Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality
פורום דו-קיום בנגב לשוויון אזרחי
منتدى التعايش السلمي في النقب من أجل المساواة المدنية

Tomorrow morning there will resume at the Beersheba District Court the hearing of Nuri al Okbi’s appeal for restoration of his ownership over the Al Arakib land from which he and his entire tribe were expelled in 1951. Attorney Michael Sfard, on behalf of al Okbi, will cross-examine Prof. Ruth Kark of the Hebrew University.

Professor Kark had presented an expert opinion, supporting the state’s position that the Bedouins have no ownership rights over their lands in the Negev even if they have lived there for many generations. This was in opposition to the expert opinion of Prof. Oren Yiftachel of Ben Gurion University, who had testified in previous court sessions. He had presented many documents to showing that the Bedouins’ rights to their land has been recognized by the Ottoman and British governments, as well as by the Zionist movement before 1948, and that it was only the governments of Israel which changed the legal situation in order to dispossess the Bedouins.