1000s of Israeli police said to be evacuating/erasing historical Bedouin village

"Thousands of police are in the Negev desert village of el-Araqib right now (5:30 a.m. in Israel), beginning a mass evacuation, demolition, and erasure of this historical Bedouin village," writes Yeela Raanan of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV).

"If you have access to the media, please send them to this village as soon as possible! The village of el-Araqib is between Rahat and Beer Sheva, and in a location that the Goldberg commission deemed outside of the areas allowed for the Negev Arabs... an area designated only for Jews...

"The JNF (Jewish National Fund) is planting a forest on this village lands - to make sure that the Bedouin cannot live on their village lands or use them for agriculture. The villagers turned to the Israeli courts, as the JNF were planting this forest at the behest of the Israeli government, but against Israeli law...

"The people of el-Araqib won the court battle... but this morning it seems that the Government of Israel has started a war -- of the Government against its own citizens."

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine, Nakba

{ 128 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Chaos4700 says:

    Where oh where is Witty to come around and tell us that the ethnic cleansing is all in the past, and we should act like it never happened?

    • slagbom says:

      Oh where oh where is Chaos4700 to speak on behalf of the thousands of Jews who have also been forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israeli government & had their homes demolished.

      You must have been on holiday whenever that happened.

      • Mooser says:

        “Oh where oh where is Chaos4700 to speak on behalf of the thousands of Jews who have also been forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israeli government & had their homes demolished.”

        What on earth are you talking about? Please tell me! It might change my whole anti-Zionist viewpoint! I mean, the Israeli government involved in whole sale anti-Semitism. Gosh, I’ve been too hard-hearted. Maybe the Jews do need a refuge! Who will save them from this horrible, home demolishing Israeli government you speak of? If only there was a place Jews could go and be safe.

        • slagbom says:

          I mean, the Israeli government involved in whole sale anti-Semitism.

          The Palestinians are a semitic people. What is your point?

        • Mooser let me explain what this slug means by “the gov’t forcibly evicting Jews” from their homes..Didn’t you know the poor colonial settler shit have been evacuated from Gush Katif in Gaza and occasionally from some posts those delicate piece of humanity build on hilltops in the West Bank? Ethnic cleansing, didn’t you know?

        • Mooser says:

          Well, it’s not as if we didn’t pay for it, with Katrina and all.
          I guess I’ve got an explanation for the Gulf oil spill too.

          TGIA, I knew what he was talking about, I just wanted to hear him say it.

        • annie says:

          for anyone wishing to skip this troll highjack troll i suggest scrolling or linking here to sumud’s comment w/a recording of Jesse Bacon’s phone call to Dr. Yeela Raanan, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages.

          she mentions 80,000 people but i don’t know if she means in this village or in the totality of the unrecognized villages.

          this is so disgusting. ethnic cleansing is going on this very second. yeela says she expects a spontaneous demonstration today. i’d like a live blogging thread. i wonder if they will be bulldozing all day.

          it doesn’t surprise me the trolls are here on this thread.

        • Why don’t we take the Jews that have been displaced, and put them in New York? We could remove the New Yorkers and put them in New Jersey, and possibly Delaware, I don’t think Pennsylvania would be too welcoming, and tell them they had no right to return, and if they wanted to fight for their homes, we would call them terrorists, and sic Homeland Security on them. Just to show we meant business we could ask Caterpillar to destroy a few neighborhoods just for good measure. At least it would be consistent with our Middle East policy. Besides, they might like taking over the apartments of the rich and famous. Then the Evangelicals would be able to send them money using our regular stamps, rather then worrying about airmail.

      • potsherd says:

        Oh, goody, a new Zionist with the same old tired hasbara talking points.

        Just what we’ve been needing here!

