The Negev Beduin

The Beduin population of the Negev has a list of genuine gripes against a cabinet decision Sunday to evacuate tens of thousands of Beduin from “unrecognized” villages such as al-Arakib and Tavil Abu Jarwal and resettle them in “recognized” and relatively urbanized locations such as Rahat, Hura, Tel Sheva and Kuseife.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was right when he stated that “given the situation in the Negev, the time has come to act.”

Unfortunately, the NIS 6 billion, five-year plan approved this week contains a number of critical faults that, if not addressed swiftly. could lead to a further deterioration of relations with an increasingly alienated Beduin community. Beduin have already vowed to call a general strike in protest against the plan, and other Arab Israelis might join in.


At a time when Israel is facing numerous challenges abroad, from Turkey and Egypt to the Palestinian bid for statehood in the UN, it would be highly advisable to avoid a clash with the Beduin, a population that is rapidly growing (the average Beduin woman has between five and six children) and is relatively loyal (many Beduin men serve in the IDF).

Conflict with the Beduin might also have international ramifications. Prof. James Anaya, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, recently issued a report criticizing the Israeli refusal to recognize the rights of Beduin to land in the Negev.

The State of Israel has a moral obligation to provide the 200,000-strong Beduin population of the Negev with basic services such as roads, water, electricity and garbage collection. Besides, their demands are not outrageous.

They make up about 30 percent of the population of the Negev and if all their land demands of about 600,000 dunams (60,000 hectares) – in addition to about 200,000 dunams already recognized by the state back in 2003 – are met they would receive a total of 5% of the land in the Negev.

In October 2007, former Supreme Court justice Eliezer Goldberg was chosen to head an eight-man committee that included two Beduin representatives living in “recognized” villages in the Negev.

In December 2008, the Goldberg Committee presented a list of recommendations worded in conciliatory language. Statements such as “there is no justification for the state to treat the Beduin residents in these communities differently from the way it treats the rest of the citizens of the state,” and that Beduin have a “historic connection” to the Negev were received positively by the Beduin community as a basis for dialogue, though certain aspects of the report were criticized.

Where possible, wrote the Goldberg Committee members, an effort should be made to recognize the dozens of “unrecognized” villages throughout the southeastern Negev in the triangle created by Beersheba, Dimona and Arad, where the vast majority of Beduin now live, after being expelled from the western Negev in the years following the establishment of the state. The committee also recommended a generous compensation program in cases where recognition was unfeasible.

But for two years none of the Goldberg Committee recommendations were implemented. Eventually, a new body, the Prawer Committee, was formed. Devoid of Beduin representation, the Prawer Committee issued recommendations that were eventually adopted by the cabinet and have turned out to be bad for the Beduin.

As pointed out by Dr. Suleiman Abu Bader, director of the Robert Arnow Center For Bedouin Studies and Development at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, perhaps the biggest flaw in the Prawer Committee was its “top down approach” that made absolutely no attempt to incorporate the Beduin community in the decision-making process.

While it might not be realistic to meet all demands, a more serious effort needs to be made on the part of the government to open up channels of communication with the Beduin community in the Negev. Perhaps it is not too late to return to the positive atmosphere created by the Goldberg Committee’s approach that came close to striking a balance between recognition of Beduin historic rights to land in the Negev with the Zionist ideal of settling the area with Jews and “making the desert bloom” with the fruits of Jewish labor.

Hamas lesson for Libya

Libya’s rebel fighters have still not clinched control over a few areas such as Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, the desert town of Sabha and Bani Walid, but there is already talk of instituting democratic elections to choose a new leadership to replace Gaddafi’s dictatorial regime.

Not long after Libya’s National Transitional Council won control over Tripoli, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the council’s chairman, called for a new constitution and elections within 18 months. An internal UN document, meanwhile, envisions a two-stage transition to democracy in Libya.

