<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-bedouins-defy-israels-bulldozers/18351">https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-bedouins-defy-israels-bulldozers/18351</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Palestinian Bedouins defy Israel's
bulldozers</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/budour-youssef-hassan"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Budour Youssef Hassan</a></span>
<span class="field field-publisher">- </span><span
class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-10-28T10:36:00+00:00">28 October 2016</span></span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4" dir="ltr"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page"
xml:base="https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-bedouins-defy-israels-bulldozers/18351">
<article class="node-18351 node node-story view-mode-full
node-is-page image-landscape">
<figure id="file-42266" class="file file-image
file-image-jpeg media-element file-figure"><source
media="(min-width: 72rem)"><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element"><small
class="credit"><span class="field field-publisher"></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>The area around <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bir-hadaj">Bir
Hadaj</a> provides a stark illustration of how Israel
runs an <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/apartheid">apartheid</a>
system.</p>
<p>Located in the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/negev-naqab">Naqab</a>
(Negev in Hebrew) region of present-day Israel, Bir
Hadaj hosts an agricultural community of around 7,000
Palestinian <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bedouins">Bedouins</a>.
They are crammed into 6,500 <em>dunams</em> (a <em>dunam</em>
is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters).</p>
<p>By contrast, approximately 1,000 Jews <a
href="http://revivim.kibbutz.org.il/info/test.htm/abut.htm">live</a>
in the neighboring kibbutz of Revivim. It covers an area
of 30,000 dunams, one-sixth of which is reserved for
olive trees.</p>
<p>Unlike the residents of Revivim, the Bedouins of Bir
Hadaj have been repeatedly attacked by the Israeli
authorities.</p>
<p>On 9 October, Israel sent its feared bulldozers into
the village, accompanied by a large contingent from the
state’s militarized police force.</p>
<p>Seven homes in which members of the Abu Mreihil family
lived were <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.747777">demolished</a>,
along with three homes that were under construction. At
least 36 people, including a week-old baby, were
deprived of shelter.</p>
<p>Salameh Abu Mreihil, the mother of the baby, said that
she will never forget how she became homeless so soon
after giving birth. “This is the fate of our people
here,” she said. “They have to suffer from the moment
they are born.”</p>
<p>Her family is now living in a tent. “We don’t know
where to go now,” she said. “Some people say we will
rebuild the home, but then they [the authorities] will
destroy it again.”</p>
<p>These fears were proven right.</p>
<p>Over the last week, Bir Hadaj residents mobilized to
help the Abu Mreihil family rebuild. They set up
structures on the ruins of their demolished homes.</p>
<p>However, Israeli police again raided the village on 26
October. They distributed demolition orders against the
newly rebuilt homes. Ayesh Abu Atta, a member of the Bir
Hadaj Local Committee, told The Electronic Intifada that
fierce confrontations broke out between the police and
local youth, who had gathered to protest the demolition
orders.</p>
<figure id="file-42261" class="file file-image
file-image-jpeg media-element file-figure"><source
media="(min-width: 72rem)"><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element"><small
class="credit"><span class="field field-publisher"></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Hundreds of homes in the village have been built
without permits and these face the threat of demolition.
The Israeli authorities trot out an all-too-familiar
excuse to explain recent raids and the likelihood of
more. The homes were destroyed, according to the
provided excuse, because they were built without Israeli
permits.</p>
<p>Bedouins, and Palestinians more generally, frequently
encounter <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/30/israel-bedouin-facing-mass-evictions-their-land">discrimination</a>
in attempting to secure necessary permits.</p>
<p>“We just want to live like normal human beings and to
have a permanent roof over our heads,” said Dakhlallah
Abu Mreihil, a 60-year-old resident of Bir Hadaj. He was
speaking after he and a large number of other local
residents protested against the first raid by blocking
the nearby Highway 40, a road built over the ruins of a
Palestinian village called Asluj.</p>
<p>“We wake up each morning and go to sleep each night to
the threat of demolitions. We came here to demand a
better, more dignified life,” he said.</p>
<p>According to local people, about 80 percent of Bir
Hadaj’s residents rely on agriculture, primarily the
raising of livestock. The amount of land available to
them for grazing is just a fraction of what it used to
be.</p>
<p>Before Israel’s establishment in 1948, the total area
of Bir Hadaj – including its farmland – comprised around
50,000 <em>dunams</em>.</p>
<p>For most of the time since then, Israel has refused to
confer any formal status on the village.</p>
<h2>Rights, not charity</h2>
<p>After a protracted battle, residents pressured Israel
into officially recognizing Bir Hadaj in 2004 and
drawing up a master plan for developing the village the
following year.</p>
<p>Twelve years on, the plan has still not been <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8207">implemented</a>,
and under the terms of the recognition, Bir Hadaj was
restricted to a small area. Local residents were
forbidden from building homes outside the “blue line,”
as the boundary of that area is known.</p>
<p>“Bir Hadaj has a population of 7,000 people,” said
Muhammad Zannoun, a representative of the Bir Hadaj
Local Committee. “Many of them are young couples. And
you cannot cram them into 6,500 <em>dunams</em>.”</p>
<p>The community is demanding that the area allocated to
it be expanded to 19,000 <em>dunams</em> at minimum.
Bir Hadaj residents are not seeking the expansion as an
act of charity. Rather, they are insisting that the
sizeable amount of land taken from them in 1948 be
returned.</p>
<p>Geography is not a barrier to such expansion.</p>
<p>The surrounding area is administered by the Ramat Negev
Regional Council. It claims to be Israel’s largest
regional council.</p>
<p>The area under its jurisdiction <a
href="http://www.negevtour.co.il/%D7%98%D7%A1%D7%98-%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%98-%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9C/?lang=en">covers</a>
22 percent of Israel’s land, according to official data.
It is sparsely populated.</p>
<p>Large tracts of land in Israel have been <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/6558">reserved</a>
for the exclusive use of Jews. Some 93 percent of the
territory is under state control.</p>
<p>Israel is deliberately preventing Bedouins from
practicing traditional forms of agriculture and seeking
to force urbanization on them, according to Thabet Abu
Rass, a professor of political geography at Ben Gurion
University of the Negev.</p>
<p>“The goal of concentrating as many Palestinians as
possible in as narrow a land as possible is not
exclusive to Bir Hadaj or the Naqab,” he said. “It’s a
pillar of the Zionist project in Palestine. In the Naqab
and in Bir Hadaj these attempts are dressed in the cloak
of development. But residents know this is about
demographics.”</p>
<p>In addition to restricting the space allocated to its
residents, Israel has denied Bir Hadaj access to
essential services. Bir Hadaj is not connected to the
water or sewage networks and the Israeli authorities
refuse to collect the town’s garbage.</p>
<p>Because it is cut off from the electricity grid,
residents have tried to generate their own energy using
solar panels. Israel has destroyed some of the solar
panels during its raids on the town.</p>
<h2>History of displacement</h2>
<p>“Israeli governments have always seen the Naqab Bedouin
as a security threat,” Abu Rass noted. “That is how
Israel has sought to legitimize how it has continuously
overlooked their needs and demands.”</p>
<p>Many Bedouins in the Naqab were <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/zionists-massacred-bedouins-1948-threaten-them-again-today/12692">displaced</a>
during the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba">Nakba</a>,
the 1948 <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ethnic-cleansing">ethnic
cleansing</a> of Palestine by Zionist forces. The
dispossession continued for years, though residents
repeatedly tried to return. In 1978, Israel declared Bir
Hadaj a closed military zone, causing further
displacement.</p>
<p>Most took refuge in <a
href="http://www.dukium.org/village/wadi-a-naam/">Wadi
al-Naam</a>, a town in the Naqab that has still not
been recognized by Israel. There, they <a
href="http://www.arabhra.org/HraAdmin/UserImages/Files/HRA-RCUVCESCRReport.pdf">lived</a>
next to a chemical waste dump. Residents have blamed
pollution from that dump for the high rate of
miscarriages among women who lived beside it.</p>
<figure id="file-42271" class="file file-image
file-image-jpeg media-element file-figure"><source
media="(min-width: 72rem)"><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element"><small
class="credit"><span class="field field-publisher"></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Despite the exodus, the people of Bir Hadaj were
determined to return to their original village. As part
of a collective initiative, many moved back in 1994.</p>
<p>“Bir Hadaj residents took matters into their own hands
and decided to implement in practice their right of
return, offering a really rare model,” said Marwan Abu
Frieh, a political activist from the Naqab. “So they
returned to the village in 1994 accompanied by their
livestock. They put decades of displacement behind them,
while knowing that difficulties lay ahead.”</p>
<p>The problems faced by Bir Hadaj have worsened since
2007. In that year, a number of right-wing settlers
affiliated with the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/habayit-hayehudi">Habayit
Hayehudi</a> (Jewish Home) party moved into a nearby
area called Retamim, not to be confused with the
aforementioned Revivim.</p>
<p>Some of the settlers in Retamim have <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=597177">committed</a>
acts of violence against their Bedouin neighbors. The
homes recently demolished were in the part of Bir Hadaj
closest to Retamim.</p>
<p>“This is not an attractive area to live in and it was
not easy for the government to draw Jews to live here,”
Abu Rass said. “These are ideologically motivated
settlers and the Israeli government stressed the element
of ‘settling in the heart of the desert’ to bring them
here.”</p>
<h2>Racist motives</h2>
<p>Local residents suspect that the recent demolitions may
be connected to forthcoming elections to the Wahat
al-Sahraa Regional Council. The council manages the
affairs of Bir Hadaj and other Bedouin communities in
the Naqab.</p>
<p>At present, the top local authority of the area is a
Jewish Israeli who has been appointed, rather than
elected. But there is a possibility that a Palestinian
citizen may assume that position after the election.</p>
<p>According to Zannoun, the Israeli authorities may be
trying to assert their power over Bedouins. Arguing that
the policy of demolitions has “clear racist motives
behind it,” he added, “The aim is to drive Bir Hadaj
residents out to make way for the expansion of Retamim.”</p>
<p>There is an ironic twist behind the recent demolitions:
Israel had, in effect, forced the victims to move into
Bir Hadaj.</p>
<p>In 2003, the Israeli authorities <a
href="http://www.arab48.com/%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%88%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B1/2016/10/16/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A8-%D8%A3%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D9%87%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AC-%D9%8A%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86-%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B6%D9%8A%D9%87%D9%85-%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A%D9%86">bulldozed</a>
the previous homes of the Abu Mreihil family in nearby
Magrah.</p>
<p>Following the demolition, the authorities gave the
family a verbal commitment that they would be allowed to
live in Bir Hadaj permanently.</p>
<p>The Bedouin of Bir Hadaj are accustomed to protest. In
October 2012, they joined forces with other communities
in the surrounding region to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/protests-and-strikes-israel-raids-bedouin-villages-threatens-destroy-homes/11792">organize</a>
a general strike following an Israeli attack on a local
school.</p>
<p>“It is important for the entirety of the Naqab to
support the struggle in Bir Hadaj and to make sure it
extends to other villages,” Abu Rass said. “Israel knows
that if the resistance in Bir Hadaj is broken, this will
be a blow for all Bedouin in the Naqab.”</p>
<p>When the people of Bir Hadaj returned to their village
in 1994, the Israeli army responded by burning their
tents. Despite the state’s violence, the community
remained determined to stay on its land and fight for
its rights.</p>
<p>The community remains just as determined today.</p>
<p><em>Budour Youssef Hassan is a Palestinian writer and
law graduate based in occupied Jerusalem. Blog: <a
href="https://budourhassan.wordpress.com/">budourhassan.wordpress.com</a></em></p>
<br>
</article>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>