      • who needs Witty and Chaos when we have Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to explain to us how lovingly the Jewish and Democratic State of Israel cares for its Bedouin:

        Yet a comparison of the situation of the Bedouin in Israel to that in Arab countries will show that Israeli Bedouin enjoy conditions that their brethren lack, mainly in two areas: welfare and land ownership.
        Israel’s attitude towards its Bedouin citizens has always been positive. Well aware of the difficulties of the Bedouin and based on a thorough knowledge of the subject, the last two governments have begun taking steps to solve the problems with unprecedented determination and allocation of the necessary funds.

        to be sure, Dr. Yosef ben-David was careful to compare to ARAB Bedouin. Point taken.
        Had ben-David considered Bedouin in Iran, his comparison would have failed completely.
        Iran is not fond of the many migrant tribes that form a large part of its population, but Iran does not attempt to obliterate their “culture and values,” as does Israel: Dr. ben-David wrote of the status of Bedouin in Israel:

        The process of integrating the Bedouin into Israeli society takes place on two levels – the formal, i.e., by government policy; and the informal, i.e., by changing relationships with Israeli society in general and Jewish society in particular.

        The process, as may be expected, is fraught with “natural” difficulties experienced by this cultural group:

        # the transition from a traditional, conservative society which only a generation ago was nomadic, entails relinquishing values, customs and a traditional economy;

        # the Bedouin have to cope with the process of urbanization – the very antithesis of their nomadic tradition – and the attending poverty and crime rate;

        # the Bedouin to some extent fail to distinguish between objective difficulties and those connected with their changing sub-culture and thus feel an exaggerated sense of deprivation.

        An exaggerated sense of deprivation. That’s the problem, and these Bedouin brought it on themselves. Any and every non-Jew who comes in contact with the Israeli state brings his problems on himself. That’s the 11th commandment. Or maybe the 634th commandment.

        In contrast, in axis of evil Iran, Bedouin are granted special protections in order to preserve their migratory “cultures and values” in a rapidly “modernizing” and urbanizing landscape. It is a stringently enforced rule in Iran that shepherds driving their flocks have right-of-way across every road in Iran. On a very busy, 6-lane highway just outside Isfehan, my companions and I joined hundreds of other motorists who came to a standstill while shepherds guided their flock across the road. Iran’s mountain landscape is dotted with the black-tent encampments of migrant shepherds, and it is part of the curriculum for sociology and anthropology students in Iran’s colleges to spend at least one semester living with Iran’s migrant peoples in order to understand and preserve, rather than erase, their “culture and values.”

        That’s why Israel is orgasmic to destroy Iran: Iran serves as a mirror to force the Jewish and Democratic state to confront the ugliness of its colonizing project.

    • Shingo says:

      “Where oh where is Witty to come around and tell us that the ethnic cleansing is all in the past, and we should act like it never happened?”

      This is live and let live remember?

  2. hayate says:

    Don’t forget to raise your right hand and shout zieg heil, israelis. You made it your destiny.

  3. potsherd says:

    Another step in making Israel aravenrein.

    • RoHa says:

      But in Israel the Arab citizens have full equality and human rights and all that stuff, don’t they?

      • Antidote says:

        Roha, SUCKER ALERT — the Jewish majority state doesn’t grant rabbit breeding rights to humans, unless they are Jewish and live in illegal settlements on the WB, where they don’t bother Israelis with lower reproductive rates. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. Why do I say such horrible things? Talkback from YNET:

        “Most of us Jews in the Negev have grown kids who leave the area for jobs, housing etc. If I have 20 children what are the chances they will all build beautiful private houses around mine? Impossible! But the Bedouins DOUBLE their population every 20 years or so and claim that all the land is theirs to build private homes on. The Jews are SUCKERS in this country and the Bedouin are NOT given a raw deal as all you nutso foreigners or Tel Avivis think! Come see for yourselves what is going on down here. FINALLY the government enforces the law with the Bedouin and NOT just with us. Thank you . THANK YOU! Hey government, if you don’t want TONS of young Jewish Israelis leaving the country then you better start enforcing laws against the Bedouin and not just against the Jews! “

  4. Avi says:

    For Israel and its Jewish apologists in the United States and Canada, this is business as usual. Such actions are “essential” for the “survival of the Jewish people”.

    I’m sure such bombastic claims are as meaningless as “Israel was defending itself”.

    PATHOLOGY 101: Invent euphemisms and a mythical story to tell your little kids so that you can maintain that “JEWISH IDENTITY”. And don’t forget to give them a Hebrew name so that they’ll know when they’re working undercover among the Goys and when they can speak freely.

