After the calls to leave had been issued, armed security guards finally escorted the bulldozer toward its target, a metal shack that easily crumpled. Moments before, it had been home to Abdul-Karim Hamad Tarabin, his parents and 16 siblings.

“We knew it would be destroyed but didn’t know exactly when,” says 18-year-old Abdul-Karim about the April 3 demolition. It was the second time his home has been demolished by the authorities in in the past six months. “We will rebuild it,” he says defiantly.

Abdul-Karim is one of approximately 155,000 Israeli Arab Bedouin, the indigenous inhabitants of Israel’s southern Negev region. As many as half live in 39 unrecognized shanty towns, like Tarabin al-Sane, which are unmarked on maps and disconnected from Israel’s electricity, water or road networks.

Many of these villages, which were ignored when Israeli officials drew up the country’s master plan in 1965, sit next to modern Jewish towns. In the case of Tarabin al-Sane, the neighboring locality of Omer is slated to expand onto land currently inhabited by Abdul-Karim’s family and other members of the

Tarabin tribe. Tall mounds of earth mark spots where power lines and other infrastructure are being installed to support future Omer houses. But visible behind the heap of iron rods are the re-mains of the corrugated metal roof and a black water container left behind by the demolition of Abdul-Karim’s home.

There’s also a residue of hatred. As Israel marked its 60th anniversary in May, the status of occupied land in the West Bank and Golan Heights weren’t the only territorial disputes standing in the way of the Jewish state becoming a society at peace with itself and its neighbors. Inside its internationally recognized borders, unresolved land disputes are turning bitter as many Bedouin re-buff the state’s efforts to persuade them to move to a handful of new urban-style villages, or seven run-down townships.

The dispute is starting to attract in-ternational attention, which is unwelcome from the government’s point of view. In a March report, Human Rights Watch charged that “discriminatory land and planning policies have made it virtually impossible for Bedouin to build legally where they live and also exclude them from the state’s development plans for the region. The state implements forced evictions, home demolitions and other punitive measures disproportionately against Bedouin as compared with actions taken regarding structures owned by Jewish Israelis that do not conform to planning law.”

A systemic problem. The Bedouin make up a quarter of the northern Ne-gev’s population, yet they inhabit only 2 percent of its land, HRW says. According to the report’s author, Lucy Mair, the government is planning rural villages for Jewish settlers evacuated from the Gaza Strip in 2005, even as it says there is no room for Bedouin villages. Moreover, it has established dozens of individual farms for Israeli Jews in recent years with full infrastructure and on vast tracts of land. Meanwhile, it continues to deny the unrecognized villages official status, or basic services.

The government denies following discriminatory policies, and says that Bedouin receive more than adequate compensation for relocating to areas where utilities and services are provided. It says it has recently cut back on the demolitions, destroying only newly built structures. “We can’t connect every offshoot of five families to infrastructure. That would cost a huge amount of money,” says Ortal Tzabar, a spokeswoman for the Israel Lands Authority. “They have taken over land that isn’t theirs, that belongs to the state. And we need to make order.”

In the unrecognized al-Grin village, just east of the Negev capital of Beersheba, residents would rather live with uncertainty than move to townships. Local leader Ali Abu Shahita says demolition orders have been issued for 35 out of 160 houses. The village dates to Oct. 13, 1951 when the government forced Bedouin to move from their land some 20 kilometers to the northwest, he says. “They promised we could return within six months. These six months

have not ended until today.”

Residents use generators for several hours a day – which is all they can af-ford – because the government refuses to connect them to the electricity grid, even though electricity towers slice through the village. “There is no electricity, no roads, no garbage collection and no school,” says Abu Shahita. To take a first step towards developing their own education system, three years ago he donated two rooms of his home for residents to use as a kindergarten. The kindergarten received a demolition order for being an unauthorized structure in April 2007, but residents were able to overturn that order in court.

Don’t bet on it. Even with threatened and actual demolitions, the government is unlikely to succeed in relocating the Bedouin. The compensation it is offering – 50,000 shekels ($14,300) and a modest parcel of land – is insultingly low, Abu Shahita says. “The state’s compensation comes to less than 1,000 shekels for every year we have been here,” he says. “This shows how much the government values us.” He adds that there is no work and only poor services in the townships, and those residents who have moved to them caution their old neighbors not to follow suit. By signing on to the move, they renounce all other land claims. So half of the Bedouin remain outside the townships, which have been growing since the 1970s.

Local researchers have even begun studying how the Bedouin are being mistreated. “We have done a comparison of compensation given to Bedouin with what was given to settlers who had to leave the Sinai (after the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt) and the Gaza Strip (in 2005),” says Shlomo Swirsky, director of the Adva Centre social affairs think-tank in Tel Aviv. “The amount for the Bedouin is significantly lower.”

“You cannot decide on compensation based on their standard and mode of living in encampments,” Swirsky adds. “You have to enable them to become successful urban dwellers in their new environment.”

The problem of inadequate compensation is nowhere more apparent than in the new planned village of Tarabin. The government hopes to house all Bedouin from Omer there. With spiffy basketball courts and a new school, Tarabin could be the government’s example of the better life for Bedouin. Except for many of those who have moved there, something has gone very wrong.

The streets of Tarabin are broad and have lights and garbage cans. There are impressive villas, some modeled after castles. But most of these are empty, and upon inspection, turn out to be only partially built. Construction has stopped, unfinished, with no sign of continuing.  Most of the people here are living in shacks near what were supposed to be their new homes.

“People do not have money to finish their houses, they do not have money to put the windows in,” says Imad al-San-aa, 30, a local success story who has a metal works business and was able to finish building his house. He says the life of his family has improved markedly because of the school, electricity and water, and that a health clinic is also about to open. But, he adds, “The majority of people here are dissatisfied.”

In the last three years, the price of cement and metal have gone up by 50 percent and 80 percent, respectively, while state compensation has remained the same, says Imad. “You have people here who dug foundations and stopped, who built the roof and stopped. Many people here have no regular income and no way to finish their houses,” added Imad’s father, Salman. He also says the state hasn’t honored promises to put in agricultural areas. “These are the reasons why people have stopped moving here.”

Tzabar, from the Israel Lands Authority, responds that “the people in Tarabin like to cry and complain. The state gave them proper compensation and land for free. That they chose to build in a lavish manner and then did not have money to finish is not the state’s fault. There is a limit to how many gifts we can give.”

Still, Tzabar says she is optimistic that Tarabin will become a “splendid” place in which to live. “They are undergoing a process of adjustment which is not easy. It will take two or three years and they will be satisfied. One needs patience.”

Patience, however, is in short supply in the Jewish village of Omer. Officials there  pride themselves on offering “the highest quality of life in Israel.” They want the remaining Bedouin out so the expansion can move ahead. Omer’s population is expected to grow from 7,800 to 10,000 by 2010, and there’s no allow-ance for Tarabin al-Sane in their expansion plan.

“The state and Omer have invested a great deal to improve their quality of life. The majority has agreed to move, and in a normal society the majority determines. We will not let a small mi-nority holding out for more money stay,” says Omer spokesman Nissim Nir. He added that whoever finds their home demolished will have the cost of the demolition deducted from their compensation. “There is no doubt that those who remain will find that their homes are destroyed.”     

   Email This Post      Print This Post