However, judging from numerous examples in recent decades, the hasty implementation of “democratic” elections can be wrought with danger and can often lead to strife, bloodshed and even civil war. Academic studies have backed up the argument that rushing to the ballots is often a bad idea.

Dawn Brancati of Washington University and Jack Snyder of Columbia University have found, based on looking at elections that took place around the world after civil wars since 1945, that the sooner a country went to the polls the more likely it was to relapse into war. On average, Brancati and Snyder found that waiting five years before holding the first election reduced the chances of war by one-third.

And there is a local example of what happens when the trappings of democracy are introduced before the prerequisites for any democratic regime – administrative institutions, rule of law, political and social stability and cultural norms – are put in place. In January 2006 Palestinians went to the polls and granted Hamas – a terrorist organization bent on using violence, including suicide bombings, to destroy the Jewish state – a landslide victory in the Palestinian elections for parliament.

The vote led to the eventual split between the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-controlled West Bank, and further complicated the already impossible chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Elliot Abrams, at the time a special assistant to president George W. Bush and the National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and North African Affairs, rightly noted in an interview with The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon in June that in retrospect the US position on allowing those elections was mistaken. A hasty implementation of “democracy” can mean that citizens’ first experience with democratic elections might very well be their last.

Similarly, Libya is far from ready for democratic elections. The country lacks a stable civil society and is bereft of modern institutions, while its oil-based economy has fostered rampant corruption.

Further exacerbating the situation is the all-too-real danger of a new round of fighting. While the rebels won a decisive victory over Gaddafi, thus negating the possibility that forces loyal to the old regime will try to make a comeback, the balance of power among the victorious factions still remains in flux.

And the country is still awash in weapons, including stocks looted from government warehouses. Those arms are held by rival factions and private citizens alike. And judging from precedents in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere, UN peacekeepers on the ground in Libya are unlikely to play a significant role in keeping the peace.

Before elections take place, Libya needs to be given the opportunity to build up impartial, rule-based, and noncorrupt institutions, including courts, police, and other governmental bureaucracies. Ideally, the country should also formulate a constitution that protects human rights, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.Premature elections in Libya might give the false impression of a speedy transition from dictatorship to democracy, but as the Palestinian example has shown, hastily implemented democratic elections alone are no guarantee that a more enlightened leadership will be voted in to power.

Democracies must be built from the bottom up, starting with administrative institutions that can help ensure the rule of law and protect basic human rights. Citizens must be educated to participate in civil rule and appreciate the benefits of a true democracy: freedom, liberty and equality.

Until Libya makes significant progress in these areas, it would be not only unwise but downright dangerous to push ahead with “democratic” elections within 18 months, as Libya’s National Transitional Council chairman is calling to do.

Waiting for Ankara

The Palmer Report, a UN review of the Mavi Marmara fiasco, has been ready for a few months now.

But until last week, its publication had been repeatedly postponed by Washington.

Though the report is critical of Israel, it contains a number of conclusions particularly damaging to the Turks that Ankara had a clear interest in preventing from being made public. A behind-the-scenes rapprochement deal would have included the quiet scrapping of the Palmer Report. But Ankara’s opportunity for reconciliation without fanfare passed after The New York Times obtained and released details of the report on Thursday, a day ahead of its official publication.

Admittedly, the report censured the navy’s Flotilla 13 commandos for using excessive force – which could now expose them to criminal prosecution in international courts – and criticized Israel for failing to provide “satisfactory explanation” for the nine “unacceptable” deaths of passengers on board the Mavi Marmara.

But the Palmer panel members also recognized that the commandos “faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers... requiring them to use force for their own protection.”

The report also provided an unprecedented UN-backed justification for Israel’s naval blockade – first put in place in the wake of Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.

The panel, set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon and headed by former New Zealand premier Geoffrey Palmer, found that Israel’s naval blockade is “a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons entering Gaza by sea, and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.”

Its enforcement “may take place on the high seas and may be conducted by force if a vessel resists.”

