Prawer Plan Platzed, or Postponed?
The Israeli government has backed down from the controversial Prawer Plan to relocate and dispossess tens of thousands of Bedouin villagers in the Naqab, the southern part of the country. The decision followed an announcement by Benny Begin, an architect of the plan, disavowing claims that he had consulted with the affected community. That disavowal lost Knesset support, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to shelve the scheme on 12 December 2013. However, it remains uncertain if this decision means a cancellation of the Prawer Plan, or just a postponement.
Days of Rage
In November 2013, Israel’s Knesset Internal Affairs Committee discussed the Prawer Plan bill and prepared it for its second and final third round of voting. Meanwhile, protest against Prawer Plan intensified, both in Israel and worldwide. The Prawer Plan calls for the forced removal and dispossession of some 40,000 Palestinian Arab villagers in the Naqab region (southern Israel/Palestine). Those citizens and their supporters declared 30 November as a day of rage against the plan, and demonstrations took place all around the world. In Israel, demonstrations were held in Hūra, Jerusalem, Haifa and Taibe (Triangle).
The main demonstration, outside of the Bedouin town of Hūra in al-Naqab, started at 15:30 PM, and ended peacefully only around 23:00 pm. Some 1,000 participants chanted and carried signs denouncing the plan.
After about an hour into the demonstration, police reinforced the already huge forces confronting the protesters, including water cannon, and the demonstration heated up. Protesters standing at the front of the demonstration said that it was the Mista’arvim (policemen disguised as Arab protesters) who provoked the escalation by throwing stones at the police.
Police on horseback stormed into the crowd, while protesters were running away into the field, police hurled stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd, and fired rubber-coated metal bullets. A police helicopter flew overhead and two water cannons, one with blue dye, sprayed the crowd. Protesters responded by throwing stones at the police and lighting tires on the road.
During the melee, police arrested 28 protesters and took them to the nearby police station. While a couple of the detainees were released on bail during the night and five more were released on Sunday morning, approximately 20 remained in detention, awaiting court hearings for an extension of their arrest.
In other Israeli cities, mounted police used tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon against demonstrators, in what the Association for Civil Rights in Israel described as a disproportionate response to stone throwing. More than 40 people were arrested at protests across the country, and 15 police officers were injured.
In what was billed as an international day of rage, demonstrations were also held in London, Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, Cairo and in the United States. On the day before the coordinated protests, prominent persons and celebrities, including Peter Gabriel and Julie Christie, published an open letter to the British government in The Guardian newspaper backing the campaign against the draconian legislation.
Resisting Ongoing Demolitions
On Wednesday, 20 November, police and Jewish National Fund bulldozers demolished the “unrecognized” village of al-`Araqīb for the 57th time. That afternoon, police returned to the village and arrested the village Sheikh Sayyāh al-Tūri, charging him with trespassing and violating the legal order. When the sheikh was brought to court for two hearings, the judge ruled that he would be released on bail, but forbidden to enter his own village. Sheikh Sayyāh al-Tūri refused those terms, and the judge sent him back to detention. Even after a reduction of the demanded bail, Sheikh al-Tūri still refused release if the court prohibited him from entering his own village. After he appealed to the District Court of Be’er-Sheva, Sheikh al-Turi was released without conditions until the next hearing scheduled for the coming week.
Israeli planning authorities have refused to recognized 45 Naqab villages, including some created by Israel’s destruction of over 100 indigenous settlements in the imposition of a containment zone (al-siyaj) on their inhabitants in 1951–53. In the “unrecognized” villages, all construction is considered illegal and subject to demolition, and authorities formally deny basic infrastructure and services to the citizens residing there.
So far in 2013, Israeli forces have demolished over 120 homes and other structures belonging to Palestinian citizens in the Naqab, uprooted tens of trees, plowed under hundreds of acres of cultivated land, and served at least 46 house demolition orders. With or without the Prawer Plan, the policy of demolition of Arab homes, land dispossession, destruction of livelihoods and denial of basic services remains standard.
Institutionalized Discrimination
These practices are expected to continue indefinitely, as long as Israel remains a state that restricts many economic, social and cultural rights to a single preferential group. In Israel, planning and development benefits, including planning criteria for legally recognizing and servicing a human settlement, are reserved for persons holding “Jewish nationality” under plans approved by planning councils dominated by voting representatives of the Jewish Agency, the parastatal organization chartered to serve only “Jewish nationals.” This Israeli Supreme Court reaffirmed this distinct status in the long-awaited decision in the Ornan case in October this year.
