3rd December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Dozens of Palestinians rallied in Gaza City’s Palestine Square (al-Saha) on Saturday, 30th November 2013, joining a “Day of Rage” against the Prawer-Begin Plan held throughout Palestine and across the world.
The Plan, a proposal in the Israeli Knesset, would displace tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouin from dozens of villages in the Naqab region, replacing their homes with new Jewish settlements.
2nd December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Occupied Palestine
Over 100 Palestinians and international activists took part in a non-violent demonstration on the 30th of November to protest against the Prawer Plan. The demonstration began at the al-Bireh municipality building in Ramallah and proceeded onto the Bet El settlement nearby. Demonstrators were met with stones then live ammunition from settlers before the Israeli army and border police arrived, employing violent tactics to disperse the demonstrators and arresting three Palestinians in the process.
Protesters gathered at the municipality building at around 2pm to protest the Prawer Plan (Israel’s planned removal of up to 70,000 members of the Bedouin population living in the Negev) before travelling by bus to the Bet El settlement. On arrival protesters made their way up a side entrance of the illegal settlement whilst under attack from stones thrown by settler youth. This did not deter the demonstrators who chanted slogans and attached banners to the settlement fence. This brought the attention of settlers armed with automatic firearms. After a brief period of pushing on the chain linked fence the armed settlers fired a volley of live ammunition in the air in an attempt to intimidate the non-violent protesters. Shortly after this Israeli forces began arriving on the scene.
This prompted those present to continue demonstrating on the main road adjacent to the settlement. The Israeli army and border police were initially passive due to the large presence of journalists and photographers, which led those present to believe that this non-violent protest would be allowed to continue without violent intervention. However it quickly degenerated into a brutal crackdown on all peaceful protesters present. The security forces initially fired a flurry of tear gas canisters whilst advancing 30 meters before breaking into formations with riot shields to obstruct the road. Numerous stun grenades were then thrown at the feet of protesters in an effort to disperse them. However it was only once arrests began to take place that this occurred. One of those arrested was slammed to the ground and held there by up to 12 soldiers and border police before being led away to an undisclosed location.
By this point a good deal of the demonstrators had dispersed but a small number headed towards Jalzaun refugee camp and created road blocks to attempt to disrupt the advance of the Israeli soldiers. Some also began to throw stones up the road where the lines of army and border police remained, at which point tear gas was fired in vast quantities towards the Palestinian protesters. Some protesters were forced to leave the area due to the thickness of the tear gas in the air and the unbearable conditions that this created. However those that did remain, as well as the residents of the refugee camp, were shot at with both rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition even after the demonstration was clearly finished. Despite this, no serious injuries were reported although many people were treated on the scene for tear gas inhalation.
Protests against the Prawer Plan have taken place across Palestine, but also worldwide over the last few days including in the Negev itself where up to 1000 people attended. However despite this Benjamin Netanyahu described the Prawer Plan demonstrations as “riots” and stated, “We shall continue to advance the Prawer Bill.”
10th November 2013 | Prawer Won’t Pass Campaign | Occupied Palestine
After a month laden with demonstrations and debates in the Interior Affairs Committee of the Knesset, this Saturday will see the largest event held thus far in the Naqab (Negev), with thousands of protesters expected to arrive from around the country. Parallel protests will be held in Gaza, Ramallah, Haifa, Berlin, The Hague, Cairo and 25 other cities around the world. This is a critical moment: the fate of up to 70,000 Palestinian-Bedouin indigenous to the Naqab (Negev) will soon be determined.
In their words, “We are human beings and citizens, but the Prawer Plan treats us like animals who can be moved around from place to place with no consultation or regard for our wishes. This Saturday, we will stand with our supporters from near and afar, and call for the recognition of the villages denied recognition and for a halt to this cruel plan.”
The Prawer-Begin plan will allow Israeli police to use force in its expulsion of Palestinian-Bedouins. It will also permit the police to arrest and imprison any Palestinian-Bedouin up to two years for violating the law. The plan negates Palestinian-Bedouin ownership rights in their ancestral land, it gives Israel’s Prime Minister unprecedented powers to implement the plan and it legitimizes the use of violence and coercion in the execution of the plan. Moreover, it is a plan that has at its heart the demographic transformation of the Naqab (Negev) area, by expanding Jewish-Israeli presence on the expense of the indigenous Palestinian-Bedouins. In short, the Prawer-Begin Plan rises to a crime against humanity as delineated in the Rome Statue, Article 7.1 (d) and 7.2 (d).
“The state is treating us like objects to be shunted about,” says Huda Abu-Obeid, a law student and an activist against the Prawer Plan. “We are being denied the basic right to decide our own fate – to decide where to live and how to dispose our property, our basic right to a home. But we will not give up and will continue to resist the Plan nonviolently.”