These findings clash with Turkey’s claim that the blockade should be considered illegal collective punishment.

They also undermine Ankara’s justification for demanding that Israel lift the blockade as a condition for re-normalizing relations.

The report seemed to rebuke Turkey for failing to stop the IHH, an Islamist charity supportive of Hamas, from organizing the flotilla.

“More could have been done to warn the flotilla participants of the potential risks involved and to dissuade them from their actions,” the report said. “There exist serious questions about the conduct, true nature and objectives of the flotilla organizers, particularly the IHH.”

The Palmer Report’s findings clearly find fault with Turkey for implicitly supporting the flotilla, and reject outright Ankara’s claim that the naval blockade on Gaza – designed to prevent the smuggling of arms and ammunition by Hamas, a terrorist organization that maintains ties with Turkey – is in any way illegal.

Yet, in a supreme act of chutzpah, it is Turkey – not Israel – that is now using the Palmer Report to justify a series of actions meant to hurt relations between the two countries. At a rushed press conference on Friday, even before the report was officially released, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, basing himself on The New York Times leak, threatened to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for “an investigation into what the Gaza blockade really is.”

Davutoglu also announced that Ankara was expelling Israel’s ambassador and was freezing all military agreements.

He also said Turkey would take measures for freedom of maritime movement in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would no longer recognize the Gaza blockade and would support flotilla victims who take the matter to court.

Israel has already voiced “regret” for the Mavi Marmara incident, as recommended in the Palmer Report, but was snubbed by Turkey, which insists on a formal apology.

The government has also adopted the report’s recommendation to provide for the deceased and injured victims and their families by sponsoring a fund, but rightly balked at Turkey’s demand for compensation, saying that damages payments would amount to an admission of wrongdoing.

As long as Ankara adopts a bellicose approach apparently aimed at riding the wave of anti-Israel sentiment so prevalent in the region, there is not much Jerusalem can do to facilitate rapprochement – except to stick to its position and wait for a change in Turkish diplomacy.

A new public agenda for Israel

Gradually across the nation, tent cities are being dismantled. The process of bringing them down began Sunday, just a day after demonstrations brought to the streets more than 400,000 protesters, apparently breaking the record set in September 1982 by the 400,000-strong demonstration against the Lebanon War.

In some cases, such as with the National Union of Israeli Students’ tent on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, an express decision was made that the impact of the tent cities’ symbolism has been spent and it is now time to enter into a new phase in the ongoing grassroots social protest movement.

Others knew instinctively that it was time to move on. Just as the tent cities went up spontaneously they are now for the most part coming down spontaneously, though the dismantling is also tied to the end of summer vacation and the beginning of a new school year.

A minority of tent dwellers, some of whom have no place else to go, might end up facing evacuation orders. But for the most part, the “tent city stage” show is now officially over. Much has changed since the waves of protest – not over settlements, not over diplomatic issues, not over a war – first began seven weeks ago. A new discourse has developed in our society that goes beyond the usual issues of contention and strives to create a more just, fair and decent society in which the gap between the poor and rich is not so extreme and where honest, hard work leads to a comfortable standard of living.

Yet, while new energies and aspirations have been fleshed out and given expression and will undoubtedly continue to play a central role in shaping government policy, many of the endemic economic ills plaguing our society remain.

THE EXORBITANT price of housing, which provided the impetus for the creation of the tent cities, remains one of the thorniest economic problems to solve and affects every family in the nation.

“A New Public Agenda For Israel,” a recently released study by the Taub Center, shows that it is significantly more difficult for the average Israeli to earn the money needed to pay for an average house than it is for the average American or European.

In April 2011, it took 11.2 years of work at average salary to pay for an average-priced house in Israel. In 2009 in the US it took just 2.9 years of work at average salary, in Canada 3.7 years, in Britain 5.1 years and in Australia 6.8 years. This is the highest level since 1996 when the huge wave of immigration from the Former Soviet Union pushed real estate prices to record highs.