Shelving the dreaded Prawer Plan two months later may have removed one statutory basis for further dispossession and displacement. This may be temporary victory, if only on technical grounds, in one battle to retain Arab citizens’ homes and lands in Israel. The state context of Israel’s system of institutionalized, material discrimination against the country’s indigenous people affirms that this confrontation is far from over.
Photo: Protesters shout slogans in front of Herod`s Gate, Jerusalem, in support of Bedouin Arabs. Source: Imago / Barcroft Media
Demolitions in the Naqab, 2013
December 2 – Sawāwīn, Bedouin unrecognized village south of route 25, demolition orders issued.
December 2 – Wādī al-Na`am, Bedouin unrecognized village near Ramat Hovav, demolition orders issued.
December 3 – Umm Bātin, Bedouin recognized village east of Tel Sheva, two houses demolished.
November 20 – al-`Araqīb, Bedouin unrecognized village west of route 40 between Lehavim and Goral junctions, the village demolished for the 57th time.
November 20 – Bir Hadaj, Bedouin recognized village near Kibbutz Revivim, one house demolished.
November 19 – Sawāwīn, Bedouin unrecognized village south of route 25, one house demolished.
November 19 – al-Fur’a, Bedouin unrecognized village near Arad, one house demolished.
November 19 – Segev Shalom, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
November 13 – al-Sayyid, Bedouin recognized village southwest of Hūra, one house demolished.
November 13 – Sawā’, Bedouin unrecognized village south of Hūra, one house demolished.
October 29 – Umm Namila, Bedouin unrecognized village near Rahat, house demolition orders distributed.
October 27 – Rahat, Bedouin planned city, one house demolished.
October 27 – Ksaifa, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
October 24 – Wādī Mishāsh, Bedouin unrecognized village, one house demolished.
October 24 – Segev Shalom, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
October 24 – Umm Mitnan, Bedouin recognized village near Dimona, one house demolished.
October 24 – Derijat, Bedouin recognized village, tens of olive trees uprooted.
October 24 – al-`Araqīb, Bedouin unrecognized village west of route 40 between Lehavim and Goral junction, the village demolished for the 56th time.
October 8 – Wādī al-Na`am, Bedouin unrecognized village near Ramat Hovav, one house demolished.
October 8 – al-`Araqīb, Bedouin unrecognized village west of route 40 between Lehavim and Goral junction, the village demolished for the 55th time.
October 2 - Wādī al-Na`am, Bedouin unrecognized village near Ramat Hovav, one house demolished.
September 17 – Tel Sheva, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
September 17 – al-Fur’a, Bedouin recognized village southwest of Arad, one house demolished.
September 17 – al-Za`rūra, Bedouin unrecognized village south of route 31, one house demolished.
September 17 – `Atīr, Bedouin unrecognized village north east of Hūra, five houses demolished.
September 17 – al-`Araqīb, Bedouin unrecognized village west of route 40 between Lehavim and Goral junction, the village demolished for the 54th time.
September 11 – Rahat, Bedouin planned city, three structures demolished.
September 11 – Wādī al-Na`am, Bedouin unrecognized village near Ramat Hovav, one structure demolished.
September 10 – Bir Hadaj, Bedouin recognized village near Kibbutz Revivim, demolition orders distributed.
September 9 – al-Zarnūk, Bedouin unrecognized village northe of route 25, demolition and evacuation orders distributed.
September 9 – al-Shahābi, Bedouin unrecognized village south of route 25, demolition orders distributed.
September 3 – Wādī Gwain, Bedouin unrecognized village south of route 31, one house demolished.
August 26 – Qasr al-Sīr, Bedouin recognized village near route 25, one house demolished.
August 26 – Tel Sheva, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
August 26 – al-`Araqīb village, all structures demolished for the 53rd time.
August 21 – Sawāwīn, Bedouin unrecognized village south of route 25, south west of the town of Segev Shalom, one house demolished.
August 21 – al-`Araqīb village, all structures demolished for the 52nd time.
August 15 – al-`Araqīb village, all structures demolished for the 51st time.
August 15 – Abū Qrainat, Bedouin recognized village near route 31, 2 houses demolished.
August 14 – Ksaifa, Bedouin planned town, 3 houses and one structure demolished, a couple of trees uprooted.
August 14 – Umm Bātin, Bedouin recognized village east of Tel Sheva, one house demolished.
August 13 – Sawāwīn, Bedouin unrecognized village, 5 demolition orders distributed.
