[News] Uprooting Weeds-On Israeli Treatment of Bedouin

[News at freedomarchives.org]

March 19, 2004
Uprooting Weeds--An Analysis (Bustan) Devorah Brous On Israeli Treatment of 
Bedouin, Unrecognized Villages

[The following is an article by activist Deborah Brous published on the 
listserve of the organization she heads, "Bustan." Brous' carefully 
supported, sharply delineated analysis is a forceful reminder that 
militarization and racism structure the views and acts of successive 
Israeli administrations inside pre-'67 Israel, and are not exclusive to 
Israeli conduct in the Occupied Territories. I see this realization as 
vital to a clear understanding of events in Israel-Palestine, and of the 
patterns of thought guiding actions and re-actions on the Israeli side. 
Brous details part of, and generally outlines, the violent government 
campaign to dispossess and forcefully eradicate the pastoral culture of the 
Bedouin of the Negev while explaining the motivations and goals underlying 
this extended effort. She also touches on the contribution of this campaign 
to the ongoing manufacture of an "enemy" necessary to maintaining a sense 
of threat and hence a militarized society, and the very real dangers this 
process poses to democracy and state. RM]



Shalom Aleichem, Salaamu Aleikum
*Spraying Toxic Chemicals on Bedouin Food Crops
*Uprooting Weeds--An Analysis
*****
On Thursday, March 11th, 2004, Bedouin fields were sprayed with Monsanto's 
toxic Roundup for the seventh time in 2 years as the Israel Lands Authority 
sent a fleet of planes to 'redeem' land near Mitzpe Ramon, in Abde and in 
Qatamat, unrecognized villages in the Southern Negev. In such cases, the 
State has rendered Bedouin cultivation of unused desert expanse, illegal. 
Twice in February, fruit trees (olives and dates) were uprooted from 
Bedouin villages, each time some 50 trees. Below please find an article 
analyzing this policy of uprooting, and destroying food crops. [Please help 
spead the word: Looking for a publisher. We have photographs.] Bustan is 
collecting any information on crop-spraying operations around the world as 
a tactic to gain state control over lands.
*****
Uprooting Weeds
*Devorah Brous

In spite of Israel's depleted economy, the price of bread has recently been 
hiked up. In response, several NGO's are packing trucks with baskets of 
bread to distribute among hungry families up north and in neighborhoods 
throughout the country, as families can't afford to purchase bread or 
flour. Meanwhile, down south in the Negev desert Israeli authorities are 
destroying fields of wheat with toxic chemicals.

Zionism is the political process of creating and maintaining a Jewish 
majority in the Holy Land. Through the Zionist campaigns of the Jewish 
National Fund, Israel's successful settlement project to 'redeem a barren 
wasteland' is known worldwide. The process of Judaizing Israel's landscape 
is in response to the demographic threat of becoming an ethnic minority. It 
involves expanding Jewish territorial control over the maximum amount of 
land and breaking Arab territorial contiguity. Today, Sharon's government 
is waging a covert war to settle the next frontier by disrupting one of the 
country's most heavily concentrated Arab areas: the Negev.

This administrative war involves measures such as house demolitions and 
fumigation of food crops in the Bedouin sector to cleanse land that's been 
expropriated and reserve it for future Jewish use. While Sharon aims to 
'redeem' lands that are not barren--justifying all activities as vital for 
the future of the Jewish State, such measures endanger the vitality and 
future of the State, as well as its present.

Bleak Background
Most Negev Bedouin fled, or were dispossessed from their lands after the 
1948 War. In the early days of statehood the remaining 11,000 Bedouin were 
placed under military rule until 1966, and relocated to the already 
populated Siyag [reservation][1]  into villages that to this day are 
unrecognized by the Israeli government. This maneuver enabled the 
authorities to expropriate the lands inhabited by Bedouin throughout the 
Negev.

