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.
disgusting
Piece of evidence numbered 21,562 in the case of why we’re hated.
>> Piece of evidence numbered 21,562 in the case of why we’re hated.
The only piece of evidence that matters is this one: “They hate us for our freedom.”
Damn you, Hamas!!!
Aloha, Philip…! My latest myFDL post… A Look at The New Israeli cables…
if America had said anything, it would have been to read the talking points given to us by our israeli parasite/controller
What is most appalling is trying to make the Bedouin out to be terrorists or potential terrorists. Haven’t they seen Lawrence of Arabia? Okay that’s a not a very good example.
Bedouins mostly don’t identify as Palestinians as they lack any sense of nationalism. Many identify as Israelis. Few of them serve in IDF. A lot are illiterate. Most Bedouins helped Israel during their ‘wars’ for ‘independence’ and this is that thanks they get?
There was a time in Palestine when the line between Christian and Muslim was blurred. They celebrated the same holidays. They went to the same churches (there were no ‘real’ mosques). If you asked one of them they probably wouldn’t have known if they were Christian or Muslim. Just whatever tribe they belong to. To a degree the Bedouins still have remnants of these beliefs. That Israel is out to make them into terrorists and is implicating them as terrorists in Sinai is completely unbelievable. Israel really wants to keep ‘terror’ in their headlines and keep playing that victim card. Too bad nobody cares and it just makes them look foolish
RE: “Why do we have a State Department?” ~ Weiss
ANSWER: To promote the interests of our American Empire!