Negev nomads make way for Israel's barrier

Rory McCarthy

Security fence and spread of Jewish settlement risks way of life for thousands.

THE BULLDOZERS came for Hamid Salim Hassan's house just after dawn. Before the demolition began, the Bedouin family scrambled to gather what they could: a fridge, a pile of carpets, some plastic chairs, a canister of cooking gas, and a metal bed frame. Now, with their house a wreck of smashed concrete and broken plastic pipes, Mr. Hassan and his family are living in a canvas tent on a neighbour's land. Their possessions are piled outside, along with boxes of supplies, including washing-up liquid, toothpaste, corned beef, wheat flour, and tomato paste, provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

His tent is small but it affords Mr. Hassan a compelling view of the future. Stretched out before him are the hilltops of the West Bank where he and his family, all Bedouin shepherds who fled Israel in 1948, used to live and graze their sheep. Standing there now is Ma'ale Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements that is illegal under international law.

Snaking up the hillside towards his tent is the West Bank barrier, also ruled unlawful in advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. When complete, the steel and barbed wire barrier, which will be 50 metres wide and include a ditch and patrol roads, will surround Ma'ale Adumim, attaching it to a greater Jerusalem.

For the 3,000 Bedouin living here, most from the Jahalin tribe, this presents an imminent crisis. "They came and destroyed my house to protect their wall," said Mr. Hassan, 62. "They really don't have enough land already that they had to come and destroy my house? We've lost everything."

Earlier this month, the Israeli military destroyed seven huts and tents belonging to Bedouin living near a settlement in Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Another group of Bedouin living further east in the Jordan Valley have been given two months to leave their homes near an Israeli military base and a Jewish settlement. In each case the Israeli authorities argue that the homes have been built without permits, but Palestinians say they are notoriously hard to obtain.

Culture eroded

Bedouin culture has been eroded as a result. Refugees from the Negev desert in Israel who crossed after 1948, their grazing land has been squeezed by the growth of Palestinian towns, the rapid emergence of large Jewish settlements, and lately the vast concrete and steel barrier.

Most Bedouin live on land that under the Oslo accords was supposed to be unpopulated farmland where Israel has civilian and military control.

Today, most live in primitive shacks, many no longer keep animal herds and they have little in the way of formal land ownership documents. They have become one of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities.

Mr. Hassan was born in Be'er Sheva in what is now Israel. His family crossed during the 1948-49 war and moved to land near Azariya, the biblical town of Bethany, near Jerusalem. For years they continued their semi-nomadic existence, grazing their large flock of sheep on the hillside.

In 1975, a group of 23 Jewish families founded the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which has grown into a town of 35,000 people. Mr. Hassan and other Bedouin were forced off the land. Most set up shacks on another hilltop. Ten years ago, Mr. Hassan found the money to buy a plot of land and built a house, giving up his Bedouin existence. "Life changes," he said. "We had no other choice." His seven children, including his daughters, went to school and college, integrating into a new urban life.

Other Bedouin have also changed and work as construction labourers, many even employed in Ma'ale Adumim, building the settlement that has taken the land they once lived on. "In the past people envied our lifestyle.

The land was open and free. There were sheep and we were rich," said his brother Saeed Hassan Salim, 50. "The occupation put us out of business. The Bedouin life is slipping away." He now lives in a small shack that stands directly in the path of the barrier and is almost certain to be demolished soon.

"It seems the whole presence in this area is about to disappear," said Jeremy Milgrom, 53, a rabbi and human rights activist who has worked with the Bedouin here for 15 years and is mapping their remaining communities. "We are asking why it is this has to happen. Why did the government assume the prerogative that they can absolutely redesign the entire landscape and eliminate the Bedouin?"

The Israeli military's civil administration, which runs the West Bank, says the Bedouin were being offered alternatives. "They came and illegally put up their houses and tents. So we are working against this illegal construction," said its spokesman Captain Tsidki Maman. "We are helping them to find a place where it will be OK for them to settle." The areas under consideration are all on the other side of the barrier from the Jewish settlements.

Captain Maman rejected the Bedouin argument that they have lived on the land for years. "The Bedouin are travelling all the time. They can't say they've been here for decades. It's not like this," he said.

