Does Israeli law allow the state to take the obviously discriminatory step of evacuating 1,000 Bedouin citizens from the unrecognized village of Umm el-Hieran and replacing it with a new town, Hiran, for Jewish citizens?
This was the question asked by Adalah and the people of Umm el-Hieran last week in an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court to cancel the state’s plans to forcibly displace the residents from their land. The state’s representatives avoided principle questions, however, and instead argued that the state was entitled to reclaim the land from the villagers, even 57 years after they were moved there by the military government. The justices similarly focused on procedural issues, failing to engage in the basic question of blatant, gross discrimination.
... IN ORDER TO BUILD HIRAN?
While the state has never officially recognized Umm el-Hieran and has been trying to demolish it since 2003, it has fast-tracked the establishment of Hiran. According to a government decision, work on Hiran’s construction is due to start by the end of 2013, even as the Umm el-Hieran case remains pending. Waiting for the Bedouin’s evacuation in order to move into ‘Hiran’, a group of Jewish citizens has built a secretive gated community inside the Yatir Forest neighboring Umm el-Hieran. This unauthorized community has been connected to the electricity and water networks, while the people of Umm el-Hieran have never received these most basic state services.
To bypass what it views as the inconveniences and delays of the legal process, the state has introduced the Prawer-Begin Bill, now being debated in the Knesset. If it becomes law, the bill will severelyrestrict the rights of other Bedouin citizens to challenge demolition and evacuation orders. Speedy administrative orders will be used to strip them of their rights to due process, effectively creating a separate legal regime for the Bedouin.
