Thabet Abu Ras, Director of Adalah’s Naqab Project, stated that, "Instead of bringing justice and righting historical wrongs against them, the Prawer Report is a declaration of war on the Arab Bedouin."

The Prawer Report, which threatens to violate the rights of the Arab Bedouin in the Naqab (Negev) and dispossess them of their land, was scheduled for a vote by the government on 4 September 2011, however, later that day it was postponed for a month.

In the letter, Adalah also demanded that the government begin to right the historical wrongs committed against the Arab Bedouin tribes by granting recognition to the “unrecognized” Arab Bedouin villages and to Bedouin land ownership in the Naqab.

Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara argued in the letter that, "It appears from the report drafted by the Prawer Committee and the amendments prepared by [National Security Adviser] Yaakov Amidror, who has been commissioned by the Prime Minister to review the report, that implementation of the plan will lead to the displacement of tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens from their homes in the unrecognized villages.

"Its implementation will further result in the perpetuation of the decades-long violation of the property rights of the Bedouin tribes on their ancestral land in the Naqab."

Adalah reveals in the letter information from previously unpublished documents obtained from the archives dating from the 1950s and 1960s that show that the Ottoman Government and the British Mandatory Authorities officially recognized traditional ownership of land by the Bedouin, and even collected taxes on that basis.

Documents also show that before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 Jewish individuals and institutions purchased land from the Bedouin based on customary ownership, and that both the Mandatory Authorities and the Israeli authorities recognized these transactions. However, Israel has not accepted the ownership claims submitted by the Arab Bedouin from the 1970s until today.

Israel is further denying them their rights to this ancestral land, in direct opposition to the approach adopted by the pre-state authorities and contrary to state practice in cases in which land was purchased by Jewish individuals.

Dr. Thabet Abu Ras, Director of Adalah's Naqab Project, stated that, "Instead of bringing justice and righting historical wrongs against them, the Prawer Report is a declaration of war on the Arab Bedouin and will violate their rights."

Source: Adalah Press Release