In the late 1960s, the officials began building the 7 Bedouin Planned 
Townships to further sedentarize and contain the Bedouin. Provision of 
basic amenities (water, health care, and electricity) was and still is 
contingent upon Bedouin relinquishing their land claims. Just less than ½ 
the Bedouin population (65,000)[2] has agreed to these terms and moved into 
Recognized Townships, which today have the lowest socio-economic ranking in 
the country. The contiguity of Bedouin land tracts in the reservation is 
split by some of the wealthiest Jewish suburbs. Hence, the gap between 
Bedouin and their Jewish neighbors is no less than staggering.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The land war between the ILA and the Bedouin farmers has now moved inside 
the Siyag, in both recognized townships and unrecognized villages, in 
attempt to further contain this population, and extricate more Negev lands 
from Arab grasp. In many cases, the State has rendered Bedouin cultivation 
of unused desert expanse illegal for Bedouin. Land cultivated with food 
crops has been poisoned with toxic chemicals seven times over the past 2 
years. Warnings are not issued to Bedouin villagers allowing them time to 
clear their children and animals from the vicinity before a fleet of Israel 
Land Authority (ILA) planes begin their operation to 'redeem land. The ILA 
maintains the Bedouin are guilty of trespassing State land. Their 
unannounced campaign was initiated in 2002, with toxic spraying operations 
occurring at random intervals.

ILA/ Green Patrol operations Date Amount of Cultivated Land Destroyed[3]
Food Crop
1st February 2002 12,000 dunams[4] wheat, barley
2nd March 2nd, 2003 1,000 dunams wheat, barley
3rd April 2nd, 2003 5,000 dunams lentil, barley, wheat fields
4th June 17th, 2003 1,500 dunams melons, wheat, corn
5th Jan. 15th, 2004 4,000 dunams wheat, barley, olive saplings
6th Feb.10th, 2004 3,500 dunams wheat
7th March 11th, 2004 3,500 dunams wheat, barley

For the Bedouin tribe of El Turi in the unrecognized village of Al Araqeeb, 
some 1,400 dunams of wheat crops were fumigated during the sixth ILA 
operation that directly affects their crops. Outrage tears through Al 
Araqeeb Village. Salah Abu Midi'an explains, "The spraying attack was done 
without giving us any advance notice. With a force of some 150 police, 
border guards, and green patrol, the planes circled above our fields at 
10:30AM and turned green into yellow."

Why is El Turi's land coveted by the state authorities? Two reasons. First, 
it seems this land is too close to where the Jewish neighborhoods near the 
new settlement 'Giv'ot Bar' will be built and expanded as part of Sharon's 
Development Plan. For several years, the El Turi clan has engaged in the 
process of substantiating their claims over the now poisoned land. In an 
interview with representative Ahmad Abu Midi'an he stated, "We respect the 
law. We just want the law to respect us." Second, El Turi were moved off 
their lands at Araqeeb village and into the municipal boundaries of Rahat 
Township. Due to the impoverished conditions in the town, in 1995 they gave 
up and returned to their lands. According to Dr. Isaac (Yanni) Nevo from 
the Negev Coexistence Forum, "The conditions are reprehensible in the 
Townships. There is simply no available opportunity for them to develop, so 
they are beginning to leave. Perhaps the State is threatened by Bedouin 
breaking out of the fence of containment, and evidencing it is porous."

The spokesperson for the ILA, Ortal Tsabar, stated the chemical used to 
spray the agricultural fields is Monsanto's Roundup, a toxic defoliant used 
to kill weeds. The ILA maintains this herbicide doesn't harm animals or 
people; however small organic farmers, health professionals, and activists 
world-wide maintain otherwise. The active chemical found in RoundUp, 
glyphosate, has been identified as a cancer-causing agent, and a known 
hormone-disruptor causing increased birth defects in humans. The 
agro-chemical Monsanto Corporation, producer of Roundup, warns  ocnsumers: 
after spraying on windless days, people and animals are to avoid the 
affected area for two weeks. To date, no Bedouin has been warned to stay 
off their lands for two weeks following an operation. The ILA finds it 
sufficient to bring police and an ambulance, and close the area off during 
the operations. Tsabar discloses, "Its only fluid, not a gas. We take all 
the necessary precautions."[5]  The indiscriminate wind drifts resulting 
from aerial application has carried the defoliant much further than perhaps 
even the authorities had planned, subsequently affecting people, fields and 
third parties in a significant radius from a spraying site: "Even the 
mosquitoes and flies around me died," said Abu Gharibiyya, a Bedouin from a 
village some 15km from the spraying last April. Twelve people were 
subsequently rushed to a medical clinic near Mitzpe Ramon after the third 
ILA operation.

