NGOs to Knesset: Do Not Support Prawer-Begin Bill

Ahead of a hearing in the Ministerial Committee on Legislation on the draft Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev Law (known as the “Prawer-Begin Plan”), members of the Coalition of Organizations for Equality and Justice for the Bedouin wrote to the Prime Minister, Minister of Justice, Attorney General, and members of the Ministerial Committee on Legislation urging them not to promote the bill in its current form.

The Coalition members emphasize in their letter, sent on 18 April 2013, that the law’s planning procedures are expected to cause the displacement and forced eviction of tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens of Israel living dozens of ‘unrecognized’ villages in the Naqab (Negev). It will thereby dispossess them of their property and historical rights to the land, destroy the social fabric of their communities, and condemn thousands of families to lives of poverty and chronic unemployment. The same bill calls for the government to promote the establishment of new Jewish communities, some on the ruins of the evacuated Bedouin villages.

Government refuses to meet with Bedouin representatives

Coalition members point out that representatives of the Bedouin villages in question have repeatedly attempted to engage the government in a dialogue about the plan, but have been rebuffed.

They assert that the law and the policy that it embodies are based on a false and discriminatory views of the Bedouin as trespassers on their land. The Prawer-Begin Plan ignores the fact that most of the Bedouin villages have existed in their present locations since before the establishment of the state of Israel, or were created when the Israeli Military Government forcibly displacement Arab-Bedouin to the Siyag region of the Naqab in the 1950s.

Coalition members maintain that a just and feasible solution first and foremost requires recognition that the Bedouin residents of unrecognized villages are equal citizens with equal rights. The unrecognized villages must be recognized and planned according to fair planning standards, and the land ownership rights of the Bedouin must be formally acknowledged.

Coalition includes broad spectrum of NGOs 

The Coalition of Organizations for Equality and Justice for the Bedouin is composed of the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Shatil, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights, the Mossawa Center – the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, the Community Advocacy Foundation, and the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality.

Adalah and ACRI address Arrangement Law's legal basis

Yesterday, Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara and ACRI Attorney Rawia Abu Rabia sent an additional legal analysis of the bill to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation. The bill, they argued, creates a framework for the government to implement its discriminatory policies toward the Arab Bedouin in the Naqab in two main areas:

1) The evacuation of the unrecognized villages in the Naqab

2) The settlement of ownership of lands in the Naqab

The bill is based on the denial of the Arab-Bedouin population’s rights to property and its historical ties to the land, in violation of the basic rights of the residents of the unrecognized villages. It reflects the fact that the government has failed to undertake a serious examination of alternatives to forcibly displacing the Bedouin in the unrecognized villages, despite the violations of their constitutional rights to property, equality and dignity.

What can you do? Join Adalah's campaign to Stop the Prawer Plan