Abu-Obeid adds: “Imagine the State of Israel enacted a law forbidding citizens whose name starts with an A to live west of Route 4, in central Israel. The Prawer Plan says something similar to the Palestinian-Bedouins of the Naqab – it forbids them from living and holding property west of Route 40. The government is trying to present the plan as ‘in the best interest of the Bedouin,’ while with one hand it is acting to destroy Bedouin villages through the Prawer Plan and with the other it is building new Jewish localities in the Negev, some of these in the very same places where the villages stand today.”
“The plan is titled ‘The plan to regularize Bedouin settlement in the Negev’, but it does nothing to solve problems and regularize our settlements – it stipulates only destruction,” says Fadi El-Obra, a 29-year-old from Rahat, active against the Prawer Plan. “What about the people the government plan to deprive of their homes? We Palestinian Bedouins live in the villages because our livelihood depends on it; you cannot uproot an entire population and urbanize it without consultation – and that is precisely what the government is doing.”
Israel’s government claims that the plan’s objective is to ‘modernize’ and ‘alleviate’ the socio-economic conditions of Palestinian-Bedouins runs counter to many historical facts, and is racist on its own. First and foremost, the Israeli government did not approach the Palestinian-Bedouin community to ask them for their needs, nor did they consult the Palestinian political leadership within Israel. This is a plan devised by the government without any input from those immediately and directly affected. Second, unlike Israel’s claim Palestinian-Bedouins are not ‘nomads’, they have settled in villages more than a century ago and have lead a sedentary, agricultural based life on their ancestral land for decades now.
The central rally will take place at 3:30 pm at the Hura Junction on Route 31 in the Naqab.
10th November 2013 | Prawer Won’t Pass Campaign | Occupied Palestine
On 24th of June, the Israeli Knesset approved the Prawer-Begin plan, which if implemented will result in the destruction of more than 35 unrecognized villages in Al-Naqab and the forced expulsion and confinement of more than 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins. The Prawer plan is the largest Israeli land-grab since 1948. It epitomizes the nature of Israel’s policy; Israeli-Jewish demographic expansion and Palestinian-Arab demographic containment.
The International community has repeatedly called on Israel to halt the implementation of the Prawer Plan due to its discriminatory nature and the severe infringement it causes on the rights of Palestinian Bedouins in Al-Naqab. The UN committee on the elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Israel to withdraw the proposed legislation of the Prawer Plan. Also, in 2012, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on Israel to stop the Prawer plan and its policies of forced displacement and dispossession.
Injustice, humiliation and forced displacement are a recurring theme in Palestine’s history. This is lesson that we as a group of youth take to the heart. We will oppose, resist and work against the continuous assault that our communities, across Palestine face. Therefore, we launched the “Prawer will not pass” campaign with an eye to preventing this plan to be yet another chapter in Palestine’s long and tragic history.
Opposing the Prawer Plan is to oppose ethnic cleansing, displacement and confinement in the 21st century.
Join us by organizing marches, protests, sending letters to those with positions of influence in your country or community, by doing whatever you can, in order to force Israel to stop the Prawer plan.
Join us on the 30th of November in saying “Prawer shall not Pass”.
For more information, please contact:
Email: PrawerWontPass@gmail.com
2nd August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Palestine
Update 2nd August: The Palestinian activist arrested at the protest near Hizma checkpoint has been released after paying 3000NIS. All arrestees at the demonstration in Wadi Ara have also been released but will have to be under house arrest for three days.
*******
On August 1st, ‘day of rage’, thousands of people took to the streets to denounce the ethnic cleansing of a conservative estimate of 40000 Bedouins from the Naqab; the so called Prawer Plan.
The demonstration organized in the Naqab itself took place in the South Rahat Junction “Lehavim”. The start of the protest, which was scheduled for 4pm was delayed, after police blocked several roads leading to the demonstration and alternative routes had to be found. In the end over 1500 people from all over historic Palestine and international activists managed to assemble and voice their anger against the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of over 35 villages in the Naqab region. Strong slogans asking for a stop to the ethnic cleansing, a change to the Prawer Plan and freedom for the Naqab and Palestine were chanted.
The protest was heavily policed, with over 200 police officers, several of them on horseback. Even though the protest was conducted peacefully, two minors, Hisham A’mor and Khaled Nasasra, were arrested and released this morning.
In Wadi A’ra, Haifa District, the demonstration took place at the A’ra-A’ra’ra intersection with around 1500 participants. Israeli forces beat protesters and used teargas against them. Eleven people were arrested and will probably have the court hearing today in Haifa.
The ‘day of rage’ not only spread throughout historic Palestine. Solidarity actions with the Palestinian Bedouins crossed the Green line as dozens of people protested near Hizma Checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.
At around 3pm, several buses departed from Ramallah towards the Naqab to join the protests against the Prawer Plan. As expected, Israeli forces stopped the buses from continuing their way near Hizma checkpoint.
