The bedouins of the Negev desert carry Israeli ID, but they've been treated appallingly by the state of which they form a partA group of Arab families, who have ample proof of their historic claim to a tract of land, are evicted by the Israeli army. Whilst they attempt to challenge their forced removal from the area via legal process, a Jewish settlement is established on the site overnight. The settlement grows and grows until it is just one more, immovable "fact on the ground", leaving the uprooted families little or no chance of returning to their ancestral home, nor of achieving even a modicum of justice from the courts.
A familiar enough story, of course, but made all the more intolerable given that the land in question is well inside the Green Line, and the families involved are all fully-fledged Israeli citizens. Or, to be precise, they are fully-fledged Israeli citizens on paper. Since they are bedouins, rather than Jews, their rights are by no means assured simply because they possess blue Israeli ID cards, as history has proved time and again to their cost.
The Goldberg commission - an inquiry set up to review the situation of the bedouins in the Negev desert- is currently in session, hearing the heartrending testimonies of the internal refugees that Israel has created through its policy of displacement and land expropriation in the region. Nuri el-Okbi, representing the el-Okbi tribe, last week made an impassioned plea to the tribunal members, outlining the decades of misery his clan has suffered and asking for remedial action to be taken by the authorities.
He presented aerial photographs of the al-Arakib area, to the north-east of Beer Sheva, which were taken in 1949 and clearly show his tribe living on the desert plains. He also brought land deeds which proved that the land belonged to the el-Okbis, who were violently evicted in 1951 and have been living in exile ever since. To compound their agony, the Jewish-only town of Givot Bar was established on their land in 2004, and since then the el-Okbis struggle to be allowed back onto their territory has looked even more futile.
During his testimony, Nuri el-Okbi was reduced pitifully to making concessions just to try and elicit some kind of deal on the part of the unyielding authorities. "We are willing to be their neighbours, or even to create a joint community with them, if they want to", he said. However, the chances of the government honouring even such a watered-down proposal are slim to none, based on their previous when it comes to dealing with bedouins.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2008/05/citizens_but_second-class.html
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