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culled from BBC online.
Zionsism equates to Nazism + Racism + Intolerance and Disresprect for others.
The Arab population in Israel are under thesame subjugation and tyranny
like the Palestinians.
Promises made to them are never kept and their land and most importantly water
has all but being confiscated, and development seems to skirt their regions as
if they are a colony of lepers.
Zionsim is an evil and it has to seen as such.
Regards
Manneh
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Israel's Bedouin
By Middle East analyst Fiona Symon
The shootings on 9 January of four Bedouin soldiers in an attack on an Israeli
army post by the Palestinian militants has thrown into sharp relief the
position of these descendants of Arabic-speaking desert nomads.
The dead men - one of whom was an army officer - were members of a battalion
composed almost entirely of Bedouins.
It had apparently been assigned the dangerous task of patrolling the southern
Gaza Strip.
For the Bedouin, there's been a huge gap between the promises made to them and
what has been delivered
Dr Alean al-Krenawi, Ben Gurion University
Bedouin Arabs make up about 10% of Israel's Arab population and are, therefore,
a minority within a minority.
Most of the Bedouin - around 125,000 - still live in the Negev, while around
60,000 live in the Galilee area of northern Israel, according to Dr Alean al-
Krenawi, director of the Centre for Bedouin Studies and Development at Ben-
Gurion University.
He says there are close to 30 tribes altogether, some of whom also live in the
areas under Palestinian Authority control between Jericho and Jerusalem, and in
Gaza and the Jordan valley.
Dr Krenawi says the Israeli Bedouin see themselves as Arabs first and foremost,
but have a tradition of good relations with the Israeli state.
Many have served in Bedouin units of the Israeli army, where they have been
valued for their tracking skills.
Land dispute
Israel, however, has never recognised their ownership of the land, and they
have suffered a series of land expropriations and evictions, forcing their
communities into smaller and smaller areas.
Although some families have reached an agreement with the state of Israel, for
most Bedouin, the issue of land ownership is unresolved, says Dr Krenawi.
He estimates that less than 10% are now able to maintain their traditional
pastoral way of life, because of lack of access to land and water.
And the transition to a modern way of life has been particularly difficult for
the Bedouin because they lack the skills and education to adapt their way of
life, he says.
Having lost their traditional livelihood, the rate of unemployment among the
Bedouin is very high and they represent the poorest of the poor in Israel, says
Dr Krenawi.
About half the Negev Bedouin live in villages recognised by the state, which
have access to basic facilities like water and electricity, but half live
in "unrecognised" villages.
Lack of basic needs
Their plight has caught the attention of a number of advocacy groups, including
the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
Ms Banna Shoughry-Badarne, a lawyer for ACRI, says: "All problems start from
the fact that the Bedouin live in villages established before the state of
Israel, and therefore not recognised by the state. The state refuses to give
them any infrastructure."
Unrecognised villages have no water or electricity and their inhabitants are
forced to travel long distances to school or for health care, she says.
In her view, the Bedouin are subject to the worst human rights violations of
any community in Israel, being denied basic rights such as access to water,
education and health care.
Relationship with Israel
She points out that around Beersheba, where most of unrecognised Bedouin
villages in the Negev are located, there are 104 agricultural settlements for
Jews, but none for the Bedouin - even though agriculture and animal husbandry
is the traditional Bedouin way of life.
Even in the Negev's officially-recognised villages, facilities are poor and
there are no jobs. "They are industrial villages, but without industry," says
Ms Shoughry-Badarne.
All this has taken a toll on the relationship between the Bedouin and the
state, says Dr Krenawi.
In the early days of the state of Israel, the Bedouin believed in co-existence
and established good relations with their Jewish neighbours, but these have
begun to deteriorate as a result of economic hardship.
Bedouin soldiers serving in the army go home and are struck by the difference
between the way their families are forced to live and those of the Jewish
soldiers, says Dr Krenawi.
"For the Bedouin, there's been a huge gap between the promises made to them and
what has been delivered," he says.
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