Haaretz.Com - 1 views
www.haaretz.com/...locate-30-000-bedouin-1.365409
Israel beduin land infrastructure desert population
shared by Ed Webb on 04 Jun 11
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The government is to consider a plan drafted in the Prime Minister's Office to relocate close to 30,000 Bedouin residents of unrecognized villages in the Negev to expanded areas of existing Negev Bedouin towns such as Rahat, Kseifa and Hura. The plan would involve transplanting about 40 percent of the 71,000 Bedouin residents in the unrecognized locales. The relocated Bedouin would receive both monetary compensation and alternate land. Unrecognized villages lack necessary infrastructure, as a result of which they suffer from severe environmental and other problems.
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About 191,000 Bedouin currently live in the Negev, including about 120,000 in recognized communities, the largest of which is Rahat. Another 71,000 live in unrecognized locales. Data from the Prime Minister's Office shows that Bedouin claim ownership of 640,000 dunams of land. (A dunam is about a quarter acre ). Unrecognized Bedouin settlements constitute 2.7 percent of the area of the Negev.
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Many Bedouin leaders, as well as the heads of Jewish localities in the region, are highly opposed to the plan and have threatened immediate legal action to stop if it is approved.
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Bedouin representatives and human rights organization have sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to his cabinet colleagues arguing that the plan runs contrary to the Goldberg committee recommendations. They say that the committee recommendation was to provide recognition to Bedouin locales wherever possible, while the plan being advocated by the Prime Minister's Office would require the unjustified relocation of about 20,000 to 30,000 Bedouin against their will.