  5. slagbom says:

    I once was walking down the road from Beit She’an to the Jordanian River Crossing and this car came screaming up the road and whipped a U-turn. These two Israeli Arabs (of bedouin decent) told me to “get in.”

    We ended up going to Amman and having a great weekend. We even saw some “strippers” (who kept their clothes on) and I bailed them out of a bit of trouble too hehe

    Anyhow, I am called a zionist here for stating my opinions and experiences as well as being accused of being “a Jew” etc etc.. Oh well. For me I think the Bedouins are pretty cool and they can speak English, Arabic and Hebrew. Also they serve in the army.

    Others smuggle drugs, which I have to thank them for because I did enjoy a bit of their hash.

    • slagbom says:

      Oh and another thing that is interesting is all over Israel you see these little Bedouin shacks set up. They have some goats and some trash scattered around. They are very basic shelters. Nobody bothers them.

      The thing is though, if you live in Israel and don’t have a building permit you are at risk for demolition. This holds true no matter what bearded man in the sky or flying spaghetti monster you worship.

      • Shmuel says:

        The thing is though, if you live in Israel and don’t have a building permit you are at risk for demolition. This holds true no matter what bearded man in the sky or flying spaghetti monster you worship.

        It’s not about religious beliefs or practice, but about ethnic categories, and there is clear and well-documented discrimination against non-Jews in terms of land use/ownership, zoning, construction and demolition of “illegal” structures. Try reading some of the work of Oren Yiftachel (professor political geography, urban planning and public policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).

      • demize says:

        “Flying spaghetti monster” are you trying to incorporate every internet trope in existance into one thread? I usually don’t engage the trolls much around here, but there is something about your manor that is really irritating me.

        • Bumblebye says:

          I think this fellow, Scumbag, is probably ex-US army, served a tour or more, where he learned his Arabic, but by golly, was he impressed with some of the IDF instructors seconded to teach good ol’ boys (or wannabes) how to wind the arabs up to create a good excuse for opening fire. And after his tours, he probably took up the invite to Israel they extended, and got shown round. Where they could further impress the naif but cruel twit with how bad arabs everywhere are by their choices of what they showed him.

      • “The thing is though, if you live in Israel and don’t have a building permit you are at risk for demolition.”

        what permit are you talking about, slugbum?..This is a historic village which means it was there well before any shitty state of Israel..Here:

        “a mass evacuation, demolition, and erasure of this historical Bedouin village,”

      • jeffrey says:

        @slagbon How many Bedouins,and Palestinian get these building permits? How many Jews get their home demolished that have their deeds to their homes? Jeffrey/jew4palestine

  6. hobbyist says:

    I would imagine that no one can move men and/or materiel across the deserts better than the Bedouin can. Israel stupidly increases her own security vulnerability by antagonizing and incentivizing these people.

  7. syvanen says:

    This is sad. When the Zionist first came to Palestine they discovered a schism between the more urban and sedentary farmers, ie the Palestinians and the migratory herder natives, namely the Bedouin. They exploited this masterly. They hired the Bedouins to fight on their side against their traditional enemies. I suppose the Bedouin believed that they would receive special privileges. They did for about 40 years. But unfortunately for them the Zionists now want their land. It is sorry sucker time. Israel does not need their help anymore, they are quite powerful enough without help. It is Bedouin land that the Zionists now want. As Slagbom points out above — they can sell us drugs, but please they should not expect a homeland — they lost that when they agreed to go to war against the Palestinians.

    What is sad here is that they do not have allies that will support them today. The Palestinians with their many international contacts are not likely to use up their political capital supporting the Bedouin.

    • slagbom says:

      ” But unfortunately for them the Zionists now want their land.”

      If Israel’s objective is a land grab then they suck at it. They’ve given back over 90% of the land they’ve captured (all in defensive wars).

      Most of Israel is uninhabited, which you’d know if you’d been there vs oh, reading about it on a blog.

      There is no need for more land, there is plenty there.

      • Avi says:

        If Israel’s objective is a land grab then they suck at it. They’ve given back over 90% of the land they’ve captured.

        Sure. 90%. All defensive. OK. Next!

