pascalsview

Bedouin Update: Civil Protests in Front of the Knesset Draw Attention to Negev Home Demolitions

I've been writing for a couple of years about the disturbing sequence of events in the Bedouin communities of the Negev, as home demolitions incite greater frustration among the Bedouin communities and their leaders.  Recent protests at the Knesset seem to be getting more attention from the Israeli authorities (I received this message July 23 from Faisal Sawalha, spokesperson for the RCUV, whom I met with Hussein Al-Rafay'a on a trip to the Negev in 2005):

Thanks to the RCUV's [Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages] pressure: the evacuation and home demolition in Um Al-Hiran Stopped

Mr. Hussein Al-Rafay'a, the RCUV's chairperson, and the RCUV leadership who are in the Refugee Camp for the Victims of Home Demolition in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem since July 16 got information this morning that a large number of policemen with their vehicles and bulldozers were near Omer on their way to demolish homes in the village of Atteer Um Al-Hiran, where 20 homes were demolished three weeks ago. Mr. Al-Rafay'a called people in the relevant ministries and governmental offices asking them not to demolish homes. After that, they received a call from the Ministry of Housing saying that the forces will not demolish homes today.

Mr. Al-Rafay'a sad, "We started the Refugee Camp last week to protest against home demolition. After that, we talked to people from different governmental ministries. The Ministries of Interior and Housing said that they will stop home demolition if the Legal Counselor of the government approves this agreement. We are still waiting for his decision. There are people in the governmental offices in the Negev that do not want this agreement. When I called the ministries this morning, they did not know about the home demolition that was planned today."

المجلس الاقليمي للقرى غير المعترف بها في النقب
המועצה האזורית לכפרים הבלתי מוכרים בנגב
The Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev
tel: 972-8-6283043
fax: 972-8-6283315

There are two sides to every story, of course, but, in my view, the Bedouin community issue will not be resolved through government stonewalling.

A New Leader Emerges in Israel- Colette Avital Runs for President

Colette Avital, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and member of the Labor-Meimad party, is running for President of Israel against Shimon Peres. Whether she wins or loses this election, which is scheduled to be held in the next two weeks, Ms. Avital has stepped up as one of the new leaders that Israel desperately needs.

Colette Avital is a religious pluralist who is pragmatic and very smart. I just returned from hearing her speak at the San Francisco JCC this morning at an event sponsored by the New Israel Fund.  She is not only articulate and level headed, she is willing to take public positions that may be unpopular but are in the best interests of Israel’s future.

This past June, just a few days before the Hamas abduction of Gilad Shalit, my family and I met in private at the Knesset with Colette to learn more about her political views. A native of Bucharest, Romania (where my father was born) she is a career diplomat who has served as the Israeli consul general to New York, Ambassador to Portugal, Consul in Paris, and Press Attache in Brussels.  She is also fluent in seven languages.  She is engaging and pleasant in private-- serious but human.

In her remarks today, she made some very important points about current events in Israel that too many American Jews continue to ignore. I have summarized a number of the points that she made that were important to me:

• The Lebanese war of 2006 has laid bare serious Israeli social problems that have been simmering for many years. It is time for these to be addressed or Israel’s future will be seriously at risk. The social safety net broke down in the crisis and Israeli citizens did not receive the basic protection and emergency services that they should have received form the government.

• Arab citizens of Israel were, for the first time, exposed to the same missiles as the Jews. The result is that Israeli Arabs now strongly feel that the government does not provide them with equal treatment.

• If the government does not respond to this sense of injustice, Israel is at risk of seeing a new intifada from its own Arab citizens. [I have been blogging about this risk since I began pascalsview!, note my posts about the Bedouin problem and segregated education.]

• The Israeli government has neglected social issues and poverty is growing. A recently released demographic survey reveals that Israel today has the largest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized democracy.

• 25% of Israeli citizens, 1.6 million people, live BELOW the poverty line—and 58% of these are working poor.