August 12 – Bi’r Hadaj, Bedouin recognized village near Kibbutz Revivim, demolition orders distributed.
July 16 – al-`Araqīb village, all structures demolished for the 50th time.
July 2 – Laqīya, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
July 2 – Segev Shalom, Bedouin planned town, one structure demolished.
June 27 – `Atīr, Bedouin unrecognized village northeast of Hūra, 7 houses and tents demolished.
June 19 – al-`Araqīb village, all structures demolished for the 49th time.
June 19 – Laqīya, Bedouin planned town, one house demolished.
June 19 – Umm Bātin, Bedouin recognized village east of Tel Sheva, one house demolished.
June 12 – Qasr al-Sīr, Bedouin recognized village, a house, shop, and another structure demolished.
May 30 – al-Bat, Bedouin unrecognized village, one house demolished.
May 30 – al-Far`a, Bedouin unrecognized village, one house demolished.
May 30 – Bi’r al-Mishāsh, Bedouin unrecognized village, 2 houses demolished. The police fired rubber bullets, injuring residents. Two people arrested.
May 30 – `Atīr, Bedouin unrecognized village northeast of Hūra, 5 houses demolished; residents’ belongings confiscated.
May 30 – al-`Araqīb village, all structures demolished for the 48th time.
May 29 – Rahat Industrial Zone, a farm demolished.
May 22 – al-Sayyid, unrecognized village near Hūra, three houses demolished.
May 20 – Bi’r Hadaj, tent burned.
May 16 – `Atīr (northern Naqab), a large police force and the Israel Land Administration (ILA) barricaded the unrecognized village, demolished fifteen demolitions and uprooted many trees.
May 9 – al-`Araqīb demolished for the 47th time.
May 9 – Khirbat al-Batl, south of Rahat, one house demolished.
May 9 – Segev Shalom tow, one structure demolished.
May 9 – al-Sayyid, one house demolished.
April 22 – Rahat, a house demolished.
April 22 – North of `Ar’ara Benegev, a shack demolished.
April 18 – Wādī al-Na’am, a shop demolished.
April 18 – Umm Ratam, a house demolished.
April 18 – South of Rahat, a house demolished.
April 10 – al-`Araqīb demolished for the 46th time.
March 13 – Wādī al-Mishāsh, one house demolished and a teenage female arrested.
March 11 – Tel al-Malakh, west of Ksaifa, one house demolished.
March 13 – al-`Araqīb, west of route 40 between Lehavim and Goral junctions, the village demolished for the 45th time.
March 11 – Makhūl, one house demolished.
March 11 – West of Ksaifa, one shack demolished.
February 27 – Ksaifa, one house demolished.
February 27 – al-Zarnūq, an unrecognized village north of route 25, an animal pen demolished.
February 27 – Umm Bātin, northeast of Tel Sheva, one house demolished.
February 21 – Northeast of Hūra, dozens of acres plowed.
February 21 – Sawā’, dozens of acres plowed.
February 21 – Qasr al-Sīr, dozens of acres plowed.
February 19 – Wādī al-Na`am, an unrecognized Bedouin village near Ramat Hovav, fields plowed.
February 12 – West of al-`Araqīb, west of route 40, between Lehavim and Goral junctions, five houses of the al-`Uqbi family demolished.
February 12 – al-`Araqīb, west of route 40, between Lehavim and Goral junctions, the village demolished for the 44th time.
February 12 – Umm Bātin, northeast of Tel Sheva, hundreds of acres of fields plowed.
February 12 – Laqīya, hundreds of acres of fields plowed.
February 12– Khirbat al-Batl, south of Rahat, hundreds of acres of fields plowed.
February 6 – al-Sayyid, west of Hūra, three houses demolished.
February 6 – Wādī al-Na’am, near Ramat-Hovav east of route 40, one house and one stable demolished.
February 5 – South of Rahat, hundreds of acres of fields plowed.
January 17 – al-`Araqīb, a Bedouin unrecognized village, west of route 40 between Lehavim and Goral junctions, demolished for the 43rd time.
January 17 – al-Madbakh, east of Segev Shalom, two houses demolished.
January 17 – Laqīya, one house demolished.
January 12 – Dakhīa, north of Rahat, one house demolished.
January 12 – Tel Sheva, one house demolished.
January 9 – Umm Namila, north of Rahat, one house demolished.
January 9 – Tel Sheva, one house demolished.
Source: Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality - DuKium
הודעה מהפורום לדו קיום בנגב לשיוון אזרחי - דוקיום
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