        • slagbom says:

          Avi, if you want to dispute facts you’ll need to do a tad better than that.

          It’s pretty simple really, since Sinai is included in that 90% that is a fair chunk of land. Israel was kind enough to develop it with tourism and the return it to Egypt, oil reserves intact.

        • slagbom says:

          Avi what does “Four Navy Ishllachs all. Azatata Uppmach Ann

          Gela fifth Mai Neachmu” mean?

          Could you please switch to Arbabic? I can read that. Hebrew forces me to use the translator.

        • Avi says:

          Avi, if you want to dispute facts you’ll need to do a tad better than that.

          It’s pretty simple really, since Sinai is included in that 90% that is a fair chunk of land. Israel was kind enough to develop it with tourism and the return it to Egypt, oil reserves intact.

          The Sinai was occupied illegally in a war of aggression. Israel received billions in aid guarantees from the US in exchange for its peace treaty with Egypt. The facts are known. I haven’t the need to debate a lying revisionist.

        • slagbom says:

          How am I lying? They occupied it, they gave it back.

          I’m a liar when I say they gave back 90% of land captured, which includes Sinai? You just backed me up. Thanks pimp!

        • Avi says:

          How am I lying? They occupied it, they gave it back.

          I’m a liar when I say they gave back 90% of land captured, which includes Sinai? You just backed me up. Thanks pimp!

          You’re a liar because you’re dense AND because you’re simply a liar. Do you have amnesia? You said “All defensive”. Therefore, you’re a liar.

        • slagbom says:

          Sure. 90%

          Israel received billions in aid guarantees from the US in exchange for its peace treaty with Egypt.

          So first it’s I’m a liar about the 90%… and the it’s Welll, the returned it, but begrudgingly? Ok.

          You’re a liar because you’re dense AND because you’re simply a liar. Do you have amnesia? You said “All defensive”. Therefore, you’re a liar.

          Keep the ad hominem attacks coming Avi, they are the earmarks of a truly intelligent man.

          So when Egypt blockaded Israel that was fine and dandy but now that Israel has Gaza under a blockade it’s time for a ‘resistance?’

          Funny logic, or lack of logic rather.

        • Avi says:

          Keep the ad hominem attacks coming Avi, they are the earmarks of a truly intelligent man.

          The earmarks of a truly intelligent man are certainly not debate tactics that are disingenuous like a snake-oil salesman’s. But, since you’re here to lie, like the thousands of Israel’s APOLOGISTS, then I shouldn’t be surprised.

          I’m fairly certain your sensibilities are offended by my ad hominem attacks, much in the same way everyone else’s sensibilities are offended by your vile accusations of “Nazi” and “BNP” and “skinhead”.

          The problem with you idiots, is that you don’t see your own hypocrisy even when it’s staring you in the eyes.

          And if my “personal attacks” hurt your feelings so much, try living as a Palestinian in Gaza for a day. You’ll run home to mommy crying and weeping, “Never Again”.

        • slagbom says:

          Where have I lied again Avi? Please, don’t be shy.

          I love hearing someone who resorts to childish name calling be so keen to discuss debate tactics.

          I can prove quite easily that this website is being cited and discussed by a number of A3P, aka the white-only party, members as we speak. They don’t bother to hide it very well.

        • Avi says:

          I can prove quite easily that this website is being cited and discussed by a number of A3P, aka the white-only party, members as we speak. They don’t bother to hide it very well.

          Find yourself a babysitter. You clearly need one. And schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist. That’s not an ad hominem, that’s an observation. You simply need all the help you can get.

          I’ve got more important things to do.

        • slagbom says:

          Yes, calling someone “dense” isn’t an ad hominem. You tell em Avi!

        • VR says:

          slagbom your comments about what has taken place in Palestine is about as informative as your comments about participants here, Avi has it – you’re a liar. It does not matter to me if you are Israeli of Arab, we have some “apologists” (term used lightly) who have sold out to power, we have others who are Israeli Zionists – it would not matter if you could not read English (let alone Arabic or Hebrew. Next!

        • slagbom says:

          Where have I lied again? Funny I keep asking that and nobody can put forth any evidence that I lied about anything.

