""So we did end up discussing Bedouin persecution and you and your mates really did not want it mentioned that the ones in Israel are the lucky ones.""

Read the following from the Guardian May 2012.

-snip- ""Unlike the Jahalin, Bedouin groups in the Negev have cultivated their land since the 16th century. They are also Israeli citizens, and yet 35 of their 46 villages are not recognised by the state. As a result, the 90,000 residents live without basic services such as water, electricity, healthcare, education or paved roads. And they are not allowed to build permanent structures.

Thabet Abu Rass, the Negev director for Adalah, an organisation that offers legal advice to the Arab minority in Israel, describes a painstaking fight for the rights of unrecognised villagers. "We have to petition the high court for each basic service, like water. Most of the time we win the cases – but the problem is implementation. Sometimes it takes 10 years. Or they grant us 'minimal access' to water, which means one tap three miles from the village."

According to a pending law for the regulation of Bedouin settlement in the Negev, due to be presented to the parliament this month, these villages will be evacuated in the next five years and ecah of their inhabitants compensated to move to one of seven government-planned townships – the poorest towns in Israel, with some of the highest crime rates.""-snip-

Now tell me that, because others are treated worse, you would consider yourself lucky to live as they describe and have a future in ""one of seven government-planned townships – the poorest towns in Israel, with some of the highest crime rates."".

Go on Keith, convince us.

Me and my mates want to know just how lucky you think they are in the light of that existence.

It's one thing to have laws, quite another to enforce without fear or favour, and it's abundantly clear that Israel is a long way from that standard.

If they treat their own like that, what chance for neighbouring Arab countries?

Don T.