The latest from Wikileaks (thanks to Ali Gharib). Once again, we see American Embassy officials in Israel learning intimately about an outrage back in 2005– the Judaization of the Negev, the Israeli program to move Bedouins into a few approved townships– and did we hear a word publicly about the outrage, no. Why do we have a State Department?
Here is the State Department Human Rights report from 2005. Its description of Bedouin conditions lacks the understanding reflected in this cable: That Bedouins are being relocated, that Jewish settlement in the Negev is being encouraged, that there are no high schools in the unrecognized Bedouin villages. The Israeli side of the story is presented carefully in the report.
The uprooting of the Bedouins has been a regular theme on this website in the last couple years. Many intrepid journalists have gone into the Negev to report on this. And from this cable we learn that the State Department was aware of these plans SIX years ago, was meeting with the Association of Forty, Bedouin leaders, and said nothing.
The cable is marked “Sensitive.” Excerpts:
Summary: Emboffs met February 17 [2005] with Bedouin community representatives in two Negev desert Bedouin villages not legally recognized by the GOI [Government of Israel] to discuss issues affecting their lives and possible PD [Policy Division] small grants assistance to educational programs. The Bedouin in these two unrecognized communities live in poor, makeshift conditions, without the benefits of municipal services or basic infrastructure. Highlighting the Bedouin’s tenuous residential status in the state, and GOI distrust of this segment of the population, the Jerusalem Post reported February 18 that the GOI intends to relocate hundreds of Bedouin families in illegal Negev communities near the perimeter fence of an airbase. The report draws the conclusion from unnamed Israeli military sources that the GOI fears that the Bedouin, who are citizens of Israel, may acquire anti-aircraft missiles for use against Israeli aircraft. This cable offers a snapshot of life in these illegal villages and a Bedouin perspective on the political context. End summary.
————————- Many Bedouin Marginalized ….
According to the Association of Forty’s data, [Attia] El-Asam said, the Negev has about 45 so-called “unrecognized” Bedouin villages, with some 70,000 Bedouin residents, or half of the total Negev Bedouin population. These unrecognized villages have never been included in GOI land planning, do not qualify for provision of any public services, and therefore do not officially exist on Israeli maps. Many Bedouin are life-long residents of these communities, but are considered squatters by the GOI. Without legal status, these communities receive no government resources, including municipal services and infrastructure development.
…El-Asam highlighted that, while the Bedouin now compose about 30 percent of the Negev population, the GOI has recognized as legal only seven communities or “townships” wherein the Bedouin population can legally reside. According to The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights In Israel – Adalah, the GOI initiated a program to resettle the Bedouin in these seven townships during the 1960s-70s.
….El-Asam claimed that the GOI nonetheless provides electrical and other municipal services to 60 Jewish National Fund-sponsored single-family farms in the Negev for Israeli Jews, none of which are connected to larger communities…
No high schools exist in any of the unrecognized villages, according to El-Asam, and only 16 of the villages contain even makeshift elementary schools. El-Asam claimed that 70 percent of the children in the unrecognized villages live below the poverty line.
