Israel takes strong stand, razing a settlement with bulldozers
Except this was not one of Israel’s illegal settlements; instead, it was a small group of Bedouin Arabs trying to rebuild their village in the desert. Edmund Sanders reports for the LA Times:
For the sixth time in a decade, farmer Ismail Mohamed Salem watched Israeli bulldozers raze his home in this disputed Bedouin village.
Hours later, he sat next to the rubble and vowed to rebuild — yet again."This is my land," said Salem, 70, as his grandchildren lay sleeping on straw mats next to the demolished structure, now a 20-foot pile of twisted aluminum, broken concrete and splintered wood. "Why should I leave?"
Salem’s home was among 45 demolished early Tuesday as part of a long-running dispute between Arab tribes in the Negev desert and the Israeli government.
Bedouin residents, who are Muslim, say they were forced off their land nearly six decades ago and are pushed out again whenever they return. Israeli officials say the property was taken over by the state in the early 1950s because it was abandoned and has been slated by the Jewish National Fund for a massive national park.
Destruction of Arakib village — the largest such razing in years — left many of the 300 Arab-Israeli citizens homeless in 100-degree temperatures and raised fears that Israel is resuming a crackdown on what it calls "unauthorized" Bedouin shantytowns that dot southern Israel.
The long-running Bedouin saga is often overshadowed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
These tribes once wandered modern-day Jordan, Israel and Egypt in search of pastures for their animals. But the nomadic way of life began coming to a halt for most after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when national borders were formed. Most fled to Jordan and Egypt after Israel’s war for independence in 1948, leaving about 10,000 Bedouins in Israel.
As usual here, the dispute today is over land ownership. Bedouin families around Arakib say they own about 4,600 acres of the desert, insisting that they paid taxes during the Ottoman period and British Empire. Gravestones in the cemetery show some families have inhabited the area for at least 140 years.
In 1951, Bedouin leaders say, they were forced by Israel’s military into settlements along the West Bank border.
"They told us we could come back in six months," said Nori Uqbi, a community activist who is suing the government to regain control of what he says is his family’s land. "But it was all a lie."
Instead, he said, the villagers were never allowed to return and have been prevented from cultivating the land…
I don’t understand Israel’s animosity toward the Bedouins, who (so far as I know) are uninvolved in terrorism. Does Israel simply hate all Arabs, regardless of what they have done?
I believe that it’s hard to deny that Israel has become a racist society—and a very bad one at that.