The burden of proof rests on the Bedouin to evidence land title were 
they've cultivated-otherwise, it is trespassed State land. This is no small 
task. If Bedouin landholders are given the opportunity to defend their land 
claims in court, this is an exceptionally rigorous, and expensive process, 
and not likely to occur before the State has fumigated crops. If land has 
not been adjudicated, why is the State using irreversible measures to 
penalize without proving their case inside a court of law?

Weeds
What are the implications of spraying cultivated fields with toxic 
defoliant? When a news article about the ILA planes spraying Bedouin fields 
with toxic chemicals is sandwiched into a dense page in the newspaper; this 
policy appears an isolated event. For the scorekeepers that watch ethnic 
conflict like a sports competition, spraying an estimated 30,000 dunams of 
food crops at random intervals has no dramatic death tolls; therefore, it 
has no chance of making headlines. One sprays toxins in gardens to weed out 
unruly growth. It is becoming increasingly indisputable that this is how 
the government relates to the Bedouin.

Zionists fear becoming a demographic minority in Israel, this is predicted 
as early as 2010.[6]  Israel is eager to limit the population growth of the 
Bedouin (which is significantly greater than the Jewish 
population).[7]  The mechanisms Israeli planners and policy makers use to 
address this fear are familiar both inside Israel and in the Occupied 
Territories (OT): the aim is to control the maximum amount of land for 
future Jewish use, and girdle Arabs in the minimum amount of territory. The 
latter involves breaking up contiguous Arab land holdings with a Jewish 
presence. It is this mindset that engineers rampant house demolitions, crop 
destruction, land confiscation, and unequal allocation of resources. It is 
this mindset that is often overlooked when striving to understand the 
causal roots of the conflict.

Crop spraying is merely one part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Negev 
Development Plan to counter the demographic threat in the Negev (where 25% 
of the population is non-Jewish). The Plan is a comprehensive strategy to 
relocate some 76,000 Bedouin of the unrecognized villages from their 
cultivated and inhabited Negev land and condense them into 5 government 
Planned Townships within a 5-year timeframe. The vacated land will then be 
converted into new Jewish neighborhoods and dozens of new heavily 
subsidized single-family farms[8] designed 'to prevent Bedouin 
encroachment.' The Plan's $250 million budget will fund lawyers to defend 
state land claims, to run ILA aerial patrols, and to fund police and 
paramilitary unit operations of the notorious Green Patrol in the 
destruction of Bedouin crops and homes. There is no viable timeframe/budget 
for constructing new Bedouin neighborhoods. New Jewish settlements continue 
to sprout.

Sharon's Plan was formulated without any input by the Bedouin and is not 
acceptable to their representatives. Although it is toted as a way to 
adjudicate land disputes between Bedouin and the government, it seems more 
like just another untimely settlement project.

The Culture of Agriculture is Uprooted
Due to strict land laws; discriminatory water allocation policies; and 
fierce competition from subsidized ranchers, agri-businesses, and 
large-scale monoculture farming of the kibbutzim, most Bedouin farmers have 
been deprived of their productive capacity and moved off their fields - 
into wage labor. Occasionally, Bedouin still plant fields for sustenance, 
but their traditional agrarian society has largely been displaced and 
pauperized. For some villagers, planting is a landholding tactic aimed at 
resisting land seizure, an active form of protest wherein groves serve as 
de facto title to the land. This is widely referred to in Arabic as 'sumud' 
or cleaving to the land, a concept stemming from Torah and often cited 
today among ultra-nationalist religious settlers. [Since Ottoman times, 
planting an alienated field is a tactic used to protect land by 
demonstrating continuous cultivation. All land left uncultivated was 
traditionally subject to expropriation by government authorities.] For 
others, planting is an attempt to reclaim some form of economic 
independence. Once crops are poisoned, plants are killed and food security 
for many Bedouin families is lost, whereby devastating their already feeble 
local economy, endangering their health, and the health of Israel's civil 
society.

