On 26 November 2006, the ADVA Center, the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab (RCUV), Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Adalah jointly held a conference at the Cinematheque in Tel Aviv to discuss governmental development plans for the Naqab (Negev) and their impact on Arab citizens of the state. Approximately 200 participants attended the conference.
The first panel focused on the master plan for metropolitan Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva). Attorney Banna Shughry-Badarne from the ACRI discussed the legal ramifications of discriminatory aspects of the master plan, and how it perpetuates violations of the basic rights of those living in the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab. Urban Planner Nili Baruch from Bimkom gave a critique of the planning and settlement solutions proposed in the master plan for the inhabitants of the unrecognized villages.
In the second panel, Adalah’s Urban and Regional Planner, Hana Hamdan, discussed the “Negev 2015 Plan,” including its effects on the Arab Bedouin in the Naqab, focusing on the fields of housing and settlement. Dr. Shlomo Swirski from the ADVA Center then talked about the exclusion of those living in the Naqab, Jews and Arabs alike, from the plan.
Member of Knesset Dr. Hana Swaid, the former Director-General of the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, and Mr. Hussein al-Rafayia, the Chairman of The Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab, spoke in the closing panel of the conference, which was moderated by Professor Oren Yiftachel, from the Geography Department of Ben-Gurion University. Dr. Swaid discussed the importance of resolving disputes over land ownership in parallel with land planning. Mr. al-Rafayia discussed the Sharon Plan and the effects of home demolitions on the daily life of the Arab Bedouin population in the Naqab.
In her presentation, Ms. Hamdan of Adalah argued that the “Negev 2015 Plan,” the official aim of which is the development of the Naqab and its population, is in actuality the continuation of the state’s policy of oppressing and obstructing the development of Arab Bedouin living in the Naqab. The primary and central goal of this plan is the demographic goal of attracting Jewish individuals to the Naqab; in parallel, the plan proposes to evacuate the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages, and to transfer their residents and relocate them in the government-planned towns, which suffer from an acute shortage of land for development, she stated.
The government approved the “Negev 2015 Plan” in November 2005. A sum of NIS 380 million will be allocated for the plan from the state budget for 2007. This sum is a preliminary sum from the total budget of NIS 17 billion which is currently assigned for the Naqab over the coming ten years. This plan applies to several fields, including settlement and housing. In this framework, land will be offered under the plan, the vast majority of it to Jewish citizens. This property will include the establishment of 100 private ranches, or “individual settlements,” over vast areas of land for the settlement of Jewish individuals and families.
As Ms. Hamdan emphasized that the plan deprives Arab citizens of spatial development. Arab Bedouin living in the Naqab number approximately 150,000 people, accounting for almost 27% of the population in the region. Around half of these people live in villages which are officially “unrecognized” by the state. The plan deals with these villages as a factor which detracts from the attractiveness of the area from the point of view of the target population.
Ms. Hamdan also noted that the other half of the Arab Bedouin population in the Naqab lives in seven towns which were established by the state or which received official recognition in the 1960s or 1970s, in addition to a number of villages which were recognized by the state more recently. The combined area of land under the jurisdiction of these towns and villages, which are all inappropriately or inadequately planned, accounts for under 1% of the total land area of the Naqab.
In the words of Ms. Hamdan, “There can be no doubt that the “Negev 2015 Plan” invests much in the development of Jewish towns and individuals at the expense of Arabs living in the Naqab, and thereby deepens existing socio-economic and spatial divides.”