In this morning's Dallas Morning News, it was reported that Ismail Mohamed Salem's house has been destroyed. It was bulldozed by the Israelis. He is not alone. 45 other homes have been destroyed in Salem's village of El Arqib. In fact, the whole village was destroyed and its 300 residents made homeless. Salem is a Bedouin living in the Negev Desert in Israel and his village is in the way. The Negev Desert came under Israeli control after Israel's founding in 1948. The region is of some importance to Israel. In addition to being used as a training ground for the Israeli military, it also has a toxic waste incinerator, two rivers of open sewage, and serves as a dump for Tel Aviv.
Over the years, Israel has attempted to manage its Bedouin population. There are approximately 175,000 Bedouin in the Negev Desert. The Negev constitutes roughly 60% of Israel's land mass. It is inevitable that sooner or later Israel will get around to settling it in earnest. When they do, the Bedouin will have to move. Under Israel's Removal of Intruders law, non Israelis in the Negev can be evicted at any time. After living for generations in the Negev, Bedouin like Ismail Mohamed suddenly find that they are intruders and that they are to be removed.
To prepare the way for Jewish expansion, the ground must first be cleared. This has primarily been done by pushing the Bedouin into one of seven areas set aside for them in southern Israel (We used to call them Reservations.) So far, only about half of the Bedouin population has yielded to Israeli pressure to relocate. Those that have moved have found themselves living in poor, desolate communities with few jobs, fewer amenities, and no government services. Israel asserts that the communities are just fine. They have electricity, sewage and schools just like Tel Aviv does: as if the Bedouin were being moved to the suburbs rather than makeshift villages. What more does a person need? Who would not trade their dignity and what is left of their way of life for sewage, electricity, and schools, even rudimentary ones? Many Bedouin as it turns out. When Israel cannot tempt or coax the Bedouin off their land they bring in the bulldozers. Israel rarely, if ever, offers to buy the land. Salem, who is 70 years old, has had six homes destroyed by the Israelis over the years.
The Bedouin have lived in the Negev for over 1,000 years. After it acquired the Negev, Israel imposed military administration over it. The Bedouin who lived in the Negev were declared to be there illegally and their villages were deemed "unrecognized." Indeed, Israel went so far as to erase the Arabic names for the towns and villages on its maps and replace them with Hebrew names. Much of the Bedouin population was forcibly removed from their homes and concentrated in a few towns like Beersheba.
Israel claims they are simply cracking down on "unrecognized shanty towns." By cracking down they do not mean reviewing permits and issuing citations: they mean leveling with bulldozers. The reason the towns are shanty towns is because they are built without the resources and material available to other communities in Israel. For all intents and purposes, they are dusty, impoverished reservations set aside to hold Bedouin. They are not towns or villages in any proper sense of the word. They are hastily built settlements created to provide shelter and tend to the basic needs of the people who find themselves living in them. The reason they are not recognized is that Israel refuses to recognize them. Nearly 80% of Bedouin live in unrecognized villages and settlements. That means nearly the entire Bedouin population is subject to eviction and relocation.
For centuries, the Bedouin roamed freely across the desert, (images of Lawrence of Arabia come to mind), but no longer. The cramped life of the Bedouin is in large part due to the borders drawn after the defeat of the Ottoman empire in WWI. The new national borders established after the war curbed the traditional nomadic life of the Bedouin. For the Bedouin, those borders have become even narrower over the years.
The is very little room in Israel for people who are not Jewish. There is even less compassion. If Israel wants your land, they will take it. Israel's settlement policy has little to do with the safety or security of its population: the Bedouin have never posed a threat to Israel. It has nothing to do with the right of Jews to live in Israel: that right is not challenged by the Bedouin. It has to do with Israel's desire for racially pure communities. Israel's efforts to maintain its racial purity ensures that little room will be left for others. Like the Palestinians, the Bedouin are the wrong people in the wrong place and they are getting in the way. There is no place for the Bedouin in Israel.
Cut off from roads, water, electricity, schools and health care, and hobbled by onerous rules and regulations, Israel is doing its best to make those Bedouin who refuse to vacate their villages and lands feel unwelcome. It is difficult to see Israel as a victim here.
The Bedouin took up arms against the Ottomans in WWI. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire is what enabled Israel to be created. This is the thanks the Bedouin get. Israel has decided that the Bedouin have to move, and move they will, at bulldozer blade if necessary.
Mohamed Salem's story is a small one well off the front page. No doubt it was widely overlooked by many in the U.S., and that is unfortunate. But you can be assured it was not so widely overlooked in the Middle East. It is stories like Salem's (and there are many of them) that make Arab outrage at Israel comprehensible.
Few people have been able to get away with the sort of policies Israel has adopted. The Serbs and the South Africans must be scratching their heads.
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