Slippery Slope

Two brothers from an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev confessed to a plan to prepare rockets and shoot them at targets within Israel. An IDF soldier and another man, both Jewish, were arrested on suspicion of supplying the brothers with materiel stolen from the army, in exchange for drugs.

A post in the “Physicians for Human Rights” facebook group says that a large police force entered the “Beer Kha’il” elementary school in the Bedouin village of Beer Hadaj, fired rubber bullets and tear gas, and arrested students.  A senior physician at Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva said that a bus filled with at least 20 children arrived at the hospital’s children’s intensive care unit, where they were treated for tear gas inhalation.  According to reports by the “Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality”, those injured during the incident include a pregnant woman, a child with a broken arm, and another with an eye injury.  13 people were arrested during the raid, including several children. (+972mag.com)

(Hebrew – Facebook)

While the law for regulating Bedouin communities in the  Negev is still in the process of preparation by Minister Benny Begin (Likud) and Knesset committees, and will probably be presented only at the end of the summer due to pending High Court of Justice pleas, the government is already preparing to implement it. A month ago the border committee of the Ministry of the Interior discussed the new borders of Bedouin communities in preparation for the new regulation – authorising some communities, and removing residents of others to approved towns. The EU has issued an unprecedented resolution calling on Israel to withdraw the Bedoin regulation plan, called the Prawer plan.

(Hebrew)

Bedouin villages within reach of Grad missiles have no early warning systems, and only some are equipped with bomb shelters.

(Hebrew)

The Be’er Sheva District Court Judge Eliyahu Bitan sentenced four former Border Police officers, convicted of aggravated assault against six Bedouins who lived in Eilat, to community service and probation. The judge explained that border police officers should be treated like soldiers rather than police officers.

(More details in Hebrew)

MK Danny Danon (Likud), held an urgent discussion in the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs which he chairs, on the issue of the abduction of young female immigrants from the former Soviet Union by Arabs.  The representative of the Israel Police testified that she has no knowledge of a single such case of abduction.  MK Nissim Ze’ev (Shas) called for outlawing conversion to Islam before the age of 21.  Nissim Algelani, a club owner from Kiryat Gat, said that in his town and in neighboring Netivot there is a municipal bylaw which prevents non-residents from loitering in the city after 11 pm, stating that “in Netivot, for example, you will not find Bedouins or their like prowling the streets after eleven at night, there’s no way they’re prowling there.”  MK Lia Shemtov (Yisrael Beitenu) said that these bylaws “should be adopted”, and MK Danny Danon said that the legality of such laws should be examined and that “providing mayors with further authority so that they could take care of this phenomenon” should be considered.

(Hebrew)

(Hebrew) full transcript of the committee session

IDF destroyed 10 huts of clay in the Bedouin village Faisal, north of Jericho. The villagers reported that while most of their belongings were buried in the rubble, the soldiers made sure to disconnect the electricity meters from the network and confiscated them.

The government will vote on a plan to move nearly 30 thousand Bedouins in the Negev, which are about 40 percent from the 71 thousand Bedouin who reside in the area. According to the plan, the Bedouins will be moved to extensions of existing Bedouin towns such as Rahat, Kuseife and Hura, and will be compensated with money and land. The plan is a layout to the implementation of the recommendations of the Goldberg report regarding the Bedouins’ settlement arrangements. Representatives of the Bedouin and human rights organizations sent an urgent letter to the Prime Minister and the ministers warning them that the outline which was suggested by the application team contradicts the recommendations of the Goldberg Committee and the policy of the National Planning Committee in recent years.

(Hebrew )