        • VR says:

          Oh and by the way, naming Anarchists in the same sentence with skin heads does not do a damn thing, it just further reveals your intentions.

        • slagbom says:

          Oh and by the way, naming Anarchists in the same sentence with skin heads does not do a damn thing, it just further reveals your intentions.

          I said “National Anarchists.” They believe in ‘ethnic tribalism.’

          link to en.wikipedia.org

          You fail to grasp even the most basic concepts. Sad and pathetic. I’m still waiting for you to backup the claim that I’m a “liar.” Man up son.

        • VR says:

          Than you are proficient in set theories, and still a liar…lol

        • slagbom says:

          So for those keeping score, VR 0 Slagbom 2

          I know facts can be pesky, so I don’t blame you for being too afraid to deal with them.

        • VR says:

          They have been repeatedly dealt with here, scour the archives, why should we have to repeat ourselves into infinity. Every time one of your ilk enters this blog you think we have to drop everything are repeat ourselves, it is a complete waste of time. You made your aim clear –

          “So for those keeping score, VR 0 Slagbom 2″

          It is a waste of time, you are so common it is not worth the effort. If you were the epitome of argumentation you would not be repeating what other have posted contrary to the facts, and if you were serious you would have studied the site to know that these matters have been dealt with numerous times. Further, if you did study the site you would not have introduced such mundane lies, or you have studied the site and are so unoriginal that you insist on repeating them over again. I have already wasted too much time with you.

        • slagbom says:

          translation..

          VR can’t back his shit up. LOL the archives. This is like the 2nd article I’ve ever even commented on HAHA

          Some expert. You sure showed me! Anarchism and all.

        • slagbom says:

          VR, it is the measure of a man of when he can admit that he was wrong.

          I guess you can’t admit you were wrong about Anarchism and my alleged mention of it. Pathetic. Typical of the members of this site, sadly.

          Also you can’t back up the claim I’m a liar either. Equally pathetic. This site offers me nothing in the way of worthy opponents. I “am disappoint.”

        • Shingo says:

          ”Avi, if you want to dispute facts you’ll need to do a tad better than that.”

          1. In an interview published in Le Monde on 28 February 1968, Israeli Chief of Staff Rabin said: “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”

          2. On 14 April 1971, a report in the Israeli newspaper Al-Hamishmar contained the following statement by Mordecai Bentov, a member of the wartime national government. “The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.”

          3. In the spring of 1972, General Peled, Chief of Logistical Command during the war and one of 12 members of Israel’s General Staff, addressed a political literary club in Tel Aviv. He said: “The thesis according to which the danger of genocide hung over us in June 1967, and according to which Israel was fighting for her very physical survival, was nothing but a bluff which was born and bred after the war.” In a radio debate Peled said: “Israel was never in real danger and there was no evidence that Egypt had any intention of attacking Israel.” He added, “Israeli intelligence knew that Egypt was not prepared for war.”

          4. In 1982, Prime Minister Begin, arguably the world’s most successful terrorist leader, went even further. He said : “In June 1967 we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us, We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”

          5. “If Nasser had not been stupid enough to give us a pretext to go to war, we would have created one within a year or 18 months.”
          [General Chaim Herzog, a founding father of Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence]

          Any questions?

        • rmokhtar says:

          Slagbom

          here’s some healthy dose of slang Arabic for you:

          إنت تحتاج
          ‎تنحط في مستشفى مجانين… و ممكن شوية شيشة..عشان مخك يفوق من الضياع اللي انت فيه
          فوق, فوق
          العالم ما عاد صار يصدق الكذب والاحتيال

        • Finesh and his extended Bedouin family didn’t intend to live in the middle of the Israeli military’s training grounds. The Israeli government came along a few years ago and transformed the unauthorized Bedouin community into a military training site.

          Last month, Israeli officials returned with a new warning for Finesh and the 200 other Bedouin residents: Move, or we’ll demolish your homes.

          “Where shall I go?” asked Finesh, a dejected, 67-year-old father of nine who walks unsteadily with a hand-carved wooden cane. “Do they want me to go to heaven?”