• Ironically, globalization and Israel’s high-tech focus have led to greater inequality in the country. There are too few low-tech jobs available in Israel—some type of government sponsored planned economic acitivity needs to be started to address this problem directly.

• Israel has been too dependent on the United States’ “unimaginative foreign policy” approaches to the Middle East’s problems. This needs to change. Categorizing countries such as Syria as members of the “Axis of Evil” and refusing to deal with them is not useful.  While the majority of Israelis today is unwilling to pay the diplomatic price of peaceful coexistence with Syria (giving up the Golan Heights) the long term path to serious negotiation needs to start with dialog, not denial and exclusion.

• Further unilateral action by Israel in the region is dead, and that’s a good thing.

• Israel must engage in diplomacy with the Palestinians, with the European governments, and with the moderate Arab regimes in the region to craft a new negotiated solution that is built around the central and mutually held interest that all of these parties have in curbing extremism.

• A renewed dialog with the Palestinians, centered around the controversial but progressive Prisoners’ Document, can be established.

• Economic sanctions against Iran will fail to be enacted and will fail to be effective if enacted. Iran will develop offensive nuclear weapons (the right question is “when” not “if”). Israel should pursue a policy of engagement with Iran to achieve détente as part of a policy designed to establish regional stability BEFORE Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

• While Iran is clearly anti-Semitic, she does not believe that the Iranians are obsessed with the eradication of Israel. She believes the Iranian government today is more obsessed with using anti-Semitism to establish itself as a regional superpower and to create a base of allies aligned with Iran against its Sunni neighbors.

• Issues of pluralism and tolerance in Israel have been pushed aside in the wake of the Lebanese war of 2006. This is a mistake. We cannot ignore issues such as the fact that there is still no civil marriage in Israel and 400,000 people living in the country can’t get married because they are not recognized as Jews.

Colette Avital is no newcomer to the Israeli political scene.  Unlike other seasoned politicians in Israel, in my view, she represents exactly the kind of new thinking that the country needs.

With the shameful embarrassment of current President Moshe Katsav’s personal conduct adding another unnecessary burden to the Israeli psyche, a person of Colette Avital’s gravitas and realism is a breath of fresh air.

Whether she wins the presidency or not, I am very pleased to see her raise the bar for political leadership in Israel at this critical time. We are going to be hearing a lot more from Colette Avital!

The Domari Jerusalem Gypsies-- An Update

I've added a link below to the Fall 2006 issue of the Gypsy Wheel, which provides a glimpse into the self-help and educational activities that the Domari Gypsies of Jerusalem are initiating to improve their lives.  I've spent a considerable amount of time getting to know the Domari over the last several years and have written about them elsewhere in this blog. 

Amoun Sleem, who leads a group of the Domari with determined optimism for their future, deserves support and encouragement.

Download the_gypsy_wheel_vol_1_issue_3.pdf

Is Anything Improving for the Bedouins in Israel?

A couple of years ago, I met with Faisal Sawalha, spokeperson for the Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) of the Negev, on a visit to Beer Sheva.  This visit has been documented in this blog.  On Friday, September 1, I received another update from Faisal on the latest Bedouin home demolitions in the Negev desert:

From his email:

"What can we do?" Mrs Talalqa asked again and again, as she sat on a mat in the tent that the government buldozers did not demolish today. What can we do? Where will we go when it rains? And the sheep – they all ran away to the hills when the government buldozers destroyed the pen. Where will I make dinner? How can I wash dishes? Where will the children sit to do their homework? And the bathroom… we don't have a bathroom!

This morning at 9:00am, when the men were at work, three government appointed buldozers, accompanied by about 50 police people came to destroy ALL the homes in the village of Twiel abu-Jarwal. Today there are 34 more homeless children.

