We visited the Bedouin village of Attir. Two weeks earlier, 27 homes in the village had been destroyed by the Israeli Army. Keep in mind that this is INSIDE Israel and everyone under discussion is a citizen of the state. The story is that there are 45 “unrecognized” Bedouin villages in the Negev, a truly Kafkian designation. Some predate the state, some are somewhat more recent. To be “unrecognized” means that the village does not appear on any map, and receives no electricity, water, garbage pickup, roads, schools, or health services from the state. The government has a policy of wanting to “concentrate” the Bedouin in more urban, sedentary areas, which are known as development towns. Hand in hand with this goes a policy to “Judaize” the Negev, with 500,000 Jews, with affluent North American Jews particularly targeted.
Worst of all, if you live in an “unrecognized” village, by definition you cannot receive a permit to build or extend a home, so all the villages live with the threat, and reality, of potential home demolitions by the state at any time. This village was particularly under threat probably because the Jewish village of “Yattir” is being developed nearby.
In any case, a young man named Ra’ed was our host. After lunch he told us the story of the home demolitions. He started the story by saying that traditionally this village was quite integrated into Israeli life, was considered quite successful, and had sent many people to become doctors etc. at the university in Beersheva. He even talked about how Ariel Sharon had come to visit the village as Transportation Minister in 1994, after some floods that killed two children, and declared that “we are with you.”
But two weeks ago, without warning, 5000 Border Police descended on the village during the night and destroyed these homes. He told the story of a four month old baby who had just had heart surgery, and that a policeman came and secretly gave him a little toy during the operation. He also told the story of an old woman who fainted after watching her house being destroyed. Her family asked a policewoman for water and she replied, “I don’t give water to Arabs, they all should die.”
Finally, he took out an envelope that he opened the morning after the home demolitions: it was his call-up to do reserve duty in the Israeli Army! Then he said he will never serve in the Army again, and concluded, “there can be no coexistence if we don’t exist.”
We went out to see the demolitions afterward—they are already re-building. Some villages have been destroyed or partially destroyed many times.
At some point I realized that we were only about fifteen minutes by car from Tuwani (in the South Hebron Hills), and that really the only thing that separated these communities were the vagaries of the Green Line after the 1967 war.
Another stop on the tour was to visit an 800 acre organic farm run by a young Jewish guy and his wife. We all crowded into their house, which was remarkably cool for a July afternoon, and sipped tea brewed in the sun while sitting on pillows on the floor. The visit really highlighted some of the contradictions between ecological awareness, which I usually associate with being quite left politically, and Israel/Palestine politics in particular.
This farmer was remarkably clueless. One of the people who attended the tour was a young Bedouin woman named Elham. It turned out that while she now lives in Rahat, one of the Bedouin “development” towns, her husband’s family had originally lived on this guy’s land. Once a year they come back and have a picnic and re-acquaint themselves with their ancestral home. She spoke quite movingly about the regrets that her family have about having been coerced into a sedentary lifestyle, how they wish they had preserved their heritage and are now entrapped by a somewhat-materially-easier, but emptier, life. By keeping the “unrecognized” villages nearly impossible to remain in, as Ra’ed described, many families are convinced to go to the recognized townships like Rahat, which while they have some of the lowest socio-economic status of the entire country and are vastly underserviced compared to Jewish communities, are at least protected from the threat of home demolitions.
The farmer confirmed that once a year he lets a group of Bedouin spend time on his land, but was quite dismissive of her claim that they would come back if they could. Which is surprising, because he of course has chosen this lifestyle himself, so if anyone could understand her point of view, he should have.
We were watching, in real time, a classic example of the competing versions of reality that Jews and Palestinians (in this case both Israeli) have of Israel and Palestine. But while Elham was gentle and forgiving towards him, he was dismissive and somewhat hostile toward her.
He in fact is squatting on the land illegally, and while his house hasn’t been destroyed by the Israeli government as many Bedouin homes have been, he complained bitterly about the way the Israeli government is treating him, in fact his outraged phrase was “they are treating me like a Bedouin!”
Finally, my first trip to the “unrecognized” village of Wadi Na’am. I think it’s the worst thing I’ve seen since coming to Israel, including anything in Palestine. BUSTAN has a long history there, including building a health clinic entirely of recycled materials that is solar-powered. Just ten minutes from Beersheva you turn off the main road onto a dirt road. The landscape is lunar desert. One of the first things we saw was a dead abandoned camel with its entrails hanging out.
