Blogging the UK Task Force Study Trip in the Negev: Day One

Day One: 19/02/2012

"Let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply"  (Exodus 1:10)

Connection to the land is not unique to Judaism and conflicts over land are not unique to the Middle East.  From 'Land of Hope and Glory' to 'England's Green and Pleasant Land', most countries have land-based national rhetoric.  In Israel and the Palestinian Territories this connection is entrenched in 3000 years of history, layered with religious implications and strained by on-going conflict.

For many years, I have struggled to understand the complexity of the conflict over the land of the West Bank but, even after living in Israel for three years, I had no awareness of the disputes between the Bedouin and the Israeli government.  So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the 2012 Study Trip of the UK Task Force on Issues Facing Arab Citizens of Israel, a Jewish organisation that has educational and awareness-raising objectives.

The focus of this year's study trip is the Bedouin communities of the Negev and today the group, which consists of Rabbis, community leaders, foundations and youth leaders, heard about the issues of Bedouin land claims and the government's programme of resettlement and urbanisation.  After the War of Independence 11,000 Negev-dwelling Bedouin were annexed into an area to the East of Be'er Sheva.  Faced with a culture clash, limited pastoral opportunities and a rapidly increasing population, the Bedouin community gradually gave up its nomadic lifestyle.  Today 100,000 Bedouin live in seven government planned towns, established in the 1970s, and 60,000 formally recognised Bedouin villages.

The remaining 30,000 Bedouin live in 33 unrecognised villages, built illegally on State-owned land, un-serviced by the municipality and under threat of demolition. In 2007, the government commissioned the Goldberg Report, which admitted responsibility on the part of the State and recommended the legalisation and recognition of as many Bedouin villages as possible.  Last year the Prawer Plan, which aims to implement the findings of the Goldberg Commission, announced that only a handful of Bedouin villages would be recognised.  The residents of the remaining villages would be offered homes in new planned towns and partial compensation for ancestral pasture if they vacate their homes for demolition.

 The Bedouin community objects strongly to the plans and the fact that they were not consulted in the planning process.  Established in 1997 to tackle these issues, the democratically-elected Regional Council for the Unrecognised Bedouin Villages has written an alternative plan and calls for full recognition.  They demand that the State legalises and provides basic services to these villages, which meet the government's own settlement eligibility criteria.  This may sound very technical and convoluted but really we are talking about the provision of mains electricity, running water and sewerage to Israeli citizens who have lived on this otherwise unused land for several generations.

In the rundown village of Abu Guidar, ramshackle dwellings, topped with satellite dishes rub shoulders with concrete houses, privately built by the residents who work in the Israeli construction industry.  Camels and donkeys share the unpaved roads with pickup trucks and battered cars while Bedouin goat herders usher their flocks past piles of rubbish, calor gas canisters and photovoltaic solar panels.  The village school is one of the best in the region, built and driven by an inspiring young man, named Chazam, who is driven to improve the situation of the village that is inhabited solely by his extended family.  The classrooms are brightly decorated and older students are preparing for a science fair in the spacious school yard but the teachers are under-qualified and the brand new library building has yet to be actually filled with books.

Our final briefing of the day was with Havatzelet Yahel, a representative of the Southern District Attorney at the Ministry of Justice who did her best to convince us that the Bedouin's land claims were lacking in proof and based on illegal sales documents and that the State was already being exceptionally generous to this demographic group.  Her words fell on my already deaf ears since I was beyond caring about the legality of the land claims after witnessing such abject poverty in an otherwise developed country.  Given Israel's history and the Zionist claim to establish a State for a displaced and disadvantaged people based on a historical, but not legally provable, connection to a land, I just cannot understand why the State would make such an effort to avoid its humanitarian responsibilities.  Their plans are not economically beneficial, are only worsening communal relations and increasing any security concerns so what is at the bottom of their continued policy of denying basic rights to the Bedouin population?

I am saddened to say that the only logical rationale I can ascertain stems from an analogy with the Exodus narrative.  When Pharoah realises that the Israelites are becoming more numerous and more prosperous, he becomes fearful of their might and takes pre-emptive measures.  "Let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply" (Exodus 1:10)  Pharaoh confines the Israelites to the district of Goshen and imposes heavy labours on them to ensure they remain weak and under-privileged.  Is the containment of a demographic threat a motivating factor behind the government's seemingly unjust and unhelpful policies?  Or is this just the outcome of cultural misunderstanding, poor forecasting and misplaced intentions?

Either way, the Jewish State must surely take heed from the collective memory of our enslavement in Egypt.  For better or for worse, the Jewish people are no longer an oppressed minority but the custodians of an independent nation, inhabited by native groups, migrant workers, refugees and other non-Jews.  They are the strangers in our midst and we have a moral and civil obligation to treat them justly and with respect.  "After all, you know the heart of the stranger for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9)