Demonstrators went off the buses and protested on the road leading to Hizma checkpoint. Over twenty special unit police officers and several soldiers threw several sound bombs, violently pushed protesters and beat several people with batons. One female protester was kicked by a police officer in the back and another activist was arrested. Standing on the sidewalk of the road and chanting slogans against the ethnic cleansing of the Naqab, demonstrators were surrounded from all sides by Israeli forces until the buses arrived and everyone left. It is worth mentioning that the bus drivers were fined by Israeli police with 750NIS fine each.
Late at 9:30pm, more than 300 people gathered at Damascus gate in East Jerusalem. Protesters chanted slogans in solidarity with the Bedouins communities in the Naqab and marched into East Jerusalem towards Sheik Jarrah. The demonstration turned back towards the Damascus gate again, after it was blocked by a large number of mounted police. Israeli police repeatedly charged the demonstration and threw sound bombs at people. They also deliberately threw sound bombs into the crowded area outside the gate, and into restaurants and market stalls. This caused a huge stampede of people running away from the police, and caused one middle aged woman to feint from shock.
These protests come after July 15th first ‘day of rage’ in which a general strike in historic Palestine was called and numerous demonstrations against the Prawer Plan organised.
The Prawer Plan making its way through the Israeli Knesset aims to destroy 35 villages that it does not recognise. The destruction of these ‘unrecognised’ villages will forcibly displace a conservative estimate of 40 000 indigenous Palestinian Bedouin for already pre approved Jewish only settlements in the Naqab (Negev).
Historic Palestine’s Bedouin population are the indigenous population of the Naqab. Their cultural and historical link to the land is clear, given that since settling in the Naqab in the seventh century, they have been the only inhabitants of the desert up until the mid twentieth century. Before the creation of Israel in 1948 over 100000 Bedouin lived in the Naqab and made up over 99% of the inhabitants. The establishment of Israel as a state with a Jewish majority needed the ‘Nakba,’ or catastrophe that meant the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians including 90000 Bedouin in the Naqab, who were forced to leave their historic land to become refugees in the West Bank, Gaza strip and other countries in the world. After the Nakba the 10 000 Bedouin who managed to survive the ethnic cleansing were put under the authority of an oppresive military regime that forcibly removed the remaining Bedouin into an area of land called the ‘syaj’ or (fenced) in a triangle marked by the towns of Beersheba, Arad and Dimona.
In 1965 Israeli authorities passed the ‘Planning and Building Law.’ One aspect of that law was to map out all the existing communities that fell under the state and although many of the villages had existed before the creation of Israel, or had been created by the Israeli army as part of the population transfer to the Syaj zone, they were left of the map and so became ‘unrecognised’ villages and illegal by law.
Over 40 000 Bedouin currently stay in these ‘unrecognised’ villages, that because of the nature of their illegality under Israeli law, have no access to infrastructure like roads, water, sewage, electricity, education and healthcare although they became citizens of Israel. The other 105 000 Bedouins live in urban townships, or concentration townships that have some of the highest poverty and crime rates in the country, created in 1969 to encourage the Bedouins to relinquish their land rights. The Bedouin who accepted were internally displaced refugees who were not allowed to return to their ancestral lands outside the Syaj zone.
Israel uses a manipulation of an old Ottoman law that declares non cultivated land as dead land and so transfers land to the ownership of the state. The land outside the Syaj area became dead land due to people unable to return and so passed to control of the Israeli state without consultation with the Bedouins. In the 1970s the public were allowed to file ownership claims over the land and so the Bedouin filed 3221 claims for a total of 242 750 acres. The process was then frozen and never offered again. Those lands claimed are subject to be lost under the Prawer plan but only those that were allowed to be registered for a short time in the 1970s are able to be compensated though the Prawer Plan. This compensation however is only to the maximum of 50% of worth that reasonable estimates believe will only amount to 16% in real terms. This is on the condition that they relinquish all rights of their ancestral land and move to the townships or the 10 ‘recognised’ villages.
The current situation of the Prawer Plan represents the largest single ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the Nakba and highlights the plight of the indigenous peoples of Historic Palestine who remained in the 1948 borders with the creation of Israel. The situation of the Bedouin in the Naqab have long been subject to hardships in spite of formally existing as Israeli citizens, but have still lived in similar circumstances to their kin in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2011, 1000 houses were demolished and since the 1970s the Bedouin have been harassed and attacked by ‘Green Patrols’, a miltary unit set up by Ariel Sharon as part of the Agricultural ministry to specifically target Bedouin, and in recent times these duties have been taken over by by settlers from Kibutzes in the Naqab who often attack and intimidate the population. The Prawer Plan and the discriminatory laws and tactics used against non-Jewish citizens of Israel highlight the concerns of Israel’s demand to be recognised as a Jewish State in the ‘peace’ talks. Non-Jewish citizens are already being internally displaced through pogroms and discriminatory laws. Recognising Israel as a Jewish State will confirm that they are unequal and do not belong, regardless of their indigenous status and history of the land.
