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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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<a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/partying-ethnically-cleansed-land"
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<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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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>
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<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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">Adalah</a>, a legal advocacy
group, is <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9826"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">al-Araqib</a>, <a
href="https://972mag.com/demolitions-al-araqib-prison-land/139119/"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, Palestinians are <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/bollywoodstandagainstapartheid"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">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"
moz-do-not-send="true">pic.twitter.com/LTYKuDGYkG</a></p>
— Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) <a
href="https://twitter.com/DrMichaelOren/status/917009157705711616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">October 8, 2017</a></blockquote>
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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"
moz-do-not-send="true">largest customer</a> in the
world for Israeli weapons.<br>
_________________________________________________________<br>
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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain
reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-moves-corral-bedouins-camps">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-moves-corral-bedouins-camps</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Israel moves to corral
Bedouins in camps</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen
Clare Murphy - </a></span><span class="field
field-blog"></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-10-15T14:42:28+00:00">15 October
2019</span></span> </p>
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<figure id="file-85236"><source
media="(min-width: 72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Israel is moving to forcibly transfer
some 36,000 Bedouins into displacement
camps as part of a plan to develop the
southern Naqab desert, a human rights
group <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9826">warns</a>.</p>
<p>Those facing forced displacement live in
villages not recognized by the state.</p>
<p>Adalah, a group that advocates for the
rights of Palestinians in Israel, is <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9677">challenging</a>
the planned developments.</p>
<p>One of the projects is a testing facility
<a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9677">owned</a>
by the weapons manufacturer <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/elbit">Elbit
Systems</a> that would encompass 27,770
acres, more than <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9644">twice</a>
the area of Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>The second project, the Sde Barir
phosphate mine, is <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9686">opposed</a>
by Israel’s health ministry as well as the
communities it would displace.</p>
<p>In early October, a regional Israeli
government planning committee discussed
two plans to house Bedouins from
unrecognized villages temporarily.
Displacement camps would be used “in cases
where the population is urgently required
to move from their living sites before
permanent buildings are established.”</p>
<p>The language used by the planning
authorities suggests that mass
displacement may be imminent.</p>
<p>“The Israeli plans would allow
authorities to immediately evict and
transfer Bedouin citizens to the new
displacement camps for a period of three
to six years,” according to Adalah.</p>
<h2>Displacement after displacement</h2>
<p>Bedouins residing in unrecognized
villages in the Naqab desert have <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-robs-palestinians-citizenship/21751">endured
multiple forced displacements</a> since
Israel’s establishment in 1948. Israel
prevents these communities from developing
and denies them essential services like
water and electricity.</p>
<p>Thousands of Bedouins have had their
citizenship revoked by Israel in recent
years.</p>
<p>“It is unreasonable to again coerce
displacement to temporary housing tens of
thousands of residents who have been
living in their villages for decades and,
indeed, for generations – most of which
are actually located on their traditional
tribal lands,” Suhad Bishara, an attorney
with Adalah, stated in a letter to
Israel’s southern planning and building
committee.</p>
<p>Attiya Al-Issam, chair of the Regional
Council for the Unrecognized Villages in
the Negev, stated that the “malicious
plan” is seen by Bedouins as “the
embodiment of Israel’s Prawer Plan.”</p>
<p>That plan, discussed by Israel’s
parliament in 2013, sought to forcibly
transfer tens of thousands of Bedouins in
the Naqab into townships.</p>
<p>It was <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/prawer-protesters-beaten-threatened-rape-israeli-police-haifa/13016">ostensibly
frozen</a> after mass protests by the
affected communities. But Israel <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9049">continued
to promote</a> plans to concentrate as
many as 90,000 Bedouins from 36 villages
into a segregated area.</p>
<h2>Protest</h2>
<p>The original Prawer Plan <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9049">faced
international</a> as well as domestic
protest.</p>
<p>The UN Committee on the Elimination for
Racial Discrimination called on Israel to
withdraw the plan, while the European
Parliament called on Israel to fully
respect the rights of Bedouin communities
in the Naqab.</p>
<p>In September last year, the European
Parliament adopted a <a
href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2018-0351_EN.html?redirect">resolution</a>
calling on Israel to “put an immediate end
to its policy of threats of demolition and
actual eviction against the Bedouin
communities” living in the Naqab, as well
as in the occupied West Bank.</p>
<p>The resolution was passed months after
Israel <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-forces-umm-al-hiran-villagers-agree-expulsion">coerced
residents</a> of Umm al-Hiran, an
unrecognized village in the Naqab, into
agreeing to be removed from their homes so
that a Jewish-only town could be built in
its place.</p>
<p>The move was “reminiscent of the darkest
of regimes such as apartheid-era South
Africa,” Adalah stated at the time.</p>
<p>Another unrecognized Bedouin village in
the Naqab, al-Araqib, has been <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/six-years-struggle-al-araqib/17606">demolished
by Israeli authorities</a> more than 100
times to make way for <a
href="https://whoprofits.org/updates/forced-displacement-the-story-of-al-araqib/">two
forests</a> planted by the Jewish
National Fund.</p>
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