The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150703   Message #3598471
Posted By: Jim Carroll
05-Feb-14 - 05:01 AM
Thread Name: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/01/israel-negev-bedouins-day-of-rage
http://bedouinjewishjustice.blogspot.ie/
http://forward.com/articles/189828/desert-towns-struggle-shows-pitfalls-of-israels-po/?p=all

A United Nations committee has called for the withdrawal of the draft law that would move 30,000 Bedouin living in the Negev to permanent, existing Bedouin communities. Furthermore, the United Nations human rights chief urged Israel to reconsider a proposed law that would result in the demolition of up to 35 Bedouin villages, displacing as many as 40,000 members of these communities from their ancestral homes. "If this bill becomes law, it will accelerate the demolition of entire Bedouin communities, forcing them to give up their homes, denying them their rights to land ownership, and decimating their traditional cultural and social life in the name of development," Ms. Pillay said. According to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Law for the Regulation of the Bedouin Settlement in the Negev is discriminatory and would legalize racist practices. Further critics of Prawer Plan include an independent human rights organization and legal center, Adalah Adalah which works to promote and defend the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, 1.2 million people, or 20% of the population, as well as Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). The center describes the Bill - which was approvedby the Israeli Knesset on 25 June 2013 with 43 votes for and 40 votes against, as discriminatory. It adds that the Bill calls for the mass expulsion of the Arab Bedouin community in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of Israel. If fully implemented, the Prawer-Begin Plan will result in the destruction of 35 "unrecognized"Arab Bedouin villages, the forced displacement of up to 70,000 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel, and the dispossession of their historical lands in the Naqab. Despite the Arab Bedouin community's complete rejection of the plan and strong disapproval from the international community and human rights groups, the Prawer Plan is happening now. Adalah further elaborates that Prawer-Begin Bill is an unacceptable proposition that entrenches the state's historic injustice against its Bedouin citizens.
The European Parliament heavily criticized the plan.[9] In January 2012 hundreds of people protested the Prawer Plan, calling for the relocation of about 30,000 Beduins to recognized villages, in front of the Beersheba courthouse.[10] In September 2013 both Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued statements condemning Israel's ongoing destruction of Palestinian homes and other structures, particularly in the occupied West Bank and the Negev desert in southern Israel.[citation needed]