Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres this
weekend declared that Israel would continue pursuing a multi-year plan
to economically develop the country's southern Negev region and
politically integrate the Bedouin populations that live in the area, after activists late last week staged violent rallies opposing the so-called Prawer-Begin plan. Israel's
Negev region constitutes almost half of the country's pre-1967
territory. It is home to roughly 200,000 Bedouin, as many as 90,000 of
whom
live in conditions of
chronic underdevelopment. Close to half of all Bedouin citizens in the
Negev live in 40 encampments with little to no access to basic municipal
services such as water and sanitation, and some villages are
illegally located on
lands reserved for public use, including near Israel’s main toxic waste
depository. The unemployment rate for Israeli Bedouins is 70 percent,
compared with a national average of 7 percent, and only 4 percent of
Bedouins graduate from higher education institutions. The Prawer-Begin
plan would require Jerusalem to invest almost $2 billion in developing
the Negev and moving some Bedouin communities to areas with education,
health care, water, and electricity, where were they could legally live
and in many cases claim ownership over their land. Organizations and
activists critical of Israel, however, last week urged a so-called "day
of rage" to oppose the plan, which they insisted was an instance of
Israel dispossessing Palestinians. Media outlets
pointedly described the
Israeli cities being constructed in the Negev as "Jewish settlements"
and the Israeli Bedouins were called "Palestinian Bedouins." Critics
blasted such rhetoric as part of an effort to conflate the Bedouin cause with the Palestinian issue, noting that it was being
done in the context of
efforts to mainstream notions that Israel was targeting Palestinians.
Analysts fear that the conflation will harm both the Bedouin cause and
efforts to establish a Palestinian state. Regarding the Bedouins, the
violence has
threatened passage of
the Prawer-Begin bill, potentially leaving the Negev underdeveloped.
Regarding efforts to achieve a Palestinian state, the conflation is
likely to deepen worries that the claims of Palestinians and their
allies extend between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and into territories
that have been Israeli since the country's birth and are
internationally recognized as such.
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