[News] Palestine - 'Day of rage' over Bedouin displacement plan

[Anti-Imperialist News]

    '*Day of rage' over Bedouin displacement plan *

*Hundreds gather to protest against plan to force up to 40,000 Bedouin 
into townships.*
Daniel Tepper <http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/daniel-tepper-.html> and 
Samuel Gilbert <http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/samuel-gilbert-.html> 
Last Modified: 02 Aug 2013 18:09
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2013/08/20138216944374202.html

At least four protesters were arrested on Thurday near East Jerusalem's 
Old City at a demonstration against plans to displace tens of thousands 
of Bedouin from their ancestral lands in Israel's Negev desert.

Protesters hit the streets across Israel and the occupied Palestinian 
territories, as well as 16 cities worldwide 
<http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/culture/5312-august-1st-day-of-anger-protest-against-prawer-plan>, 
to voice their rejection of "the Prawer Plan", which seeks to forcibly 
relocate about 40,000 Arab Bedouins, effectively ending their 
semi-nomadic existence in favour of being herded into townships with few 
municipal facilities.

In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli security forces shot stun grenades 
into groups of demonstrators, while mounted police charged into the 
crowd to arrest Palestinian youths.

At Lehavim Junction, in the heart of the Bedouin area in the Negev, 
hundreds of Israeli, Palestinian and international activists gathered 
for a "day of rage", in opposition to what has been dubbed "the Second 
Nakba". The protest remained peaceful, but tense, as demonstrators broke 
down barricades and confronted mounted police.

Several protesters were reportedly arrested at demonstrations in 
Israel's north.

The Prawer Plan, which passed a first reading in the Israeli Knesset 
last month, will result in the destruction 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012102114393741506.html>of 
at least 35 "unrecognised villages".

Today some 200,000 Bedouin live in the Negev, their presence in the 
region dating back to the 7th century. Nearly 100,000 of these live in 
villages deemed illegal by the Israeli state, their homes subject to 
demolition and denied basic services such as healthcare, water, 
sanitation and education by the Israeli government. The remaining 
Bedouin live in government townships with some of the highest rates of 
poverty, violence and crime in all of Israel.

Some 2,200 homes and more than 14,000 Bedouins were displaced between 
2008 and 2011, said Amir, from the Negev Coalition for Civil Equality. A 
further 140 Bedouin homes have been destroyed already this year, he said.

"This process, the demolitions, evictions and displacement is about 
land," he said. "The very Zionist idea about land - to dominate and 
control people in a space."

-- 
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