And housing is not the only basic necessity that is significantly more expensive in Israel compared to other western countries.

According to the same Taub Center report, in 2008 basic food and drink products cost on average 16 percent more in Israel than the OECD average; automobiles cost 70% more; dairy products and eggs cost 44% more. The average basket of consumption in Israel was 9% more expensive than the OECD average in 2008.

The tent cities are gradually disappearing, but the economic challenges we face remain daunting. The energies and aspirations that motivated over 400,000 Israelis to take to the streets to improve their society and make Israel a better place to live still burn in hearts and minds. The momentum must not be squandered. We deserve a more comfortable existence.

Grappling with the daily challenges faced by a Jewish state surrounded by enemies makes life in Israel hard enough.

At the very least, we should be capable of fixing the distortions in our economy so that making ends meet is not a colossal, nearly insurmountable task for the majority of Israelis.

Heal the health system

Protest was spontaneous, emotional, and massive in proportions. On Wednesday hundreds of medical residents and interns in hospitals across the country walked away from their posts. Some took to the streets to block traffic. Others gathered in front of the Israel Medical Association offices in Ramat Gan.

The doctors, at the beginning of their careers and still strapped with exceedingly long work hours – eight to 12 26-hour-on-call shifts a month in addition to a regular full-time schedule – at ridiculously low pay – NIS 22 an hour for interns and NIS 25 an hour for residents – broke ranks with the Israel Medical Association, the union that represents some 15,000 physicians, after reports were leaked of the details of a labor agreement reportedly about to be signed to put an end to 109 days of strikes and sanctions and bickering.

The outcome of long hours of negotiations was apparently so bad that hundreds of interns and residents simply could not control themselves and staged a nationwide walkout.

A restraining order was issued late Wednesday night by National Labor Court President Nili Arad ordering the rebellious physicians to go back to work was widely ignored Thursday.

Dozens adopted creative modes of protest. Dr. Ariel Margolis, in residency at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, has been making his rounds with a sign plastered to his midsection warning his patients, “You are receiving treatment from a doctor who is tired, frustrated and on a hunger strike.”

Others switched places with patients, checking themselves into emergency wards with genuine complaints of fatigue. At psychiatric wards, doctors complained of mental breakdown.

In short, the situation has reached crisis proportions.

The hierarchy of medical responsibility is being undermined with real concern that patients might be affected by the unrest – though interns and residents insist they are taking utmost care not to endanger life.

The crisis is all the more acute seen on the backdrop of the steadily spreading phenomenon of tent cities being set up from Beersheba and Sderot to Kiryat Shmona and Afula to protest the lack of affordable housing, along with the grassroots protests against exorbitantly priced consumer goods known as the “cottage cheese uprising” after the most conspicuously overpriced item.

But unlike the housing and cottage cheese demonstrations, the doctors seem concerned primarily with the health system as a whole – particularly the chronically understaffed and overcrowded hospitals – and not solely with their own pockets.

Admittedly, after years of neglect it is unrealistic to expect all of the doctors’ demands to be met. For instance, there is a shortage of 2,500 hospital “beds,” which includes thedoctors, nurses, equipment and physical space need for each of these beds. The agreement about to be reached between the IMA and the government would reportedly add just 650 beds over the next three years. If it’s adopted, doctors – particularly interns and residents – will continue to be spread far too thin, forced to work gruelingly long hours while being responsible for more patients than they can ever hope to provide with decent care.

But while the current situation is untenable, there does not seem to be any easy solution. Acquiescing to interns and residents’ demand for the immediate addition of 1,000 beds is unrealistic. With the dearth of physicians, the only way to supply hospitalswith more doctors is to borrow physicians from community health services, which would be severely compromised.

The establishment of a new medical school in Safed is a step in the right direction but will only begin reducing the shortage of doctors years from now.

Doctors in the IMA who are intimately familiar with the negotiations are under the impression that the Treasury has reached the limits of its bargaining flexibility.

