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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-israel-shut-down-authorities-continue-evict-bedouin">https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-israel-shut-down-authorities-continue-evict-bedouin</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Coronavirus: As Israel shut down,
authorities continued to destroy Bedouin crops</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Jack Dodson in Wadi
al-Na'am - March 20, 2020<br>
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<p>Israeli authorities destroyed hundreds of hectares of
agricultural land in two Bedouin communities in the
Negev desert this week while most other government
activities were curtailed to contain the spread of <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/coronavirus" target="_blank">coronavirus</a>.</p>
<p>As Israelis were banned from meeting in groups of
more than 10 and those flying in from abroad were
quarantined, departments overseeing land use in the
Negev continued to order evictions and clear land, a
move that activists say violated the government's own
ban against large gatherings.</p>
<p>On Monday morning, Israeli police officers and
members of the Green Patrol, a paramilitary force
within the Israel Land Authority focused on
enforcement issues in the Negev, showed up at the
outskirts of Wadi al-Na’am with tractors.</p>
<p>Working from north to south, residents who watched
said the officials systematically destroyed a large
swath of crops, leaving a massive expanse of upturned
soil where there had been stocks of wheat and barley,
used to feed their sheep and cows. </p>
<p>“Why do they raze it? Our cattle want to eat, to
live,” said Labad Abu Afash, a local leader in Wadi
al-Na’am. “They want to make it harder for us so that
they get what they want, to kick us out of the land.
That’s their goal.”</p>
<p>On Wednesday, authorities went to a second Bedouin
village, Tel Arad, and destroyed crops there. Multiple
large tractors drove over the land as residents looked
on, recording with their phones.</p>
<p>An official with Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture,
Yariv Man, told MEE by phone that all government
activities like demolitions had been stopped on
Thursday to “help the people of Israel combat
corona”. </p>
<p>The decision, he said, was taken after these
demolitions had been carried out and have since
stopped. “Before, they were enforcing the laws of
building and planning,” Man said.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>'To raze the land at a time when people have
nothing to do… It’s unbelievable that the government
treats its citizens this way'</p>
<p><em>- Labad Abu Afash, local leader in Wadi
al-Na’am</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since declaring independence in 1948, Israel has
spent decades evicting Bedouin from villages in the
Negev desert, arguing that they are living illegally
on state land in “unrecognised” communities, as Wadi
al-Na’am and Tel Arad are often described.</p>
<p>Residents, however, argue that they have been on the
land long before Israel was established, and they want
to stay in their ancestral home. And while evictions
and demolitions happen regularly, they said the timing
of those this week shocked them.</p>
<p>“This year especially because it coincided with the
spread of coronavirus, we were shocked and surprised
by the government,” Afash said.</p>
<p>“Instead of supporting people, it sends tractors. To
raze the land at a time when people have nothing to
do… It’s unbelievable that the government treats its
citizens this way.”</p>
<h3>Skeleton operations</h3>
<p>As the week went on, Israel’s government instituted
increasingly tough restrictions on gatherings and
movement in an effort to contain the coronavirus
outbreak. </p>
<p>On 9 March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had
issued a mandatory two-week quarantine for anyone
flying into Israel from abroad. By 15 March, the day
before authorities arrived at Wadi Na’am, the
government had banned gatherings of more than 10
people.</p>
<p>Then, on 16 March, Netanyahu had advanced a
controversial plan to allow Israeli intelligence
officials to track the cell phone location data of
confirmed coronavirus patients to see where they had
been. That information would be used to alert other
Israelis who may have contracted the virus. </p>
<p>However, the fate of that plan has been thrown into
question after the country’s top court issued an
injunction on Thursday requiring the government to
provide some oversight to the Knesset.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, basic government services were cut back
throughout the region, running bare-bones operations
and dramatically limiting their work. </p>
<p>Yet the departments overseeing land use in the Negev
desert continued on, something that surprised Yeela
Raanan, a professor of public policy at Sapir Academic
College in Ashkelon.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>'I was sure when this coronavirus started that at
least the Bedouin could have a breath of fresh air'</p>
<p><em>- Yeela Raanan, Sapir Academic College</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>“I was sure when this coronavirus started that at
least the Bedouin could have a breath of fresh air,”
she said. “That at least during these times, our
government would not organise to destroy houses and
crops.”</p>
<p>Raanan said that the government’s action could have
dire consequences for the Bedouin, who need the crops
to feed their animals. </p>
<p>“We’re living in desert, so that means there’s always
a very small crop,” she said. “And then the government
- if the crop is worth anything - they’ll come with
their tractors just about when it’s time to to reap
these crops, and they will turn the land over again,
destroying the crops totally.”</p>
<h3>Ratcheting up pressure</h3>
<p>Bedouin towns are scattered across the Negev, each
lacking basic services such as roads, access to water
and functioning addresses. </p>
<p>For decades, the government has been trying to
“regularise” the status of these communities by moving
them, activities that have increased under a more
rightwing government over the past five years, Raanan
said.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>'We will stay on our lands until we get all of our
rights from this oppressive institution'</p>
<p><em>- Me'eqel Al Hawashla, Council of Unrecognised
Villages member</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs<a
href="https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Spotlight/Pages/The-Bedouin-in-Israel.aspx"
target="_blank"> publication aimed at explaining
Israel</a> to tourists, the purpose is to help the
Bedouin reach a higher socio-economic status.</p>
<p>But for residents who watched the state destroy their
livelihoods this week, that claim rings false.</p>
<p>“We are farmers, and we want to continue growing
crops,” said Me'eqel Al Hawashla, a member of the
Council of Unrecognised Villages who had visited both
areas this week. His group is a non-governmental body
because the state doesn’t acknowledge their claim to
the land or their role as community representatives.</p>
<p>“The state is trying to pressure us,” Hawashla said.
“They want to have the biggest population they can
over the smallest piece of land. And this is
impossible. We seek to protect our way of life the
same way our ancestors lived.”</p>
<p>He added: “We will stay on our lands until we get all
of our rights from this oppressive institution.”</p>
<p>Government officials have advanced plans in recent
years to transfer residents of these communities to
larger cities, where they’ll be placed in temporary
housing. Bedouin from unrecognised areas resist these
efforts, arguing these moves would destroy their way
of life and force them further into poverty.</p>
<p>“All of these pressures are to make people go away,
but we’re not going to go away,” Labad Abu Afash said.
“We ask that they recognise Wadi Na’am.”</p>
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