RAMALLAH: Adalah, an Israel-based NGO which acts to protect the rights of the Palestinian Arab minority, has squared off with the government over legislation that aims to relocate Bedouins from their villages in the Negev region and build Jewish settlements in their place. The Prawer Plan, which will displace some 70,000 Bedouin Arabs citizens of Israel and destroy around 35 “unrecognized" villages, was passed by the Israeli parliament in September 2011. “Unrecognized" villages are those not recognized by the government, although many of their residents, such as those of Um al-Hiran, were given the land by the government to compensate for land they lost as a result of the establishment of the state of Israel. They are denied basic services, such as education, simple infrastructure, water, and electricity. The Prawer Plan would force Bedouins to leave their villages and relocate to eight government-built townships. On October 8th, a delegation of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called on Israel to discard the Prawer Plan and recognize the villages in question. “The situation on the ground is very alarming," said Veronique De Keyser, vice president of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. “We call on the Israeli authorities to recognize those Bedouin villages in the [Negev] which are located on the tribes' ancestral land and see that their inhabitants have access to all basic services, including infrastructure, water and education as the full Israeli citizens that they are." In 2011, over 1,000 Bedouin structures were demolished in the Negev. Although the state has relocated and displaced thousands of Arab citizens since 1948, the Prawer Plan will “be the largest single act of forced displacement of Arab citizens of Israel since the 1950s," Adalah says. Adalah is calling on the international community to pressure the Israeli government to abandon the Prawer Plan.
