The Tragic Plight Of The Bedouin Palestine Refugees Continues

In February 2018, the Israel Lands Authority had issued eviction notices for the Bedouin residents in the village of Umm al-Hiran. The Bedouin people have been given until April 1, 2018, to pack up and once again be resettled in Hura, which is a government approved Bedouin town. Bedouin residents have been informed by police that they need to leave by April 1 or be evicted by force. Police have also been entering the village to plan “how to make the incursion and to destroy the village” according to a local Bedouin activist Raed Abu al-Kaeean, who gave an interview to the Jerusalem Post. Umm al-Hiran will be demolished to make way for a town to be built in its place and which will be populated mainly by the Jewish. This Israeli State plan also has the backing of the Supreme Court.

The Bedouin village is located in the Wadi Atir area of the Negev desert in southern Israel. It is situated near Hura, was established in 1956 and is one of 46 unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel. These communities, have endured years of continuous threats of displacement and expulsion, due to a policy that seeks to establish all of the Bedouin communities in the province into a single community in the eastern outer edges of greater Jerusalem. As the area is located within Area C, as decided by the Oslo Accords, the Bedouin residents are under Israeli’s jurisdiction and the State of Israel is solely responsible for the Bedouin people’s living conditions and welfare as well as formulating acceptable solutions to uphold and protect their rights.

The Bedouin communities residing east of Jerusalem continue to describe their present situation under the premise of physical and planning discussions, as well as the impact this has on life and the daily struggle for existence of their residents. This “acceptable solution” of resettling the Bedouin people for the third time, is pushing the Bedouin to the brink of extinction, whereby their way of life, their traditions and culture are slowly being eradicated. The ugly circle in which the Bedouin find themselves in is slowly, but surely dispersing their kinship groups. The Bedouin were once a thriving and productive people, whose livelihoods depended on raising livestock, such as sheep. But, many are now forced to live in built-up, urban areas, that are often overcrowded and have no land that is suitable for allowing their livestock to graze on. This intrinsically leads to poverty and unemployment levels that severely limit the Bedouin’s capacity to be productive in an economic and social sense.

A joint field study conducted by Bimkom, a non-profit organization, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in 2013, had the disheartening findings of seeing other Bedouin villages having this same fate handed to them when evicted from their previous uprootings. When people cannot be subdued in giving up the fight for the destruction of their homes, a poor population like the Bedouin can be besieged at their most vulnerable place, which is economical. The Bedouin are confined to one of the isolated townships Israel has built for them, but the lack of infrastructure and employment has seen the Bedouin’s only real option for the survival of being transported daily into Israeli communities as manual labour.

When dialogues are opened up about occupation, displacement and control, there is a tendency to look at the most dominant and discernible origins of intimidation and injustice, as in, armies, government policies, and policing. But, the decision by Israeli authorities to evict the Bedouin from Umm al-Hiran, shows how the law can be used as a powerful weapon of displacement, which the Bedouin have no power to fight against.

Linda Spotswood

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