A higher government authority must now step in.

The major overhaul that our health system so desperately needs can only be implemented by the leader of the State of Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who also happens to be our health minister. It is now up to Netanyahu to use his ample skills of persuasion to garner the political support of his coalition partners and prepare public opinion for the painful but essential fiscal expenditures needed to implement the far-reaching health reforms long overdue.

Once upon a time a given of our fledgling Jewish state was that no Israeli citizen would be left without proper medical care. A nation with a strong sense of choseness that aspired to create an exemplary society could do no less. The doctors’ urgent, heartfelt cry for health reform should serve as a wake-up call for us to return to our roots.

Border imperatives

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has announced (again) that Israel is about to begin building a barrier along its 266-kilometer Sinai border with Egypt. The fence is expected to cost some NIS 1.35 billion and will include a host of hi-tech elements, including radar.

If it is for real this time, this is a very positive development which will curtail the worrying rise in refugees and asylum-seekers infiltrating the border. In recent years Israeli cities - especially Eilat and Arad - have been inundated with waves of arrivals from Eritrea, Sudan, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Ghana. Many make their way to Israel via Egypt not because they suffer persecution, but simply because they are looking for a better life for themselves.

In July 2009, there were a total of 17,736 refugees and 4,144 asylum seekers in Israel - over 17,000 just from Eritrea and Sudan. If in 1998 only 106 refugees and asylum-seekers entered, the number jumped to 7,681 in 2008. This presents a demographic threat to a country struggling to maintain a significant Jewish majority while providing equal rights to a large Arab minority, making up some 20% of the population, which identifies religiously and culturally with an overwhelming Arab majority that surrounds Israel.

The unresolved Palestinian refugee issue is another threat to a Jewish majority, as is the presence of about 200,000 foreign workers. Furthermore, Israel faces the challenge of absorbing 8,000 Ethiopian Falash Mura, in addition to immigrants from many other countries.



BUT IN addition to building a barrier, which is likely to take well over a year to complete, it is imperative that our political leaders revamp Israeli policy vis-a-vis refugees and asylum-seekers. As a recent study by the Metzilah Center entitled "Managing Global Migration" noted, Israel is probably the only western democracy without legislation governing their treatment.

Israel, a country created in the wake of the Holocaust to be a national homeland for the Jewish people after nearly two millennia of exile, has a unique moral responsibility to refugees and asylum-seekers. Government leadership must take immediate steps to adopt a transparent, uniform policy that ensures fair and humane treatment.

In light of the extraordinary challenges it has faced since its founding, Israel's record is pretty good in this area. Already in 1954, Israel signed the 1951 International Convention on the Status of Refugees. In addition, Israel upholds the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning refugees to their country of origin where they might suffer persecution on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality or political activities. And in July 2009 Israel took over responsibility for determining the status of asylum-seekers and refugees from the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees.

However, while it is a signatory to the Convention on the Status of Refugees, Israel has yet to put in place the necessary legal infrastructure for implementing the convention's principles. As a result, Israel's refugee and asylum-seeker policy lacks any structure. Processing of requests is done in an ad-hoc way by bodies such as the IDF which are not trained for the job.

Nor has Israel set up arbitration bodies with expertise in immigration law. As long as the numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers remained small, these lacunae were not critical. But the status quo has become unbearable. Refugees and asylum-seekers are forced to wait on average 33 months to have their status determined. In the meantime, they are often held in limbo in bad conditions in compounds such as the Saharonim camp on the Egyptian border.



AMID THE concerns over demographic threats to the Jewish majority, Israel's political leadership must take steps to expedite the processing of requests for asylum. Israel should not be expected to absorb the thousands every year who manage to infiltrate its borders.

The new border fence is a long-overdue means of grappling with that problem. At the same time, those who are here, if waiting to be transferred to a third country or returned to their country of origin when safe, should be provided with adequate living conditions.

