On 14 June 2009, the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs approved a new bill to amend the Naqab Development Authority Law – 1991. The new bill would retroactively legalize the “individual settlements” in the Naqab (Negev). The bill also stipulates that each settlement owner is entitled to lease the land on a long-term basis from the Israel Land Administration (ILA) (a period of 49 or 98 years) at a very low price.

On 17 June 2009, following the approval of the bill, Adalah sent an urgent letter to the Justice Minister, the Attorney General and the Director of the ILA, demanding that they immediately intervene to stop the legislative process to amend the law. In the letter, Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara argued that the individual settlements in the Naqab have been established illegally, contrary to approved local and regional plans, and without the necessary building permits and the publication of bids, as required by law. The bill also contradicts National Master Plan no. 35 and the instructions of the National Council on Planning and Building.

The establishment of the individual settlements in the Naqab is racially motivated; it aims “to protect the land” from the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel by transferring vast areas of state-controlled land to Jewish individuals and families, and thereby effectively end the ongoing dispute over land ownership in the Naqab.  In this way, the state seeks to guarantee that the land remains in Jewish hands and to prevent any development on the land that benefits Palestinian citizens of the state. There are currently 59 individual settlements in the Naqab that extend over an area of 81,000 dunams; in comparison, the area of the city of Tel Aviv is not more than 100,000 dunams.

Attorney Bishara argued that the establishment of individual settlements at a time when 80,000 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel are living in “unrecognized villages” that are denied the most basic state services, including water, electricity and roads, violates the constitutional rights of the inhabitants of the unrecognized villages to equality, justice and dignity.

In 2006, Adalah submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of Israel against the National Council for Planning and Building seeking the revocation of a master plan that approved the construction of 35 individual settlements along the so-called “Wine Path” in the Naqab.  The petition remains pending for decision (see H.C. 2817/06, Adalah, et al. v. The National Council for Planning and Building, et al.).

In the state’s response to this petition, the Attorney General claimed that the allocation of land for individual settlements will be implemented through open bids only and that he considers these settlements to be exceptional. Therefore, the draft bill is also incompatible with the Attorney General’s position and commitments as previously announced before the Supreme Court.