When I look at the Prawer Plan, I see another Nakba’

+972 speaks with Suhad Bishara, of Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, about the challenges of fighting for Palestinian rights in Israel and deciding when not to take legal action in Israeli courts – if doing so would undermine the Palestinian narrative

Bedouin woman looks over remains of her home

When looking at Israel’s Prawer-Begin Plan to evict tens of thousands of Bedouin in order to free land for Jewish development, attorney Suhad Bishara sees a second Nakba coming.

Bishara, 42, is Adalah’s acting executive director and the organization’s director of land and planning rights. Originally from Tarshiha, a village in the northern Galilee near the Lebanese border, Bishara has lived in Haifa since she graduated with a bachelors of law from Hebrew University, and has worked with Adalah since receiving a masters of law from New York University in 2001.

These days, she and Adalah are focusing their efforts on stopping the Prawer-Begin Plan. Sitting down with +972 in her Haifa office last week, Bishara discussed the intricacies of running a Palestinian human rights organization in Israel, and how in each case she must weigh how taking it to court might inadvertently undermine Palestinian rights.

This interview is one in a series of profiles on difference makers in the Israeli and Palestinian human rights community (edited for length). Click here to read parts one and two.

Are the land and planning rights of Arabs in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories more or less protected today compared to 2001 when you joined Adalah?

Generally speaking, they’re less protected. On one level, the Supreme Court has set precedents that disallow land restitution for Palestinian citizens of Israel whose lands were confiscated in the 1950s and 1960s, and were not used for the public purposes of the confiscation. There are also laws that restrict the right of restitution, restrict planning and development rights of Arab communities and procedures that limit the accessibility of land distributed by the state to its Palestinian citizens. Also, there’s master planning, which restricts the development of Palestinian towns and villages on a large-scale, and the massive attempts to displace tens of thousands of Palestinians in the northern Naqab (Negev).

(Click here for +972′s full coverage of the Prawer-Begin Plan)

In regards to land rights, what case concerns you most right now?

It’s basically the Prawer-Begin bill, which the Knesset is trying to enact in the next few months. It aims to evict dozens of Palestinian Bedouin villages in the Naqab, which has about 70,000 citizens, in order to “free” the land for the development of Israeli state interests, either to bring Jewish citizens to the area or develop it for industry or the army. More

 

Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Naqab underscores meaning of 'Jewish State'

Recent figures estimate the Arab population in the Naqab to be just over 200,000. Their fate has been no less tragic than the rest of the Palestinian people. Faced with an unrelenting campaign of ethnic cleansing and Judaisation, their struggle today is to exercise the universal human right to own and live on their land.

Araqeeb village

However, Israel's incumbent government, like its predecessors, is prepared to do whatever it takes to deny this right to a section of its population. A few days ago, Tel Aviv issued an order for the demolition of the only mosque in al Fir'ah village. Built in 1985, it has since been used daily by locals. Yet, after 28 years, the Israelis have suddenly discovered that the mosque was built without the proper license.

Elsewhere in the Naqab, the Bedouin village of Araqeeb was demolished for the 50th time on Thursday 9th May. Every time the bulldozers complete their fiendish work, the defiant residents pick up the pieces and rebuild their modest homes. Their story is symbolic of the Palestinian people – indomitable. Other villages under constant threat with similar measures are Arab Al Naeem, Taweel Abu Jarool and Um Ateer.

UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, called on Israel to withdraw the Prawer plan; "which would legalize the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities."

The Naqab stretches over an area of 12 million dunums (1 dunum = 1,000m), approximately one-third of the total area of historic Palestine. Since 1948, Israel has resorted to every trick in the book in order to seize control of this land. It tried a combination of hard and soft power, all to no avail. Neither force nor the denial of basic services such as water, electricity, health care and education has worked.

In September 2011, the government approved the plan drawn up by the former Deputy Chair of the National Security Council, Ehud Prawer; now named after him. This was after 18 different drafts were presented. Since its approval it was amended twice by the Netanyahu government. There are, at present, calls for a third amendment to further reduce the area of land that should remain with locals.

In March 2012 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, called on Israel to withdraw the Prawer plan; "which would legalize the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities."

Later that same year, the European Parliament adopted a similar resolution condemning Israel's home demolitions in the Naqab. It called for the recognition of Bedouin villages and demanded the withdrawal of the government's Prawer plan.

"We condemn the ongoing house demolitions and lack of due process suffered by the Bedouin in the Negev-Naqab. The Israeli government's Prawer Plan should be withdrawn as it would further institutionalise discrimination against these communities."

While the current policies are consistent with the long-standing Israeli strategy of 'more land less people', it does have an equally important military dimension. The Naqab has always been and will continue to be strategically important for the Israelis because of its proximity to Egypt. In strict military terms Israelis regard it as the first line of defence for the southern front. For the Palestinian people, it is one of the last strongholds of resistance against annihilation.

However much the Prawer plan and its attendant policies may promise social housing, compensation and financial grants, they do not disguise Israel's real aim, which is to seize the land, displace the Bedouin population and supplant them with Jewish settlers.

By pursuing this toxic policy of ethnic cleansing in the Naqab, Israel has unwittingly exposed what it really means by a 'Jewish State' – a state where non-Jews will remain 'unrecognized' without legal rights. Already denounced as 'racist' by the UN, it would only generate support for the threatened Bedouins. The continuation of this travesty makes it all the more imperative to reject any call for the recognition of Israel as a 'Jewish' state. That would be a blueprint to 'transfer' and complete the final chapter of the Palestinian Nakba. More