The sun was setting and it was beautiful in a terribly desolate kind of way. The village is on a hilltop, and is just a bunch of tents and tin huts. It is surrounded 360 degrees by Romat Hovav, Israel’s toxic waste/petro-chemical industry complex. They are literally up against the walls of this pollution machine, belching yellow smoke, lit up like a Christmas tree, and they have no electricity (except from generators), no running water, no sewage service, etc. All the kids seem to have asthma or bronchitis. I felt nauseous from the second we got out of the car, and since an army base nearby was closed because the soldiers got sick, and since the Health Ministry wouldn’t send doctors to the clinic BUSTAN built because they didn’t want to endanger their health, I doubt it was psychosomatic. The contrast between the crazy high-tech, even devilishly futuristic power plant that literally overshadows the village, with the almost pre-industrial life in the village (although they actually have lots of appliances hooked up to their generator) was overwhelming. I simply cannot imagine life there, it felt almost like a different planet.
These are Israeli citizens, living in the most dangerous, toxic, life threatening circumstances, and they don’t receive even the most basic services like sewage, running water or electricity, from their government.
Witty? This is your Zionism.
My Zionism is in the groups that provide organizations like Bustan with the solar power.
You are confused Chaos.
The Zionism of Bustan members (if any are Zionist) is undoubtedly radically different from the Zionism of Jewish colonists and their supporters, and the latter version is overwhelmingly embraced by the American Jewish and Israeli political establishments. I wonder how many of Israeli dissidents against ethnic cleansing and colonization consider themselves Zionist?
It is the dominant Zionism of the colonists that must be held up for examination during any assessment of Zionism’s merits. It would be silly to judge Zionism by examination of the beliefs and behavior of a tiny minority of dissidents, no matter how upstanding and courageous. Their existence indicates potential for change, but racist colonialism is the currentreality of Zionism. Richard, it may not be your version, but it is the version lived by the majority of people who call themselves Zionist.
There were early communist dissidents within the Soviet Communist Party who opposed the slide into murder and repression. They had no ability to turn the tide, and ended up getting shot. Should we judge communism based on their idealistic beliefs and good will? No. We should judge it by what communists with power did with their power. They stole, repressed, tortured, and murdered, and today so do Zionists who control the administrative machinery of political, economic, social, and political institutions in Israel, and they are supported by Zionists with influence in parallel institutions in the United States, e.g. Harman and Schumer in Congress, the management of the NT Mets, Caterpillar Corp, etc.
My comments relate to the question of Bletcher to Barghouti of “what is your goal?, maybe we agree fully”, to which Barghouti stated “my goal is justice” (without clarifying what that meant to him or to his cadre; 67 borders or the elimination of Israel as Israel as indicated in his insistence on unlimited right of Palestinian return to Israel (not to Palestine)).
Palestinians often REFUSE freely given aid similar to what Bustan physically provides for the acknowledgement of some relationship with Israel or sympathizers.
The Palestinian violent opposition to Zionism preceded any period of oppression. Israelis are confused about “what is different”.
That Barghouti and the advocates for BDS don’t clarify, continues the existing relationship.
The emphasis on reform to realize a fully democratic Israel (as Israel) is laudable.
The emphasis of dissent only on complaint, with the possibility of declaring Israel itself illegitimate citing 1948, but not 1929, 1936-9,1947, is a disaster.
If you’re so insistent that your Zionism seeks a fully democratic Israel, why do resist the declaration of a unified nation where everyone who lives in Israel/Palestine gets an equal vote?
In a word? Wittypocrisy.
And also with the human rights groups that insist on equal rights for all within democratic Israel.
Just not with those that consider Zionism invalid.
So when is your Zionism going to stand up to their Zionism? Or is the extent of your confrontation going to be hand-wringing, then turning around and attacking the Palestinians whenever they stand up to any Zionism?
One notes you have no comment whatsoever for the actual content and evidence of the article. As usual. That’s one hell of a Zionist blind spot.
Re: “These are Israeli citizens,” one startling thing I just learned from Omar Barghouti that I think you need to keep explaining is the national-citizen distinction under Israeli law. Few people understand that a “citizen” of the Jewish state is actually a second-class citizen in a normal person’s understanding.
There is a lot of opportunity for improvement in the Negev and it would be interesting to hear more about solution to bringing a massive amount of water to that area. To benefit the peoples and cities in that area what is the best way to do that? Interesting to think what other readers think are good options, desalinization? Water pipeline from Turkey?
Well, Israelis use five times as much water as Palestinians. I think maybe just drain the private swimming pools and curtailing the watering of lawns of grass transplanted to the Middle East, and there would actually be plenty. I mean, there weren’t water issues of this magnitude before Israel, and Bedouin culture endured for thousands of years.
Chaos,
Great insight. I also noticed this article that looks like changes are working their way through the system.
link to jpost.com
Definitely it’s important not to have grass and things like that in the front lawn of a Negev home, also though I think that if there is such a thing as desertification there should be such a thing as de-desertification and hopefully we can see that happening in the coming decade.
I don’t know. It seems to me the Earth has diverse ecosystems for a reason — different regions support different life forms, and even adjacent ecosystems rely upon the prevailing systems of their neighbors for stability. We can’t make all of the land on the planet into grassy fields — nor should we try.