In the late 1990s there was a similar move against the Bedouin around Ma'ale Adumim and several of their homes were demolished. But supported by Shlomo Lecker, an Israeli lawyer, the Bedouin were given a deal under which they would move to a new area, with plots of land, building permits and up to 40,000 shekels (then £7,000) per family.

Around 50 families took up the offer, and now live in an area known as the Jebel. However, the deal was not without its problems: the houses are within a few hundred metres of Jerusalem's main rubbish dump and on land that other Palestinians claim as their own.

The prospect of another move is being hotly debated within the Bedouin community. For some it is an opportunity to upgrade to houses with electricity and running water. Others say they would rather move into Palestinian towns like Azariya but lack the money, while others still want to stay on their land and cling to what is left of their traditional lifestyle.

Israel's defence

Israel defends the barrier on the grounds of security, saying it has drastically reduced the number of suicide bombings. But Mr. Lecker said: "There is absolutely no reason to build the wall there. This is to do with taking a huge chunk of land and making it part of a wider Jerusalem. It is the idea of taking the land without the people. Why not give them rights in Israel — identity cards, electricity and water? The land comes with the people and if you take the land and push out the people then what do you call it?"

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

Israel / peace cannot be bargained

International Post

Following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's US visit and a "new" initiative floated by France, Spain, and Italy, Vice Premier Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met at the weekend to look for ways to "break the deadlock" with the Palestinians. Olmert himself has said he wants to "get the ball rolling," and reportedly suggested new versions of his convergence plan while in Washington.

The pressure on Israel and the US to fill the diplomatic vacuum, following the post-war political collapse of convergence, seems to be growing.

A vacuum, however, cannot be filled by simply repackaging the policies that failed to fill it, namely the Quartet's road map and Israel's unilateral withdrawal track. Both these policies have become stalled, or worse, because they ignore the root cause of the problem. Both pretend that the obstacle to peace is the lack of a Palestinian state, when in reality the obstacle to such a state - and to Arab-Israeli peace - is the Arab refusal to accept Israel's right to exist.

It has been obvious at least since 2000, when Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat a state on a silver platter, that the Palestinians could have a state over almost all of the West Bank and all of Gaza whenever they wanted. The fight is not over the remaining narrow strips of land but over something much more fundamental, whether the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world are willing to give up their desire to destroy Israel itself.

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan was quoted over the weekend as declaring: "I promise you, the occupation [Israel] won't last long. We've seen this in history. States based on oppression have been taken apart. ... We'll continue to fight it until we return to the homes we were expelled from in the Palestine of 1948."

This point of view cannot be dismissed as the province of extremists. First, Hamas is the party in power, not a fringe group. But even Mahmoud Abbas, as MEMRI founder Yigal Carmon points out, is quite radical and specific when it comes to the "right of return," claiming that 3 million Palestinians must be allowed to "return" to Israel.

In the Arab and Muslim world today there are the "radicals" who openly call for Israel's destruction and support terrorism as a means to accomplish this. But there is no significant opposing peace camp arguing that Israel does have a right to exist, or even a pragmatic camp openly arguing for peace for the Arabs' own sake.

In such an atmosphere, no peace process worthy of the name is possible, and new American, Israeli, or European plans repackaging the offer of a Palestinian state will not only be for naught, but will tend to encourage Arab radicalism.

In this context, our government has an obligation to say the truth, not just play along with harmful myths. Israel should have a peace plan: for Western nations that want peace to demand that the Arab world end its war against Israel.

The Palestinians and Arab states often claim to be ready for peace. The well-worn pattern, however, is this: Israel yearns for peace while being wary of "peace plans;" the Arabs attack and prepare for war while claiming to embrace "peace."

It is time for Israel to urge the US to call the Arab bluff. If Arab leaders really want peace, they should help the Palestinians out of their suicidal stalemate by setting three critical examples: 1) meeting with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem and their own capitals, 2) calling on Palestinians to give up the dream of "returning" to Israel by the millions, 3) beginning to settle Palestinian "refugees" rather than continuing to use them as pawns against Israel.

In addition the Arab states could be called upon to stop fomenting anti-Semitism and supporting groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah.

We understand that if Israel advocates such a policy, we will not be able to persuade the US, let alone Europe, to adopt it overnight. Yet if Israel is unwilling to tell the truth and advocate for its own interests, who will? How can we expect any other country to stand for a sensible policy with a chance of success if we ourselves do not?