Al-Arika Destroyed Again
We have shared messages from Amos Gvirtz of the FOR branch in Shefayim, Israel a few times in the past. His blog entries through “Don’t Say We Don’t Know” are often only a short paragraph. This week however, Amos is joining many Israeli Human Rights organizations in protesting a particularly egregious offense against a Bedoiun community, Israeli citizens, in the Negev, at the hands of settlers who have repeatedly destroyed their village without any response from Israeli authorities. (And this is neither the only nor the worst case as Amos points out.) We join this community in calling for protection and restoration of the Al-Arika community. Below are a variety of additional reflections on this case. Mark C. Johnson, Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Dear Friends
I send you this mail after 3 demolitions of entire Bedouin village (El-Arakiv) in the Israeli Negev, and after more than 40 demolitions of Twayil-Abu-Garawal. I hope we will be able to make international campaign against the persecutions of the Bedouins by the Israeli government.
All the best to you!
Amos Gvirtz
UPDATE FROM THE NEGEV COEXISTENCE FORUM FOR CIVIL EQUALITY
Dear Friends and Supporters
During the dawn on 10 August, just one day before the beginning of Ramadan, Al Arakib was once again demolished by Israeli forces. The damage was carried out by a team of approximately 100 to 200 police in full riot gear and were supported by a water cannon to disperse the crowd if necessary, mounted police and a bulldozer. While the police force may have been reduced, the State’s intention to displace the Bedouin from their ancestral lands was still clear.
Many residents had remained in their village and began rebuilding their homes following the second demolition. They had been living in temporary shelters and tents, however, these were destroyed along with dozens of small trees which had been replanted. Building materials were also removed to deter the residents from rebuilding. Further, the road to the village was seriously damaged to impede access and the unofficial sign was removed. Water trucks and tanks were removed and are still being held in an unknown location.
Four out of the seven residents who were arrested during the previous demolitions have been released under the condition that they do not return to Al Arakib. This condition was lifted on Sunday. Yesterday, however, the judge decide not to allow three of the residents to return to the village, among them the leader of the village, Sheik Sayach Al-Turi. The villagers have filed an appeal will be heard on Sunday before the Be’er-Sheva District Court.
Please find attached a translated article that appeared recently in Y-Net in Hebrew by Haia Noach, the Director of the Forum, together with a number of photos of the third demolition.
Sincerely,
Karen Douglas
Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality
www.dukium.org
054 747 1914
Who wants to set fire to the Negev?
By Haia Noah
“No state representative is getting involved in the irrational saga rolling over the backs of children and people whose rights have been trampled, people forgotten
by the welfare authorities. Despite the demolitions, no representative of the state in charge of citizens’ welfare comes to examine the goings on.” Haia Noah calls
the state to order following the destruction of the village of Al-Arakib.
Published on the Y-net news portal, 9 August 2010
The very same scenes replay, again: again a convey of police cars swoops down on some tabernacles made of wooden poles and covered with plastic sheeting,
green or black, the only refuge in the Northern Negev from the sun and the hot and somewhat hellacious weather. After the Bedouin village of Al-Arakib was
demolished a week before, great forces came again last week to destroy. To destroy everything.
Again the women huddle in the remote area, and the line of men facing the policemen. Again the crying of the children and the shouting of the women, and
again the arguments made by the men to the policemen. Again it is the same state clerk who orchestrates the horrific activity, claiming that the evacuation is
being done lawfully. And again old Ismail asks: what sort of law is that? What law? He stands guard over the generator, to keep it from being taken as well.
And another woman, whose tears mingle with the Negev dust, shouts in despair, throat parched: is this a state?
Yes, again it is the few against the many, against better odds in police forces, and the YASAM, the special police forces, and the policemen are tough and have
no mercy. As if this were a natural cycle which must occur, a force of reality.
The horrific thing was that front-line policemen seemed to be enjoying the job they were doing. You can see it in their eyes, and you can see it in their
treatment of the Arabs and the Jews on site. As far as they are concerned, this time there was no discrimination between Arabs and Jews. Everyone was
beaten. We were all their enemy. The briefings were successful, the right people were chosen for the job.
I was there over the week, and was on the receiving end of some of the enthusiastic policemen yesterday morning. I will, of course, file a complaint with
MACHASH, Police Investigation Department, but I am not naïve enough to think anything will come of it. But it is our civic duty! We must do this so that police
violence will not swallow us all. So that it will not turn us into a state where the police dominates its citizens.
The police formed a cordon before us, gave us two minutes to disperse, and then one minute. Before thirty seconds went by they attacked anyone in the area.
