[News] Palestine - Umm al-Hiran - bulldozers set to move on Bedouin

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8956


  State opposes final appeal against demolition of Umm al-Hiran;
  bulldozers set to move on Bedouin

21/11/2016

New Jewish town of 'Hiran' to be built on ruins of Arab Bedouin village 
in Israel's south; demolition to move forward despite court recognition 
residents are not illegal trespassers.

The Israel Land Authority (ILA) has notified Israel’s Execution and 
Collection Authority (ECA) that the demolition of the Arab Bedouin 
village of Atir-Umm al-Hiran is slated to begin tomorrow, Tuesday, 22 
November 2016.

In response to a request filed by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab 
Minority Rights in Israel seeking to freeze the demolition process, the 
ILA's legal representative responded, "the evacuation is set for 22 
November 2016, this coming Tuesday." The ILA also announced it has hired 
a private contractor to carry out the demolition at the cost of NIS 
119,000 (~US $30,760) (not including tax) and that "the costs of 
enlisting police officers, the as-of-yet-undetermined cost of bolstering 
forces, security, sealing of the perimeter, and coordination of vehicles 
for the purposes of arrests and curbing opposition must also be taken 
into account."

Adalah responded to the ILA today, 21 November 2016: "In parallel to the 
Israeli government's efforts to legalize  the Amona settlement in the 
West Bank – in direct violation of international law and Israeli Supreme 
Court rulings – the government is moving to demolish a village of Arab 
Bedouin citizens of the state, without offering them any suitable 
alternative housing. Even though the Supreme Court ruled that residents 
of Atir-Umm al-Hiran are neither illegal trespassers nor criminals, the 
state insists on demolishing the village as the sole option."

In 2015, after a 13-year legal battle, the Israeli Supreme Court decided 
by a 2-1 majority to authorize the state's plan to demolish Atir-Umm 
al-Hiran and forcibly displace its approximately 1,000 residents for the 
sole purpose of establishing a new Jewish town named "Hiran" over its 
ruins.  Earlier this year, the Court rejected Adalah's request to 
re-consider this judgment and to hold a second hearing on the case.

The case of Atir-Umm al-Hiran is a clear example of dispossession and 
displacement for strictly racial reasons;the only reason the village is 
being demolished is to allow the state to establish of a new Jewish town 
with accompanying range of land.

The state initially expelled residents of present-day Atir-Umm al-Hiran 
from their original lands in the village of Khirbet Zubaleh by military 
order in 1956. The Court has recognized that residents, members of the 
Abu al-Qi’an Bedouin tribe, were not illegal trespassers – as initially 
claimed by the state – but were indeed moved there by the state. 
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court ruled that, because the village residents 
are on "state land," the state could retake it and do with it as they 
wished. The Court did not question why the new Jewish town had to 
replace the Arab village, when there exists vast and empty lands in the 
surrounding area. The Court also ignored the Bedouin residents’ 
political, social and historical roots to the land.

*RELATED LINKS:*

*#Save_UmAlHiran* <https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8550>

*ADALAH POSITION PAPER: The dangerous implications of the Israeli 
Supreme Court’s decision to allow the forced displacement of Atir-Umm 
al-Hiran for the remaining unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab 
(Negev), February 2016* 
<https://www.adalah.org/uploads/Dangerous-Implications-SCT-Atir-Umm-al-Hiran-updated-Feb-2016.pdf>

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