Every year the Government of Israel demolishes more than one hundred houses in the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Israeli Negev. This year they have doubled their efforts…

The Bedouin problem in Israel is currently lost in the continuing roar of the crisis in Gaza and the wrenching self-criticism that is the aftermath of the Lebanese war.  But it is a problem, and it is not going away.  As with many other unresolved socio-political and economic issues in Israel, the basic math is not good for the future of the State of Israel-- how many homeless citizens with no hope of a better future does it take to convert into radical fundamentalists who only care about destroying "the other"?  Not many.

There are 130,000 or more Bedouins in the Negev, and they are Israeli citizens.

Instead of demolishing homes, the government should be emphasizing job creation and facilitating Bedouin participation in the economic enterprise zones that are being established in the Negev.  This may already be happening, and if it is, I, and perhaps many others, would love to hear about it.  But the only email messages I am receiving from the Bedouin leadership are about increasingly organized protests and more home demolitions. 

The Bedouins Take Their Civil Rights Program on the Road

Bedouin Invitation, originally uploaded by levensohn_pascal.

Beginning on June 13, 2006, a traveling civil rights tent will go to every unrecognized village in the Negev and meet with interested citizens. Speakers will include Hussain Al Rafaya, RCUV Chairperson, and two Arab Members of the Knesset-- Talab Al Sana and Hanna Swaid. This program is being funded by Oxfam G.B.

Al Jazeera Reports on the Deepening Bedouin Crisis in Israel

I first wrote about the Bedouins in this blog on June 23, 2005, shortly after meeting in person with Hussain Rafay'a, President of the Regional Council for the Arab Unrecognized Villages in the Negev.  My visit to Ber Sheva and to the Negev desert included visiting several of the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the region.  My post from this visit includes pictures of what I saw.  I was accompanied by Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center, and we also met with Faisal Sawalha, who is responsible for Resource Development and Public Relations for the Regional Council for the Arab Unrecognized Villages in the Negev.

In short, my observations then were that the Bedouin situation is deplorable, that the Bedouins deserve better as Israeli citizens, and that Hussain Rafay'a was a level-headed businessman who could be reasonable in negotiating on behalf of the people that he represents (he was elected to his position).

To read all of my posts on this subject, you can search this blog by entering "Bedouins" in the Site Search box in the left column.

Almost one year later, having posted updates on this situation several times, things appear to be getting worse for the Bedouins.  In my view, the Israeli government should engage with the current leadership of the Bedouins and not continue to stand behind the bureaucratic position that they will not negotiate with unrecognized representatives of an unrecognized group.  Why do I feel that I've seen this movie before? And I don't like the way that it ends...

Al Jazeera has caught on to the Bedouin story and recently reported on the latest developments in the region.  for a link to the full story, click here.  Based on my own independent research and discussion on the Bedouins with people that I trust, this article does capture the essence of the problem.

Some excerpts:

According to Bedouin leaders, the Israeli government is intent on removing about 40 Bedouin villages in the Negev region that are inhabited by as many as 80,000 people - an allegation the government denies.

Last week, Israeli police reportedly stepped up the destruction of Bedouin homes and outbuildings in what are termed "unrecognised villages".

"Like they are doing to our Palestinian brothers in the West Bank, they are doing here to us," said Talab al Sani'e, a Bedouin and a member of Israel's Knesset. "They are destroying our homes and stealing our land and trying to concentrate us in small reservations in order to take our land and give it Jewish settlers."

Sani'e told Aljazeera.net there was "systematic discrimination" against the Bedouins. "Some of these so-called unrecognised villages predated the state of Israel.

I wonder who needs recognition from whom," said Sani'e. "Israel has created 140 Jewish towns and villages in the Negev. And now they want to destroy Bedouin villages."

Hussein Rafaya’a, president of the Regional Council of the Unrecognised Villages, accused the Israeli government of illegally confiscating more than 98% of Bedouin land. "Between 1948 and 1966, Israel seized 12 million dunams [one dunam is 1000 square meters], and in 1978, they confiscated more than 100,000 dunams. And now they chasing us to steal our remaining land."