For nearly 2,000 years the Jewish people were guests, refugees or asylum-seekers in other peoples' countries. They often benefited from their hosts, but were also expelled, discriminated against and persecuted. Now with a sovereign state of its own, the Jewish people has the imperative both to ensure that a strong Jewish majority is maintained in the sovereign Jewish state, and to serve as a moral example of how developed countries should treat refugees and asylum-seekers.

UNESCO and the cradle of Jewish history

UNESCO, the United Nations body in charge of preserving historical sites, went too far this time. There is a lot of chutzpah in this post-modernist era of "deconstruction" and "revision." Warmly cherished religious faiths and customs are reduced to "false consciousness." Nations with their own unique ethnicity and proud traditions become "imagined communities." Foundational histories are reduced to nothing more than subjective "narratives."

But even in this radically relativistic intellectual atmosphere, the latest UNESCO decision stands out. For this was a particularly blatant attempt to erase Jewish ties to the land of Israel.

In its biannual session which ended last week, UNESCO adopted proposals initiated by Arab member states to dub two Jewish historical sites "Palestinian." In a 44-1 vote, with 12 abstentions, the UNESCO board declared the "Haram al-Ibrahm/the Cave of the Patriarchs and Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel's Tomb" to be "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories" and asserted "that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities is to be considered a violation of international law."

The move is seen in some quarters as a response to Israel's decision in February to include the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb on a list of national heritage sites that would receive additional funding for refurbishing and for the development of educational tours.

While February's decision was described by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a way of "reconnecting" Israelis to their history, the UNESCO decision was denounced by the prime minister as an "absurd" attempt to "detach the people of Israel from its heritage."

He asked: "If the places where the fathers and mothers of the Jewish nation are buried, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Leah and Rachel, some 4,000 years ago, are not part of the Jewish heritage then what is?"

Particularly absurd was the decision regarding Rachel's Tomb. As scholars such as Nadav Shragai and Prof. Yehoshua Porath have pointed out, it was only in 2000 that the Palestinians "discovered" its historical importance.

On Yom Kippur of that year, as the second intifada was being launched, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, a Palestinian daily, published an article that blatantly departed from Muslim tradition, which corresponds with Jewish tradition, to claim that "the tomb is false and was originally a Muslim mosque." Until then, all official Palestinian Authority references to the site had recognized it as Rachel's Tomb. (A similar tactic was used after the 1929 Arab riots, to transform the Western Wall into the al-Buraq wall, supposedly the place where Muhammed's winged horse al-Buraq was tied after his night-flight from Mecca.)



ZIONISM IS particularly susceptible to these types of attacks. As a movement, Zionists simultaneously rebelled against tradition - particularly the Jewish religion - and exile, while incorporating concepts from Judaism that emphasized Jews' ties to the land of Israel.

Zionism strove for normalization of the Jewish people as "a nation among the nations." But it also co-opted the idea of "chosenness" by aspiring to create a model nation - hevrat mofet. Bitter disputes in contemporary Israel over settlements and the proper balance between Israel's Jewish and democratic dimensions have their roots in this "split" Jewish identity.

Nonetheless, whether one is for or against Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, or for or against emphasizing Israel's "Jewishness" at the expense of its "democratic" nature, it is an undeniable fact that the geographical area referred to as the West Bank and that includes Hebron and Bethlehem was the cradle of Jewish history. No amount of historical revisionism or UNESCO declarations will erase this fact.

Nor is there a doubt that Israel has done a better job at maintaining equitable access to religious sites for all faiths. In contrast, Jordan denied Israel the "free access to the Holy Places [including the Kotel] and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives" stipulated in the April 1949 Armistice.

The Palestinian Authority's track record is no better. If not for the Israeli security presence, Rachel's Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and Joseph's Tomb would be off limits to Jews today. Whatever future territorial agreements are reached with the Palestinians, it would be an intolerable and untenable injustice if Jews were prevented from visiting sites with such profound historical, cultural and religious import.