          Israeli leaders have a $3.6 billion plan to transform the vast Negev desert into prospering Jewish communities. Finesh and 80,000 other Bedouin say the land is theirs, however.

          As Israel presses ahead with the development, a Human Rights Watch report released Monday concludes that it’s using “discriminatory, exclusionary and punitive” policies to push the aside the Bedouin, who are descendants of Arab tribes that once roamed the Negev.

          “Israeli policies have created a situation whereby tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens in the Negev have little or no alternative but to live in ramshackle villages and build illegally in order to meet their most basic shelter needs,” the report says.

          Since Israel was founded nearly 60 years ago, its leaders have been wrestling with what to do with its small Bedouin minority, now climbing above 160,000.

          Israel has pushed about half the Bedouin into sterile, depressed new desert towns, demolished thousands of illegal shanties and transformed their sheep-grazing pastures into dangerous military zones.

          About 80,000 Bedouin living in more than three dozen unauthorized shantytowns and villages refuse to move, even though they receive no electricity or water from Israel.

          Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has set up a commission to come up with innovative ways to handle the holdouts.

          “The government of Israel understands that it needs to solve the problem of the Bedouin,” said Yehuda Bachar, the director general of a newly established government department for Bedouin affairs. “If it is not solved now, it will not be solved for many years.”

          The intent behind the plans is clear: Israeli leaders want to move the Arab residents to make way for Jewish developments.

          The Israeli government is looking to spend $3.6 billion over the next seven years to lure more Jewish residents to the Negev, a triangular desert that makes up more than half of the nation’s land.

          “The only chance for the development of the Negev is that we bring more Jews,” said Shmuel Rifman, the mayor of the local Ramat Negev Regional Council, who supports a trickle-down theory when it comes to the Bedouin.

          “When there are more jobs for the Jews, there will be more jobs for them.”

          As with Israel’s clash with the Palestinians, the battle with the Bedouin is over land.

          Finesh was a young boy in what was then Palestine when Jewish militants beat back Arab armies in 1948 after Israel declared its independence.

          Most Bedouin fled. Israeli leaders debated what to do about those who stayed. Ultimately, they relocated thousands of Bedouin, such as Finesh, to make way for new Jewish arrivals. The Bedouin, who accepted Israeli citizenship, set up villages that the government still refuses to sanction.

          Because Israel doesn’t recognize these communities, they receive no running water, no state electricity and no local services. Power lines serving Jewish towns run over Bedouin homes. A toxic waste site sits not far from one Bedouin community. Compared with Jewish settlers at illegal West Bank outposts that often receive basic power and security, the Bedouin get second-class treatment.

          A few years ago, Finesh said, Israeli officials came and declared their homes a military firing zone. Israel set up concrete blocks along the narrow road with warnings in Hebrew and English but not Arabic.

          Read more: link to mcclatchydc.com

        • rmokhtar says:

          Israel was kind enough to develop it with tourism and the return it to Egypt, oil reserves intact.

          slagbom,

          what facts? You have not said one thing that is a ‘fact’. It was not out of ‘kindness’ that Israel withdrew, and no, it didn’t return it intact:

          Here are some ‘facts’ you can attempt to dispute:

          Israel had occupied all of Sinai and was reluctant to withdraw. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened Israel with sanctions if it did not withdraw from Sinai completely. Reluctantly, Israel withdrew destroying all the infra-structure of Sinai.

          ….
          The United Nations admitted Israel as a member of the world organization based on the following conditions:
          1) Israel’s implementation of Resolution 181 which aims to create two independent States; a Palestinian State in the green colored areas of the partition map above, and a Jewish State in the white colored areas of the partition map above
          2) Israel’s implementation of Resolution 194 which aims, among other things, to guarantee the right of return of the Palestinians to their homeland
          3) Additional conditions contained in Resolution 273: “Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter… the declaration by the State of Israel that it unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations.“

          The events of 1956 in the Middle East raised serious questions about the effectiveness of the UN, who admitted Israel to its membership based on the conditions that “Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter…” However, when that supposedly “peace-loving State” (Israel) invades a neighboring country (Egypt), occupies Sinai for over 5 months, refuses to allow the UN International Peacekeeping Force (UNEF) to operate from its side, and destroys Sinai’s infrastructure; after all these Israeli atrocities and violations of the UN Charter and international law; the UN failed to enforce any sanctions against Israel; such as forcing Israel to pay retributions to Egypt for the damage in Sinai, or enforcing the operation of UNEF from the Israeli side, or revoking Israel’s membership in the United Nations.

