After Stormy 1st Reading Bedouin Expulsion Plan Passes by 43-40

A new law meant to expel nearly 40,000 Arab-Bedouins for their lands was approved in its first Knesset reading on Monday by a slim majority. The vote on the Begin-Prawer plan was held following a tense Knesset session, in which the Hadash Knesset members ripped up copies of the bill on the Knesset floor during the debate and before storming out.  The bill passed by a vote of 43-40. To become a law, it must pass two more Knesset readings. But it could also be modified in a legislative committee prior to the subsequent votes by the  Knesset assembly.

MK Mohammad Barakeh (Hadash) claimed that the law in question is a stain in the history of Israel. “All the pretty words are not worth a penny. This is the transferring of 40 thousand people. They are going to be uprooted from their homes and their communities are going to be destroyed without them being told where they are taken. You call this regulation? This is displacement. This is racism. The Knesset is turning into a racist legislative machine, day after day, year after year. This law belongs in the garbage.” In response, Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat (Likud) stood up and called Barakeh “insolent.” Barakeh responded by saying, “Shut up.”

Hadash chairman, MK Mohammad Barakeh,rips up a copy of the bill on the Knesset floor on Monday.

Hadash chairman, MK Mohammad Barakeh,rips up a copy of the bill on the Knesset floor on Monday. (Photo: Arutz HaKnesset)

As MK Afo Agbaria (Hadash)  spoke at the plenum against the bill, he was interrupted by Deputy Finance Minister and former chief police commissioner Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid). Agbaria, in response to Levy, said, “I am in favor of a new Intifada, because you are causing a new Nakba in the Negev.” Meanwhile, Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud), who led the heated debate in the plenum, announced that he plans to file a complaint against the Hadash MKs who tore up the law. MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) responded by saying, “You said MK Barakeh violated the provisions of the Knesset, but it is actually this law that violates the provisions of the Knesset. It degrades the Knesset.”

On Monday night, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights reiterated their strong opposition to the plan, which in its current form will only aggravate the alienation and discrimination of Bedouin residents of the unrecognized villages in the Negev. The Begin-Prawer Plan, as it currently stands, will cause the displacement and forced eviction of dozens of villages and tens of thousands of Bedouin residents, dispossessing them of their property and historical rights to their lands, destroying the social fabric of their communities, and sealing the fate of thousands of families into poverty and unemployment. All of this while the government simultaneously promotes the establishment of new Jewish communities, some of which are even slated to be built on the ruins of Bedouin villages.

ACRI and Bimkom call on the government to promote planning and recognition for all the unrecognized villages in order to secure the basic rights of the Negev Bedouin citizens of Israel. Attorney Rawia Aburabia of ACRI said: “For years, the Bedouin citizens have lived in villages without basic conditions while around them more and more Jewish communities are built. The government must decide whether to seek a true and just solution that facilitates the inclusion of Bedouins in the Negev as equal citizens or a belligerent plan,  which will only increas the alienation, hostility and poverty in these communities.” Urban planner Nili Baruch of Bimkom: “The key to a solution to the issue of the unrecognized villages in the Negev is planning. A plan to formally recognize the unrecognized villages (such as the one initiated by the village residents themselves) will afford them their rights to education, health, adequate infrastructure, and sources of employment. Such a process would not only be the most likely to succeed, but also the most just, coming after years of neglect of the unrecognized villages, most of which have been in existence since before the state of Israel was established.”

An extreme-right activist Nissim Eliyahu filed a criminal complaint with the police against MK Agbaria. Eliyahu explained that Agbaria was basically “inciting the masses to an armed uprising against Israel, including violent resistance and rioting, and  terrorist activity.”

Related:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL4nZ7jsjJ4&feature=player_embedded

http://www.acri.org.il/en/2013/05/03/information-sheet-begin-plan/