RAMALLAH: On Monday, Israeli police and Bedouin citizens of Israel clashed in Bar Abu Hadaj, an unrecognized Arab village in the Negev desert. Dozens of policemen arrived in the village accompanied by bulldozers. On October 11th, residents were delivered demolition orders that stated their homes were illegally erected. Israel claims that the state merely intends to develop the vastly unpopulated Negev desert. However, individual politicians have often referred to the Bedouin in the Negev as a demographic threat to the Jewish character of the state. “Bedouin are a bloodthirsty people who commit polygamy, have 30 children, and continue to expand their illegal settlements by taking over state lands," said Moshe Shohat, former Head of the Educational Authority for Bedouins, in 2001. “In their culture, they relive themselves outdoors and don't even know how to use the toilet," he added. Some 70,000 Bedouin citizens live in roughly 40 unrecognized villages across the Negev. As in the case of Um al-Hiran, an unrecognized village in the northern Negev, the government plans to build Jewish settlements on top of the depopulated land. Many Bedouin villages were initially given to the residents and their ancestors after the 1948 war to compensate for Israel's forced dispossession of Arabs from their lands. Palestine News Network reports that dozens of students were injured during Monday's clashes with the police.
