Israel's Bedouin Citizens Appeal For Protection

Israel's Bedouin Citizens Appeal For Protection

Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Palestinian Bedouin villages in the south of Israel were officially categorised as ‘unrecognised’ by the new government. Since then, the people there have been denied water, sanitation, electricity, health care and education.[1] Today, Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel face a fresh wave of ethnic cleansing.

On 24 June 2013, the Israeli Knesset approved the discriminatory Prawer-Begin Bill for the expulsion of the Palestinian Bedouin community in the Naqab (Negev) Desert in the south of Israel. If implemented, the 'Prawer-Begin Plan', as it is known, will result in the forced dispossession and displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel and the destruction of a further 35 villages.[2]

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “the Law for the Regulation of the Bedouin Settlement in the Negev is discriminatory and would legalise racist practices.”[3] Last year the EU called upon Israel to withdraw the Plan. A European Parliament Resolution[4] of 5 July 2012 on EU policy on the West Bank and East Jerusalem calls upon Israel to stop the Prawer-Begin Plan. In Part 12 of the Resolution, the EU calls for:

“the protection of the Bedouin communities of the West Bank and in the Negev, and for their rights to be fully respected by the Israeli authorities, and condemns any violations (e.g. house demolitions, forced displacements, public service limitations); calls also, in this context, for the withdrawal of the Prawer Plan by the Israeli Government”.

And section Q of the Resolution reads in part:

“. . . Arab Bedouin communities, threatened by Israeli policies undermining their livelihoods and including forced transfer, are a particularly vulnerable population both in the occupied Palestinian Territory and in the Negev;”

The Bedouin people are appealing to the world community for protection and New Zealand surely has a duty to help in averting a human rights catastrophe. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign urges all MPs to ask the New Zealand Government to both publicly condemn the Prawer Plan and make immediate representations to the government of Israel in this regard.

Leslie Bravery,

Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) | 05 August 2013 www.palestine.org.nz

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Bedouin

[2] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45495#.UfxAwaxZdkg

[3] http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/un-panel-urges-israel-to-shelve-racist-bedouin-relocation-plan-1.420692)

[4] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2012-0298&language=EN

ENDS

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