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Refusing to be relocated
The Bedouin village of Al Araqib has
steadfastly refused to be relocated. Since 2010, Israeli forces have
razed homes and uprooted olive groves here 57 times, claiming that
residents are illegal trespassers, according to long-standing land
disputes. The village’s only surviving structure is a century-old
Islamic cemetery.
Hakmeh Abu Medeighim lives in a shoddy wooden
tent next door. She and a handful of other families have refused to
leave their ancestral lands, strewn with rubble from their homes that
were razed, rebuilt, and razed again. Though pine trees stand where
their olive trees once were, they pledge that they will die in this
harsh desert “even if mourners will have no water for the ritual
prayer,” says Al Araqib’s elder, Sheikh Sayyah al-Turi.
He has been
waging a losing battle in municipal courts to prove land ownership,
using pre-1948 land deeds – rejected by Israel – as his only legal
documents.
He didn’t always have to fight, but growing racism in
the government has eroded respect for the Bedouin community, allowing
things like the Prawar plan to come about...
 |
| Ground which has been prepared for the construction of new homes is seen
in front of the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom, near the southern Israeli
city of Beersheba, August 25. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters |
By
Shira Rubin, Correspondent /
September 17, 2013
Al Araqib, Israel
The Bedouins of the southern Negev desert have volunteered for the
Israeli military, worked as trackers along the Lebanese and Egyptian
borders, and gone along with various Israeli development projects that
have required them to give up their nomadic way of life and relocate.
But they feel betrayed now by the latest Israeli government project, a
$5.6 billion initiative called the Begin-Prawar plan that will free up
space for Israeli development of the Negev by relocating Bedouins in the
area if it is approved by the Knesset after it returns from recess next
month.
The Israeli government has slated for eviction 40,000
Bedouins in “unrecognized” villages throughout the southern Negev...
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