When bureaucracy is a weapon of war.

Aziz, the son of the Sheikh holding
plaster balustrade from a demolished
house.

Can you imagine having your home destroyed 47 times in two and a half years and still going back and rebuilding something on that land just to make sure that you keep hold of it? Can you imagine that before the first demolition you had had not just your crops and all the greenery on your land sprayed with Round-up each year for three years, but also had people, animals and houses sprayed, so that animals died and adults and children became sick? Can you imagine having 4,500 olive trees cut down, over 220 sheep, horses and a camel killed, your crops ploughed over to destroy them and yet you stay because it is your land and you can prove it? Then imagine those that have destroyed your property trying to hide the evidence by planting trees over it all?

Aziz shows us water pipes and
 electrical wires from the demolished
houses

No, I am not talking about the occupied West Bank of Palestine, I am talking about the land belonging to people who are citizens of Israel and can prove ownership of the land they have lived on and farmed since Ottoman times.

We were told how the Bedouin people of Al Arakib had 573 people living on their land all with plenty of work and food. They sold organic free-range eggs, olive oil, milk, cheese and mutton. They grew wheat for their bread and barley  for fodder for their flocks.

This area has had the barley ploughed
up by Israel as the village had not got
a permit for them on their own land

In the 1970s Israel decided to measure their land.  They flew over it and took aerial photos and told the elders that the photos were recognition enough of ownership. Then later they were told that it was a mistake on Israel's part and it was not proof of ownership, but just a claim for ownership.

In 1998 they were asked to file their claim on the land. If there was no agreement they would have to go to court. Both sides would have to bring documents to prove the ownership of the land. The State refused to have to find any documents and so it went to the Supreme Court. The State of Israel referred to a law made in 1953 that says that all the land had been confiscated for the State, but the Bedouin had documents showing that they had paid taxes on the land under the British Mandate from 1921 to 1947 and the State failed to prove its case. The Supreme Court referred the case back to a lower court and ever since then the State of Israel has been trying to get around the fact that the Bedouin can prove ownership of the land and the case is still continuing to this day. In the meantime the State is trying to drive them out by any and every means and have handed the problem over to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) who are in the process of creating a forest on this land, as they have already done with the land of other Bedouin tribes.

Newly forrested land

The JNF advertise their intention to make the land green and to make national parks and to tick all those ecological boxes that the world looks for at this time. But as I have pointed out in a previous blog beauty here can hide more sinister behaviour. Many Bedouin left Israel in 1948, but those that remained have been systematically forced to move into smaller and smaller designated areas called 'Siyag'. The State has even tried to move them into towns and offered them infrastructure and amenities if they did so. But there was little work except in Israeli factories and very confined space with no room for expansion and so many of the them either turned to drink, drugs and crime or went back to their old land where they are in constant threat of being violently evicted.

A Bedouin village with Israel heavy
industry in the background

Israel finally agreed to 7 'Recognised' Bedouin villages that could have proper schools and some water supplied to them, but they are small and have little land on which to herd flocks,so there are also many unrecognised villages. The schools are the only buildings supplied with electricity and the rest of the village has no refuse collection, running water, roads or any other facilities. It is interesting to note that even the recognised Bedouin villages cannot be found on an Israeli map, whereas the small groups of Israeli homes in the same area are. It is necessary to remind the reader that these people are ALL Israeli citizens and as such are entitled to amenities. Unless a farmer gets a permit he cannot sow the land nearby with barley for his flock or even graze his sheep. There is therefore little work and the Bedouin are dependent on finding the money to buy solar panels from private companies and for all their needs.

The result of all this is increasing prejudice against the Bedouin people who are now seen to live in little more than shanty towns surrounded by rubbish and largely barren soil. There are photos of Al Arakib from before 2010, which show the village before it was destroyed, surrounded by tees, crops and livestock. I will also remind readers that the ownership of the land is still in dispute. Israel has not so far been able to prove that the land no longer belongs to these Bedouin, yet it has not stopped the nightmare for those that are trying to live on their land. It seems to make little difference to Israel whether the land is legally theirs, based on their own laws, or not.

The Sheikh of the tribe

The head of Al Arakib gave us an impassioned speech. "If Netanyahu wanted peace he should first make peace with the Palestinians at home. Only by making peace with their brothers can the Jews have peace. We also love the Jewish people. Many Jews come as activists with the hope of making Israel a just place, but the army is being brainwashed that the Bedouin are animals. The officers come and find that we are not animals. They co-operate with what Israel wants and make the Bedouin outlaws and slaves that are landless.  Why does the country need all these trees? 3 years ago we planted our own. They have destroyed our future, but now we have trees!"

The Sheikh speaking with Amos, an
Israeli activist and Tamar 

One of the Israeli activists explained that Israel uses bureaucracy as an act of war and not an act of law. It is not a violent clash, it is a 'peaceful' situation for Israel. For Palestinians it is an ongoing war against them. It is war by stealth. The world would react if they saw more direct violence towards the Bedouin, but it turns a blind eye to bureaucratic ethnic cleansing.

There was one very positive aspect of our trip. We took a couple of people with us and one of them was a young Israeli woman called Tamar. She had only recently joined the Israeli army and had been commissioned to be a correspondent for the Israeli radio, which is the main channel for the army. She was hugely knowledgeable and intelligent and had come with a genuinely open mind. If only more Israelis would show such interest and be prepared to engage as she did there would be hope.