Tag Archives: Prawer Commission

| Adalah: Withdrawal of the Prawer Plan bill is a major achievement!

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Adalah: Withdrawal of the Prawer Plan bill is a major achievement ~ MEMO.

Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, has called the Israeli government’s decision to withdraw the Prawer Plan bill a “major achievement in the history of the Palestinian community in Israel.”

On 12 December, former Israeli cabinet minister Benny Begin announced at a press conference that the government is withdrawing the proposed Prawer-Begin bill. The draft law was set to be considered for a second and third reading in the Knesset until Begin admitted earlier this week that the bill faced sweeping rejection from the Bedouin community, contrary to government assertions that they had approved of the plan. The bill was proposing to forcibly displace up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab, or Negev, where many have lived for generations.

Adalah stated in a press release that the cancellation of the bill “shows that popular action, legal advocacy and international pressure can succeed in defending the rights of 70,000 Arab Bedouin residents of the unrecognised villages in the Naqab to live with freedom and dignity on their own lands and in their villages.”

Adalah described how the Israeli “decision to withdraw the bill follows the recent disclosure of maps, figures and details that echoed the numerous statements made by Adalah, human rights organisations and international bodies, which argued that the Prawer-Begin bill was created without consultation with the Bedouin community and without transparency to the villagers that it would effect.”

The centre further pointed out that: “The government was forced to reveal the Plan’s details after intensive media attention and public activism against the Prawer Plan in recent weeks,” noting that the Israeli police tried to suppress the widespread public activism against the bill by using “excessive force” and making “thousands of arrests”, adding that “Adalah and other volunteer lawyers defended the detained protesters in court and filed official complaints to the Police Investigation Unit (“Mahash”) against the police’s violent conduct.”

The statement continued: “The cancellation of the bill is a platform to continue the dedicated work in the struggle to prevent the Israeli government from implementing the Prawer Plan. The government’s plans for the Naqab will lead to the demolition, evacuation and confiscation of Bedouin homes and lands, among which is the village of Atir-Umm El-Hieran, which will be destroyed in order to build a Jewish settlement and a forest over its lands.”

The rights centre concluded that: “The state must recognise the Arab Bedouin citizens’ historical ownership of their lands, grant legal recognition to the unrecognised villages, and provide full services, infrastructure and proper living conditions that are denied to the Bedouin residents of the Naqab. Adalah remains committed to the struggle for the rights and recognition of the Bedouin villages, alongside local partners and international human rights actors.”

 Benny BeginOn 12 December, former Israeli cabinet minister Benny Begin announced at a press conference that the government is withdrawing the proposed Prawer-Begin bill.________________________________________________________________________

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| Prawer Plan: Britons protest over Israel removing 70,000 Palestinians!

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Britons protest over Israel plan to remove 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins ~  in Jerusalem, theguardian.com.

More than 50 public figures including Antony Gormley and Brian Eno put names to letter opposing expulsion from historic land.

More than 50 public figures in Britain, including high-profile artists, musicians and writers, have put their names to a letter opposing an Israeli plan to forcibly remove up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins from their historic desert land – an act condemned by critics as ethnic cleansing.

The letter, published in the Guardian, is part of a day of protest on Saturday in Israel, Palestine and two dozen other countries over an Israeli parliamentary bill that is expected to get final approval by the end of this year.

The eviction and destruction of about 35 “unrecognised” villages in the Negev desert will, the letter says, “mean the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land, and systematic discrimination and separation”.

The signatories – who include the artist Antony Gormley, the actor Julie Christie, the film director Mike Leigh and the musician Brian Eno – are demanding that the British government holds Israel to account over itshuman rights record and obligations under international law.

According to Israel, the aims of the Prawer Plan – named after the head of a government commission, Ehud Prawer – are economic development of the Negev desert and the regulation of Palestinian Bedouins living in villages not recognised by the state.

The population of these villages will be removed to designated towns, while plans for new Jewish settlements in the area are enacted.

But Adalah, a human rights and legal centre for Arabs in Israel, says: “The real purpose of the legislation [is] the complete and final severance of the Bedouin’s historical ties to their land.”

The “unrecognised” villages in the Negev, whose populations range from a few hundred to 2,000, lack basic services such as running water, electricity, landline telephones, roads, high schools and health clinics. Some consist of a few shacks and animal pens made from corrugated iron; others include concrete houses and mosques built without necessary but unobtainable permission.

The Bedouin comprise about 30% of the Negev’s population but their villages take up only 2.5% of the land. Before the state of Israel was created in 1948 they roamed widely across the desert; now, two-thirds of the region has been designated as military training grounds and firing ranges.

Under the Prawer Plan, between 40,000 and 70,000 of the remaining Bedouin – who became Israeli citizens in the 1950s – will be moved into seven over-crowded, impoverished, crime-ridden state-planned towns. The Israeli government says it is an opportunity for Bedouins to live in modern homes, take regular jobs and send their children to mainstream schools. They will be offered compensation to move, it adds.

Miranda Pennell, a film-maker and one of the letter’s signatories, said: “Citizenship counts for nothing in Israel if you happen to be an Arab. Tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouin are being forcibly displaced from their homes and lands. At the same time, there are Israeli government advertisements on the web that promise you funding as a British immigrant to come and live in ‘vibrant communities’ in the Negev – if you are Jewish. This is ethnic cleansing.”

The actor David Calder said: “The Israeli state not only practices apartheid against the Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, but it seems they have no hesitation in practicing apartheid on their own citizens – in this instance, the Bedouins. When is the west going to find these actions intolerable?”

Bedouin children walk to school in the Negev desert

Bedouin children walk to school in the Negev desert. Photograph: Karen Robinson _________________________________________________________________________
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