bedouins losing the little they have in the negev

in 1948 Israel forced many bedouins off of land they had historically grazed into small, poorly constructed settlements in the beer-sheeba area. many of these settlements remain today. yesterday i visited one of them on a bus with lots of liberal israelis; it was their version of big mountain: travel to meet the indigenous, shake their hands, walk around their pathetic dwellings, drink their tea and make it back to the city in time for a trip to the gym and cocktails before dinner.

the scene was clearly bizzare. the bedouin construction seemed terribly impractical and useless: their houses, barns and sheds are all made of corrugated metal. i learned later that the israelis made a law decreeing that any bedouin who uses concrete or stone to build a dwelling will have his newly constructed building demolished. it is against the rules for these people to have any sort of permanence.

now the israelis want more. sharon's government has decided that he needs to construct housing and an industrial center on the measly bit of maswat (or infertile) land the bedouins in this village live on. i was truly astounded to hear this, standing there in the middle of the desert. when standing in the village one cannot see anything in any directions execpt a village about 30 km away. i wondered why it is so important for sharon to disposses these people when their land is so paltry in size compared to the vast streches of land which surround them. in other words, why right there? why not a few km away?

today is the trial of american jewish lesbian peace activist kate raphael bender. she's an older woman from the bay area and has been in an israeli deportation prison for over a month now. she's fighting her deportation order (she was arrested at a protest against the apartheid wall) and is challenging the state of israel's right to imprison and deport her when she is standing up for international law (the icj's ruling that the wall is illegal and must be dismantled) and israel is willfully breaking it. we'll see how this argument holds up in court. once again, the accuser, the witness and the judge are the same person around here. i doubt they'll find her arguments compelling...