By Thom
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes on their website that the Bedouin enjoy a higher standard of living than elsewhere in the Middle East. But countless Bedouin homes and villages have been destroyed by Israel. The government’s ‘township’ policy, displacing Bedouin into townships so they can be easily managed, luring them with electricity and water and cheap housing so they can be put in one place, kept under control, is what the government refers to as integration. The Bedouin are forced to choose between constant demolition of their houses and harassment by settlers and army, or being moved from the land they live upon to townships to cease practicing their culture and to conform to Israeli society.
The excuses for demolishing the Bedouin villages include making way for the building of the illegal security fence, expanding illegal settlements, making way for factories; for modernity at any cost, in an undemocratic state guilty of numerous human rights abuses in both Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel destroys Bedouin villagers, leaving them homeless, to drive them out of areas they wish to claim as Jewish.
The village of Ka’abna in the Jiflik area of the Jordan Valley is one of many examples of the government destroying a Bedouin village for no reason except for not wanting them there. The excuses for this senseless destruction of course vary, but the most common is building without a permit in a military closed zone. Permits are impossible to get. Why the land of sand and rocks at the foot of a mountain range next to a highway is of importance to the military is anyones guess. But continually destroyin