Saqr Salouk, editor-in-chief of the Naba News Agency, a local news outlet covering the Bedouin community in southern Israel, accuses Israel of committing "ugly acts of racism against Bedouins."

It is my experience in business that two parties can negotiate an acceptable solution to a problem as long as both sides genuinely wish to come to the table and each side is willing to give up something to get to a resolution that benefits both sides.

It is clear that the State of Israel cannot negotiate with Hamas as long as Hamas will not renounce terrorist violence and continues to refuse to recognize the existence of the State of Israel.  Looking at the Bedouin situation from the outside and with some, though limited, personal exposure to a few of the leading players in this scenario, I believe that it would be in the best interests of both the State of Israel and the Bedouins for a constructive negotiation to occur now in order to resolve the plight of the Unrecognized Villages of the Negev.   

Israeli Arabs and the Security of Israel

The article below comes from the publication Forward (click here for a link).  It is a concise statement of the need for immediate, greater focus on promoting the socio-economic integration of the Israeli Arab minority into the mainstream of Israel and raises many points that I have been making through anecdotes on this blog since its inception.

This blog identifies specific efforts to promote improved Arab Jewish relations in Israel.  For example, (1) through early childhood bilingual education in the Hand in Hand schools; (2) by drawing attention to the plight of the Bedouins in the Unrecognized Villages of the Negev; and (3) through the advocacy work promoting religious pluralism by the Israel Religious Action Center.

Why Israeli Arabs Are a Jewish Issue
By Kenneth Jacobson and Larry Garber
May 19, 2006

The leadership of several major American Jewish organizations recently established a task force to improve relations between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews and to address the disparities of opportunity and discrimination confronting Arabs in Israel. The task force comprises 50 Jewish organizations and aims to generate awareness among both North American Jews and Israelis, with the aim of advancing civic equality in Israel and, in certain cases, leveraging financial resources to provide effective solutions for long-standing problems.

With all the many issues on the agenda of American Jewry and the complex character of the Israeli Arab situation, it is reasonable to ask why American Jews should bother.

After all, the threats to Israel's security today are arguably greater than they have been in some years. The Hamas victory, the nuclearization and even greater radicalization of Iran, the continuing international assaults on Israel's good name and, here in the United States, the discourse about the "Israel Lobby" resulting from the Mearsheimer-Walt paper seemingly provide more than enough challenges to focus our attention. At the same time, one hears and reads about signs of fundamentalism and radicalism among segments of the Israeli Arab community that suggest a desire to challenge the Zionist character of Israel and a willingness to identify with Hamas, even as they eschew their terrorist means.

None of those points can be ignored. There is, indeed, much on our plate. It is, however, exactly because the internal and external challenges for Israel are so great that we believe our community must see the issue of Israeli Arabs as one of immense and immediate importance.

There are many reasons why. First, it is in Israel's strategic interest to address this growing problem. During the past 58 years, Israel has constantly defended itself against enemies who have denied its legitimacy. Calls for unity within the Israeli public, usually meaning its Jewish public, are sounded time and again.

But what has existed and should not be taken for granted is an Arab minority in Israel — about 20% of the population — that has, despite experiencing inequities and discrimination, remained loyal to the state. We do not discount the examples of Israeli Arab violence or the provocative critiques of Israel emanating from some segments of Israel's Arab community, but Israel's ability to confront extreme foes committed to its destruction without having to face conflict from within has been a remarkable boon to the Jewish state.

The riots by the Israeli Arab community in October 2000, however, signaled that there was no guarantee that the civil peace would last. The Or Commission, which was appointed by the state to investigate those riots, concluded that the Israeli Arab issue "is the most sensitive and important domestic issue facing Israel today." That commission and, indeed, common sense tell us that if the condition of Israeli Arabs continues to be neglected, the consequences for the security and stability of the state will be immense.

