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

Update from Negev Coexistence Forum

05.05.2012

• JNF expected to resume work in Al Arakib
• Demonstration at JNF offices in Jerusalem
• NCF submits report to CCPR

JNF expected to resume work in Al Arakib

Israeli police summoned Sheikh Sayyah Al-Touri, leader of the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al Arakib, for interrogation in Rahat earlier this week. Officers informed him that they would be securing the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) planting operations on Al Arakib lands, starting as of May 2.

Al Arakib has been demolished 34 times since July 2010 to make way for a JNF-sponsored forest. The JNF maintains a bulldozer encampment in the village, and has consistently been seen preparing the ground for planting.

Activists have been requested to come to Al Arakib on Sunday morning, to show solidarity with village residents. For more information, contact Michal, 050-939-1299.

 

 

Demonstration at JNF offices in Jerusalem

Approximately 100 people demonstrated in Jerusalem on April 29 against the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) role in destroying the village of Al Arakib and forcibly evicting its residents. Earlier that day, JNF bulldozers had attempted to work on village lands in preparation for planting trees.

“We told [the JNF] that the question of land ownership was currently being decided in the courts, but they told us, ‘We are the law and we are above the law,'” said Sheikh Sayyah Al-Touri during the demonstration.

Media Reports:

In Photos, Video: Protest against JNF in Jerusalem, The Alternative Information Center

Bedouin tribes in the Naqab desert suffer from JNF forestation policy, Silvia Boarini, Palestine Monitor

 

NCF submits report to CCPR

In late April, NCF submitted a report outlining Israel’s violations of the rights of its Bedouin citizens under the United Nations’ International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Among other things, the report detailed the state’s failure to ensure adequate Bedouin representation in government office and to hold elections in the Abu Basma Regional Council. The report also outlined Israel’s use of legal mechanisms to legitimize the appropriation of Bedouin land, and its push to implement the destructive Prawer-Amidror Plan, which would forcibly transfer 30,000 Bedouin against their will and cut the community off from its indigenous cultural traditions.

“There was no consultation process with the Bedouin community regarding the formulation of the Prawer-Amidror Plan,” the report states. “Any implementation plan that is forcefully and unilaterally imposed upon this already disadvantaged community will only further undermine the delicate social fabric of the Negev and inflame Arab-Jewish relations.”

The UN Human Rights Committee is expected to discuss the list of issues included in the report in July. It will then request a response from the Israeli state. To read the full NCF report, click here.