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| UPDATED ON: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 16:45 Mecca time, 13:45 GMT | |||||||||
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality - Dukium In 1997 a group of Arab and Jewish residents of the Negev (the southern part of Israel) established the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality. Its aim is to provide a framework for Jewish-Arab collaborative efforts, in the struggle for civil equality and the advancement of mutual tolerance and coexistence. The Forum is composed of a core of 30 volunteer activists, both Arabs and Jews, who dedicate time and effort on a weekly basis to this mission. In addition to this core, there are also around two hundred people who join in on selected activities and about a thousand who are continuously updated on issues of interest to the Forum and on the Forum's activities. Among the members of the Forum are leaders of the Negev Arab community and academics. The Forum is unique in being the only Arab-Jewish organization established in the Negev that remains focused on the specific problems of the Negev's population. The Negev Coexistence Forum considers the State of Israel responsible for the denial of the full civil rights of the Arabs of the Negev. As a result it has set out as one of its goals to advance civil rights and equality in the Negev. The Forum's activities and projects are based on the principle of Arab-Jewish cooperation. Background Before 1948, it is estimated that 65,000-90,000 Bedouins lived in the Negev area (Falah 1989). The main source of livelihood for this semi-nomadic population was cattle, herds, rain-fed agriculture, and commerce (Yiftachel 2004; Meir 1997). During Israel�s War of Independence in 1948, 80-85% of the Naqab Bedouins population became refugees. Like other indigenous peoples, the Naqab-Negev Bedouins underwent forced relocation � the 11,000 that remained inside Israel�s borders were moved in the 1950s and 60s from their ancestral lands into a restricted zone called the siyag (closure), located in the northeastern Negev and known for its low agricultural fertility (Hamdan 2005; Yiftachel 2004). This area constituted only 10 percent of the Bedouins land prior to 1948 (Abu Sa�ad 2004). Joining the six tribes that already dwelled in this area were twelve additional tribes from various areas of the Negev. Because no permanent building (stone or concrete) was permitted by the authorities in the siyag, most residents were forced to erect shacks and tents. The Negev Bedouins, like the rest of the Arabs remaining within Israel�s borders, lived under military rule until 1966. During this time, Bedouins life was dramatically transformed: �From controllers of the desert region, they became fringe dwellers of a growing, modernizing Beer-Sheva city region� (Yiftachel 2004, p. 12). With less space for agriculture and grazing, their source of livelihood was disrupted. In addition, because of restrictions imposed by the military government, they were not permitted to compete with the Jewish labor market of the new Israeli State. During these 18 years, the processes of dislocation, subsequent sedentarization and partial modernization worked to destroy the indigenous Bedouins culture and way of life. In fact, this was the Israeli policy: "We should transform the Bedouins into an urban proletariat� Indeed, this will be a radical move which means that the Bedouin would not live on his land with his herds, but would become an urban person� His children would be accustomed to a father who wears trousers, does not carry a Shabaria [the traditional Bedouin knife] and does not search for vermin in public. This would be a revolution, but it may be fixed within two generations. Without coercion but with governmental direction� this phenomenon of the Bedouins will disappear". (Moshe Dayan, Ha�aretz interview, 31 July 1963). Today, the Negev Bedouins number approximately 155,000 people. This population can be divided into two groups, based on their living arrangements. Roughly 50% of the Bedouins population � about 76,000 people � live in a large number of unrecognized villages. What is this policy of unrecognition? These villages do not appear on Israeli maps or governmental planning documents, have no road signs indicating their existence, and are denied basic services and infrastructure, including paved roads, water, garbage collection, electricity, and schools and the people living there has no municipality so they can participate local election and therefore the government does not allocate part of the budget it allocates to every other citizen in Israel. It is illegal to build permanent structures in these villages � those that do so risk heavy fines and home demolitions. A typical village consists of between 60 to 600 families � a population of between 500 and 5000 � living in tents and shacks (Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages Report 2003). Some of these villages existed before the establishment of the Israeli State, and others were created in accordance with Military Government�s orders in the 1950s and 60s. Many residents of these villages, who received permission from the State to live in certain areas during the 1950s, are now, more than 50 years later, receiving expulsion orders and seeing their homes demolished. The other Bedouins population is concentrated in eight Government-planned townships set up since the 1960s in the siyag area: Hura, Kseifa, Laquia, Arara, Rahat, Segev-Shalom and Tel-Sheva and the new township of Tarabin (Southern to Rahat). While these townships were intended to create the conditions necessary to provide basic services to this population and are heavily subsidized, they were planned without giving any consideration to the traditional Bedouin way of life. Consequently, the forced urbanization of this population has been disastrous: unemployment is high, and the Bedouins townships rank among the country�s 10 poorest municipalities. In short, �the planned towns evolved quickly into pockets of deprivation, unemployment, dependency, crime and social tensions� (Yiftachel 2004). The Bedouins no longer had the space to raise crops and livestock to support themselves, which caused further economic distress. Additionally, the Bedouins townships lack the infrastructure that similar Jewish settlements in the Negev have: except for the largest city, Rahat, these towns lack sources of employment, public transportation, banks, post offices, public libraries, and places of entertainment (Abu-Sa�ad 2004) Activists As a Jewish/Arab group we maintain a balance in the bodies of the organization as well as in the decision-making processes. The main body of the organization is the Forum Secretariat, elected yearly. Members of the main decision-making group:
Control committee:
Volunteers: The organization's activity is volunteer-based. Dozens of volunteers are the vital core to its ongoing work. Numerous volunteers take responsibility for a project, issue or activity respective of their fields of interest and expertise: the web site, international mailing list, conferences in Tel Aviv, direct acts with Recognition Forum, solidarity encounters with victims of house demolitions, editing and distributing the organization's newsletter, translations for the site and of information materials, advocacy and public relations, organizing cultural events, and more. Due to budget limitations and the restricted number of hired staff, efforts have been successful this year in increasing the number of volunteers and the extent of their involvement in Forum activities. As a result, the Forum was able to carry out more projects than before.
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