Most of us ran away. I was behind a camera and did not notice — and within a moment was thrown to the ground by the policemen and felt bad. I tried to say
something to the policemen, but they must have assumed I was pretending. They demanded that I get up, but I could not.
I had a hard time breathing and lost consciousness. The policemen held onto me and dragged me. My arms clearly show the marks of this police action. I told
them that I feel bad, but it did not help. They demanded that I get up and leave. I did not manage to stand up, although I tried. Finally I made it into an upright
position and leaned on one of the vehicles, and then a rude policeman came, held onto me, and pushed me before I managed to collect myself. He cursed me
thoroughly, using words I have no desire to repeat. I am sure that if I had used such defamation of his mother, who may be as old as I, I would swiftly be
removed from the rolls of the living!
I recovered after a moment, and asked for his name and badge number. He refused to respond, but his friends, standing around him, chose to cast about the
names of singers. One said his name was Eyal Golan [famous singer]. I told them that they had a duty to carry identification badges, but it was useless. This
whole time they were pushing me toward the Wadi. It took me a while to recover, and then I found out that Awad Abu Farih, who has been a friend of mine for 15
years, had been beaten in his stomach and testicles, apparently by one of the commanders. Others were beaten during the evacuation and felt bad in
yesterday’s great heat.
I saw the director of the Israeli Land Administration] Oversight Unit, Tziser by name, shout at Awad: “You made a rude gesture to me (demonstrating it) and
said you’d rebuilt, so this is our response.”
A petty clerk, glad to do his work and settling his personal accounts with dozens of families that he had left in the beating sun, taking personal revenge for a
gesture which may or may not have been made when tempers flared. A clerk or policeman who goes home, to his family, and tells his children about another
successful day at work? That he has the power to destroy? A clerk who is just obeying orders? Did you think it would come to this? That a time would come
when state clerks, policemen or others, would obey terrible orders and think that it is fine and right to act this way?
The process rolls on, seemingly held by the clerk and the police, and no state representative gets involved in the irrational saga which is trampling children,
adults, people whose rights have been stomped upon, who have been forgotten by the welfare authorities. Despite the demolitions, no state representative
responsible for citizen welfare comes to see what is happening. The state has abandoned us, Arabs and Jews in the Negev, to the brutal forces of District
Commander Danino and his policemen. Enough! Maybe someone with sober vision will come and dig a way out of the vicious circle?
Who is behind the campaign of destruction in the Negev? Is this a government decision, slam-bang and the Bedouins will be gone? Are the police forces serving
the Jewish National Fund instead of the citizens as a whole? Are they motivated by lust for land?
Who is trying to set fire to the Negev?
Haia Noach is an activist in the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil
Equality.
This article originally appeared on the Ynet news portal on August 9th,
2010: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3930888,00.html
- translated by Dena Shunra [http://hebrew.shunra.net/]
Israeli Police Destroy Village
Of Bedouin citizens of Israel —
At behest of jewish National Fund
Join us, many Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, and many leaders of the American Jewish community, in raising our voices in protest at the destruction of the Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in the Negev and the forcible removal by some 1,500 Israeli police of over 300 Bedouin Israeli citizens —- mostly children — leaving them homeless, expelled from their land, and bereft of their possessions.
Please note, these are Israeli citizens.
On July 27, bulldozers from the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) demolished their homes, sheep pens, fruit orchards and olive tree groves, so that the Jewish National Fund, which is leasing the land from the ILA, can plant a forest on their land near Beersheva.
The residents of the village have started to rebuild their homes, but ILA bulldozers and the Israel Police have demolished the new buildings twice during the past week, according to reports in the Israeli media.
Over 2,000 Israelis have already signed a Hebrew petition to Prime Minister Netanyahu calling for an end to the destruction of Bedouin villages in Israel and a just and comprehensive solution to the plight of Israel’s Bedouin citizens in the Negev. We join them in solidarity.
A group of over 50 prominent scholars, artists, rabbis and organizational leaders have endorsed this petition. Among them are Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington DC; Leonard (Leibl) Fein, founder of Mazon and Moment magazine and independent-minded columnist; Todd Gitlin, Columbia University; Peter Edelman; Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street; Debra DeLee, CEO, Americans for Peace Now; Theodore Bikel; and Rabbi Brian Walt, co-founder of Taanit Tzedek/ Fast for Gaza.
The Shalom Center is co-sponsoring this petition with the Jewish Alliance for Change, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, and Meretz USA.
Click here to learn more, to see video of the destruction of the village, to read the full list of initiating signers and the full petition, and to sign.