          link to unpost.org

        • demize says:

          Your link was to a wiki on “Nationalist-Anarchism” which is an oxymoron. It is “Anarchist” in the same sense The Nazi party was “Socialist” ie not very. Anyone can take 2 words and concoct an “ideology” the fact that those mullet-heads are 3rd. Way Fascists who have adopted Anarchist language maeans nothing. Nobody takes them seriously. In fact there are some on the West Coast who tend to get beat up whenever they go to one or another Anarchist function.

      • Mooser says:

        “Most of Israel is uninhabited, which you’d know if you’d been there vs oh, reading about it on a blog.”

        You know, you could make a very persuasive saying from that! Try it: “A people-less land, for a land-less People”! Just rolls off the tongue, don’t it. Of course, there is this. But that’s just one of those “blogs” you are talking about. I bet they made up all the pictures, and all the records, and all the quotes, huh, slagila?

  8. zebra says:

    Please get back on topic. And slagbom, it´s not a bad advice. Look in the archives and come back if you feel that your issues have not been dealt with.

  9. hayate says:

    slagbom July 27, 2010 at 2:13 am

    You know, women are not that skerry, sugarplum. Why not find out some time? It wont fall off, trust me, “Mother” lied to you.

    :D

  10. Sumud says:

    *MEANWHILE* the bedouin of El Araqib are experiencing Nakba.

    Jesse Bacon from The Only Democracy, speaking by phone to Dr. Yeela Raanan [Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages] live from the scene of the destruction:

    link to theonlydemocracy.org

    In short:

    • about 1500 Israeli police & security forces
    • the bedu are being rounded up by the police
    • 20 bulldozers, flattening all structures
    • chicken coops flattened w/ chickens inside (echoes of 08/09 Gaza Massacre, where 100,000-170,000 chickens were killed by IDF bulldozers)

  11. eljay says:

    >> Oh and don’t forget, this all falls within the contextual context of self governance and the stabilizing narrative of live and let live.

    It’s kinda like “you have to spend to save”, except that it’s “you have to occupy, steal and kill in order to live and let live”.

  12. Daughters of the desert

    A family stand in the Negev, amid the wreckage of their house. They are not Palestinians, but Israeli citizens with voting rights and husbands who have served in the army. So why did soldiers destroy their home? Rachel Cooke meets the Bedouin women who officially do not exist

  13. Al Jazeera is reporting the bulldozing of the Bedouin village this morning:

    link to english.aljazeera.net

    There will be no peace as long as justice is absent in occupied Israel. Free Israel from zionist state terrorism, restore legitimacy to that nation.

    • potsherd says:

      I didn’t find a word about this in Ha’aretz online, where they are all bemoaning a helicopter crash.

    • Antidote says:

      link to palestinenote.com

      “Al-Arakib is one of 45 unrecognized villages in Israel’s Negev desert, which have a combined population of 76,000. These communities, some of which have existed since before the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, receive no water, electricity, or government services of any kind.

      An emailed statement from Israel’s leftist Peace Now organization said that Al-Arakib has existed since before 1948:

      The destruction of the village was carried out despite dispute over ownership of the land still pending in the courts. Residents of al-Arakib are neither squatters nor invaders: their village has existed many years before the creation of Israel in 1948. Residents had been evicted by the state in 1951, but returned to the land on which they live and which they cultivate. Ownership of the land is now the subject of proceedings in the Be’er Sheva District Court, where academic researchers have already testified in confirmation of the residents’ ownership right in the land.

      The destruction’s declared aim is to facilitate plans by the Jewish National Fund to plant a wood on the site. We regard this demolition as a criminal act. Bedouin citizens of Israel are not enemies, and forestation of the Negev is not a reasonable pretext for destroying a community which is more than 60 years old, dispossessing its residents, and violating the basic rights of hundreds of Israeli civilians, men, women and children.”

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