Israel Matzav: 'Israeli Arab' MK's: Removing Bedouin squatters from Negev land is 'ethnic cleansing.' Removing Jews from Judea and Samaria is...?

Thursday, December 05, 2013

'Israeli Arab' MK's: Removing Bedouin squatters from Negev land is 'ethnic cleansing.' Removing Jews from Judea and Samaria is...?

As I am sure many of you have heard already, there have been several demonstrations over the past couple of weeks, some of which have turned violent, against something called the Prawer Plan. The Prawer Plan would remove Bedouin squatters from land which is not theirs in Israel's Negev and put them in recognized cities in the area with defined land claims.

It goes almost without saying that the 'Israeli Arab' MK's and the 'Palestinian Authority' have taken up the Bedouins' cause. A group of 'Israei Arab' MK's met with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, and told him that the Prawer Plan is 'ethnic cleansing.'

UAL Ta'al MKs Ahmed Tibi, Ibrahim Sarsour, Masoud Gnaim and Taleb Abu Arar, a Beduin who lives in the Negev, called the plan "discriminatory and [a] violation of international law," quoting UN and Amnesty International officials condemning it, and asked for Kerry's "immediate intervention to halt the proposed plan…designed to expel thousands of Palestinian citizens in Israel from their existing homes."

The Prawer-Begin bill is a five-year economic development initiative seeking to regulate Beduin settlement in the South. The Beduins in question are Israeli citizens, many of which serve in the IDF. The plan aims for a compromised solution for tens of thousands of Beduins currently scattered in unrecognized villages throughout the Negev, legalizing 63 percent of claimed land.
Beduin and their supporters oppose the bill because they say the legislation would result in up to 40,000 Beduins losing their land.

Opponents on the Right criticize the bill as being too generous, saying that the state is giving away land for free, land that the Beduin could not prove to be theirs in court.

"Since developing this plan in 2009, Israel has destroyed more than 200 homes belonging to Palestinians in the Negev. Simply put, this plan constitutes ethnic cleansing. We seek your urgent attention in this matter," the UAL-Ta'al MKs wrote to Kerry.

Also Thursday, Kalfa wrote a letter to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein demanding that Knesset Interior Committee meetings and all votes on the bill be frozen until the government agrees to more transparency.

Kalfa said he uncovered an agreement between Doron Almog, director of the Directorate for Economic and Community Development of the Negev Beduin in the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Housing Ministry, which is controlled by the Bayit Yehudi, from July 2013 that was not reported by Almog to the Knesset Interior Committee.

And were the Israeli government - in compliance with demands from the 'Palestinians' and Kerry - to remove Jews from land they purchased from the Israeli government in Judea and Samaria, that would be... ethic cleansing?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bedouin, ethnic cleansing, John Kerry, Judea and Samaria, Negev