Israelis ethnically cleanse the Negev

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday February 27, 2003 15:26 by kokomero

Bedouin villages destroyed because they're not 'civilised'

Zionazi government establishes bantustan in the Negev desert by expelling bedouin who've lived there for generations before the state of Israel was established.

Dozens of "illegal" bedouin villages and mosques across the Negev desert have been demolished by Israel's interior ministry.

The state wants to eradicate the bedouin and confiscate their land, they want to establish a Jewish settlement in the Negev. The Zionazi government justifies its actions by saying the bedouin don't have planning permission to build homes that have existed since before the state of Israel existed.

The Negev desert is Israel's next frontier. It accounts for about half the country's land but is home to less than one in 10 of the population. That makes it an ideal site for new settlements to accommodate some of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants the government expects in the coming years.

Five years ago, Ariel Sharon, then the interior minister, declared that the bedouin had disappeared and the Negev was empty "but for a few goats and sheep" which he promised "to deal with".

The campaign to clear the desert of all bedouin is continued today by the Jewish Agency for Israel which spearheads the government's efforts to bring another million Jews to Israel by 2010.

About half of the Negev's 140,000 bedouin have been cajoled or enticed out of the desert and into seven "recognised villages" or development towns that are little better than sprawling urban dumps. But the 70,000 or so bedouin who remain in the Negev say they are determined not to budge, not least because many of those who agreed to be resettled now regret it.

The resettled Arabs can only lease, not own, the land their houses stand on. And while neighbouring Jewish settlements are heavily subsidised and provided with quality services, the bedouin crammed into the seven towns lack proper sewage, roads and sometimes even homes.