Second, Israel's treatment of its minority population is an issue of Jewish values. Israel's strength lies in its Jewish and democratic nature. One characteristic without the other would undermine the great country that means so much to all of us.

These values, embodied in Israel's Declaration of Independence, are the root of cohesion for a nation whose people come from diverse backgrounds and political ideologies. The fact that the Arab sector does not receive its fair share of state resources, and that not enough is being done to uproot pervasive societal discrimination, are examples of Israel not meeting the principled aspirations that it has set for itself.

Third, addressing the issue will enhance Israel's image in the world at-large and among Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. Image is not a peripheral matter but fundamental to Israel's strategic interest. Of course, we are not so naïve as to believe that addressing Israeli Arab equality will turn around those in the world who engage in unrelenting anti-Israel bashing.

Many others, however, are more ambivalent about Israel and what Israel does can have impact, as was seen in the reaction to its disengagement from Gaza. Treatment of underprivileged minorities is an issue in dozens of countries; Israel can set an example in how it addresses the problem.

Many American Jews, particularly those who are unaffiliated, might open their eyes to the significance of an Israel that takes seriously the responsibility to realize ideals of a Jewish and democratic state. And many in the United States and around the world would welcome it as a model state that successfully internalizes and synthesizes core values based on a combination of religious traditions and contemporary human rights principles.

Let us be clear: In calling for American Jews to make this issue a priority, we are not saying that we should tell Israel what to do. We respect Israel's sovereignty and do not underestimate the complexity of its societal challenges.

But American Jews do matter in the world Jewish community. As on other issues, when we pay attention, when we direct funding to certain projects, we send an important signal about our priorities to Israelis of all backgrounds.

To the many organizations participating in this task force, this is a not a left-wing or right-wing issue. Rather, it is a subject that Jews of whatever ideological stripe should consider important for the well-being of the Jewish state and our own sense of identity.

Kenneth Jacobson is associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Larry Garber is executive director of the New Israel Fund.

More Trouble for the Bedouins in the Negev

The Bedouin situation in Israel continues to trouble me.  I have written about my visit to the Negev on this blog before, and the stream of information that comes to me from this region does not show any constructive progress.

To be clear, I am troubled because the Bedouins are Israeli citizens, not refugees, but they appear to be treated without the respect that all of the citizens of Israel should have.  20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs.  Given the sorry state of global Arab-Israeli relations, in my view the Israeli state should focus on integration and constructive engagement with these Arab citizens of Israel in order to show the way things could and should be.

One of my Israeli friends, a former IDF air force pilot, says that the greatest threat to the future of Israel is not from outside its borders, but from within.  I think he is right, and I hope more people recognize this and act now to promote socio-economic cooperation and integration between the Jewish majority and the various ethnic groups that make up the Arab citizens of Israel.

Below is the latest news sent to me on May 11 from the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages of the Negev:

A FEW DAYS AFTER APPOINTING A MINISTER FOR DEVELOPING THE NEGEV AND THE GALILEE THE AUTHORITIES DEMOLISH 4 HOMES IN THREE UNRECOGNIZED VILLAGES

A large number of policemen accompanied by a helicopter and tractors raided three unrecognized villages (Al-Zaroora, Al-Bhaira and Al-Qattamat) and demolished 4 homes: two in Al-Zaroora, one in Al-Bhira and one in Al-Qattamat. They also forced Mohhamed Al-Qoran from Al-Bhaira to demolish his shop under the threat of paying a large fine. The RCUV looks at this attack as the real face of the so-called the Negev and the Galilee Development Plan which does not take the Arabs into account. This development means more suffering and home demolition for the Arabs. The RCUV calls upon the Higher Follow Up Committee for the Arab Affairs and Arab MKs to support it in its struggle and to arrange a meeting with Prime Minister Olmert and Shimon Peres to discuss the situation and put pressure on them to end home demolition. The RCUV will rebuild the demolished homes. Friday prayers will be hld in Al-Bhaira near the demolished homes.

--The Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev