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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/partying-ethnically-cleansed-land">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/partying-ethnically-cleansed-land</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Partying on ethnically cleansed land</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar">Tamara
Nassar</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-10-16T15:16:49+00:00">16 October 2019</span></span>
</p>
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<article>
<figure id="file-58181"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Palestinians are <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-indnegev">calling</a>
for the boycott of a music festival taking place where
Israel plans <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-moves-corral-bedouins-camps">to
ethnically cleanse</a> tens of thousands of
Palestinian Bedouins.</p>
<p>The InDnegev music festival is scheduled to take
place in the Naqab desert in southern Israel from 24
to 26 October.</p>
<p>The area is where Israel is taking the first steps to
forcibly displace tens of thousands of Palestinian
Bedouins and put them in refugee camps.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/adalah">Adalah</a>,
a legal advocacy group, is <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9826">challenging</a>
a mass displacement that seems imminent.</p>
<p>An Israeli government department discussed
displacement plans earlier this month that, if
approved, will see Israeli forces evict the Bedouins
from their homes and place them in “desert refugee or
displacement camps” where they may stay for up to six
years.</p>
<p>The Naqab Bedouins hold Israeli citizenship. But like
all Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, they lack
basic rights and suffer some <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index">65
Israeli laws</a> that directly and indirectly
discriminate against them.</p>
<p>Israeli authorities are not offering just or
permanent housing solutions, says Adalah.</p>
<h2>Judaizing the Naqab</h2>
<p>The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and
Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-indnegev">urging</a>
artists to withdraw from the festival just as they
would from one in apartheid South Africa.</p>
<p>The InDnegev festival is sponsored by the Negev
Development Authority, the government agency
responsible for the “displacement,” or ethnic
cleansing, of the Bedouins.</p>
<p>“This takes the ‘Brand Israel’ program of art-washing
apartheid through culture to its logical conclusion,”
PACBI stated.</p>
<p>With little hint of irony, the festival’s website
instructs festival-goers “to respect your neighbors in
the camping area” and not to bring “armed weapons,
knives… and gas canisters” to the site.</p>
<p>But the action to remove the Bedouins from their
homes is only part of a larger plan to Judaize the
southern region.</p>
<p>The Israeli government has been intent on expelling
villagers from Naqab’s <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/umm-al-hiran">Umm
al-Hiran</a> Bedouin village in order to build a
Jewish-only settlement in its place. They are even
trying to force the Palestinians <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-forces-umm-al-hiran-villagers-agree-expulsion">to
agree to their own expulsion</a>.</p>
<p>Israel has demolished another village in the Naqab, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-araqib">al-Araqib</a>,
<a
href="https://972mag.com/demolitions-al-araqib-prison-land/139119/">more
than 130 times</a> since 2010.</p>
<p>Just a few kilometers away in the Gaza Strip, Israel
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return">routinely
shoots</a> at Palestinians with live ammunition and
tear gas canisters for demanding their right to return
to lands they were expelled from in 1948.</p>
<p>“We urge all international artists to withdraw from
the festival, to avoid participating in the blatant
attempts of Israel’s regime of apartheid, occupation
and settler-colonialism to whitewash its war crimes
and human rights violations against Palestinians,”
PACBI stated.</p>
<h2>Dancing on looted land</h2>
<p>But ethnic cleansing provides the beat to other
events.</p>
<p>The DGTL Tel Aviv 2019 festival is taking place this
week in Yarkon Park, built atop the ruins of Jarisha,
a small Palestinian village near Jaffa that was
depopulated during the 1948 ethnic cleansing of some
800,000 Palestinians that cleared the way for the
establishment of the State of Israel.</p>
<p>Festival promoters claim to be “always mindful of our
environmental and social impact,” though such concern
does not seem to extend to the Palestinians who were
never allowed to return to the lands and homes from
which they were forcibly displaced.</p>
<p>Palestinian civil society is therefore asking artists
to withdraw from this festival.</p>
<p>It is crimes such as “ethnic cleansing, apartheid and
occupation, that Israel seeks to art-wash through its
association with otherwise progressive festivals and
artists,” PACBI <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-DGTL">said</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, Palestinians are <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/bollywoodstandagainstapartheid">urging</a>
artists to withdraw from the Indo Fest TLV festival
taking place this week.</p>
<p>The festival was indefinitely postponed last year
after a boycott campaign and this year may see a
repeat.</p>
<p>Bollywood star and TV personality Sophie Choudry <a
href="https://twitter.com/Sophie_Choudry/status/1182515470890438656">said</a>
the “show is not happening” on Twitter, but no
official cancellation announcements have been made on
the festival’s website.</p>
<p>Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/michael-oren">Michael
Oren</a> urged Bollywood artists to visit Israel
during a trip to the Indian city of Mumbai in recent
years.</p>
<p>Oren clearly stated the purpose of his trip.</p>
<p>“In Mumbai inviting Bollywood to Israel. Meeting
producers from India’s massive film industry. The
goal: create Israeli jobs and fight BDS,” he said on
Twitter.</p>
<div id="file-85216">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">In Mumbai inviting
Ballywood to Israel. Meeting producers from
India's massive film industry. The goal: create
Israeli jobs and fight BDS <a
href="https://t.co/LTYKuDGYkG">pic.twitter.com/LTYKuDGYkG</a></p>
— Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) <a
href="https://twitter.com/DrMichaelOren/status/917009157705711616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October
8, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>India has in recent years been the <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-s-largest-arms-clients-india-azerbaijan-and-vietnam-1.5909811">largest
customer</a> in the world for Israeli weapons.</p>
<h3>
<span>Tags</span>
</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds">BDS</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/indnegev-music-festival">InDnegev
music festival</a> </li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bedouins">bedouins</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-bedouins">Palestinian
Bedouins</a> </li>
<li>
<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/adalah">Adalah</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/pacbi">PACBI</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/negev-development-authority">Negev
Development Authority</a> </li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/naqab-negev">Naqab
(Negev)</a> </li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-araqib">Al-Araqib</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dgtl-tel-aviv-2019">DGTL
Tel Aviv 2019</a> </li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yarkon-park">Yarkon
Park</a> </li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jarisha">Jarisha</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sophie-choudry">Sophie
Choudry</a> </li>
<li>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/michael-oren">Michael
Oren</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blog/104821"
title="Read Tamara Nassar's latest blog entries.">Tamara
Nassar's blog</a></li>
</ul>
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