Manufacturing an Urban Proletariat
"We should transform the Bedouin into an urban proletariat in industry, 
services, construction and agriculture. 88% of the Israeli population is 
not farmers, let the Bedouin be like them. Indeed, this will be a radical 
move, which means that the Bedouin would not live on his land with his 
herds, but would become an urban person who comes home in the afternoon and 
puts his slippers on. The children would go to school with their hair 
properly combed. This would be a revolution, but it may be fixed within two 
generations. Without coercion but with government direction... this 
phenomenon of the Bedouins will disappear." --Moshe Dayan, Ha'aretz 
interview 31/7/63

While the Israeli government is intent on further containing the Bedouin 
population to transform it into an 'urban proletariat' -- this is against 
their will. Many shepherds and farmers object to being pushed into cramped 
Townships--subjected to herding their livestock underneath their apartment, 
and growing lentils from a window sill on the 3rd floor. Beyond being 
morally reprehensible for supporters of Israel to justify poisoning food 
crops or financing a program to dispossess Arab citizens and supplant 
Jewish settlers and entrepreneurs in their place, such acts are politically 
untenable--particularly during the heat of the current Intifada, and 
economically prohibitive in a time of massive welfare cuts and Israel's 
current budget crisis. This flagrantly discriminatory policy making will 
have an irreversible impact: Israel will have uprooted a culture and 
manufactured itself a new urban proletariat.

Unfortunately, indigenous land confiscation by government or corporate 
interests is a not a new phenomenon occurring to marginalized groups with 
little or no access to basic resources. But it may be a new phenomenon for 
Zionists who finance Israel's massive efforts to work the Holy Land and 
'make the barren desert bloom' in politically strategic areas that are 
inhabited, and cultivated.

It has been frequently stated that Israel has enough external problems 
without making enemies of its own citizens. Policies of toxic aerial 
spraying, house and mosque demolition, land confiscation, and unequal 
distribution of resources to Israel's Arab citizens brings into question of 
the integrity of Israel's democracy. This is not a democratic garden in the 
dry desert of Middle East dictatorships, it is an ethnocratic government 
uprooting the connection between non-Jews and 'our Holy Land,' under the 
rubric of Zionism. Israel can now boast about learning from the Americans 
how to weed out our gardens of indigenous growth.

If the funds raised for the implementation of the Sharon Plan are 
redirected into proactive government measures to provide urgently needed 
health services and education--to counteract disease, poverty, drug abuse, 
and alienation among Bedouin, a crash may be avoided. Then, the Bedouin 
minority may eventually be recognized as full Israeli citizens with equal 
rights--not just our exoticized 'nomads' that serve in the IDF, a fifth 
column posing a threat to Israel's hegemony over State Lands.

To bolster democracy we should all be aware what the euphemism 'redeeming 
barren land' involves in the OT and inside Israel--and not just the hostile 
reaction such politicized policies generate. The impetus is on the public 
to read between the lines of the short articles on the back pages of the 
news, and wake-up before the alarm of an internal Intifada instigates 
serious unrest in the Negev.

<mailto:devorah at bustan.org.il>devorah at bustan.org.il  http://www.bustan.org.il/


*Devorah holds Masters degrees in Israel Studies and Conflict Resolution. 
An Israeli American, she is the founder and director of Bustan, an 
environmental justice NGO. She successfully spearheads planting and 
rebuilding campaigns, forging ties between Jews and Arabs to plant groves, 
and most recently to eco-build a solar powered medical clinic in Wadi el 
Na'am, unrecognized village #32, in the Negev.

[1]The Siyag is some 2% of the northern Negev, located between Beer Sheva, 
Arad and Dimona. Most Recognized Townships and Unrecognized Villages are 
located inside this reservation.
[2] Statistic extracted from the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages 
(RCUV), 2003. <http://ga3.org/ct/KpaFtK51KBhY/>http://www.arabhra.org/rcuv.
[3]  Adalah and Bustan estimate 30,000 dunams in total. Interview with 
Salem Abu Midian. All village and farmer names are available upon request.
[4] Four dunams are equivalent to one acre.
[5]  The legality of such operations will be examined in Israel's High 
Court in the coming months as a coalition of organizations represented by 
Adalah is prosecuting the ILA.
[6] Professor Sergio Della Pergola, an Israeli demographer as referenced in 
Jerusalem Report, 10/20/03, p.5. However, according to Israel's Central 
Bureau of Statistics, as of September 2003, Jews account for nearly 77% of 
the population of Israel.
[7]  The Bedouin death rate is also significantly higher than among Jewish 
citizens.
[8]  One of PM Ariel Sharon's more provocative land holdings is such a 
farm, the 5,000 dunam large Sycamore Farm in the Negev.



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