Bedouin displacement: the facts and the stories

Background:
The Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) has presented plans to relocate all Bedouin communities in the West Bank in the near future. More than 80 percent of these Bedouins are Palestinian refugees, who were forced to move to the West Bank from their traditional lands in the Negev desert after the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. Bedouin communities are dependent on natural resources, such as land and water, to raise the animals they rely on for milk and meat production. For this reason, the Bedouin displaced from the Negev established their new communities in vast, open areas of the Jordan Valley, which is home to some of the most fertile agricultural land in the West Bank. Due to its natural resources and undeveloped space, this land has also become strategic for Israeli settlement expansion. Located within the West Bank, this land has been classified as Area C, where Israel maintains total military and civil control. The Bedouin communities living in Area C are among the most vulnerable communities in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) and are constantly threatened by the presence of Israeli settlements and restricted by closed military areas. Area C is home to some 200,000 Palestinians, most of whom are living in Bedouin communities or small or rural farming and herding communities. There are also around 135 Israel settlements and 100 settlement outposts- both illegal under international law- located in Area C. In Area C, Palestinian communities must apply for permission from the ICA before erecting any kind of infrastructure, and permission to build homes, schools, water networks, and roads is usually denied. Meanwhile, Israel allows zoning and 1

planning for the settlements, which are equipped with hospitals, schools, stores, and all the services of modern life. Reports indicate that the government of Israels plan to displace the Bedouin communities may begin in 2012. At this stage, most of the communities have indicated that they are against the proposed plan and that they do not want to move from the land they are living on. The plan would begin with displacing 2,300 people living in 20 Bedouin communities in the area often referred to as E1 or as the Maale Addumim bubble, as the displacement would occur so as to make way for the expansion of the settlement of Maale Addumim. These communities are located on land around the periphery of East Jerusalem and between Jerusalem and Jericho. According to the plan, the government of Israel eventually intends to cut this E1 land off from the West Bank and appropriate it to the Israeli side through the planned route of the Wall. The plan also indicates that these first 20 communities to be displaced would be relocated to land right next to the rubbish dump in El Eizariya, a nearby Palestinian village.

Building resilience and livelihoods

Between daily injustices and harsh living conditions, the people living in the 20 communities slated for displacement are being pushed from self sufficiency into poverty. With Israeli restrictions on land and water, these communities have already lost access to their productive base. No longer able to graze their flock and grow grains, people are forced to pay high costs for imported animal feed in order to keep earning an income from meat and milk production. Many have been unable to keep up with the cost and have been forced to sell their animals. For Bedouin and herding communities, selling their animals is the equivalent of emptying their banking and savings accounts, as animals that reproduce each year serve as a source of revenue now and for the future. Most of the people living in these communities have invested their whole lives in raising animals and have no other source of income, nor do they have the experience or skills to transition to another job. With support from the European Union (EU), Oxfam Italia is working on a project to build the resilience of these 20 communities and help preserve their livelihood. Over the next two years, the EU and Oxfam Italia project, Bedouin Communities in the Jerusalem District: from isolation to better representativeness and socio-economic empowerment, will help people living in these 20 communities by offering vocational training courses and support with job placement so that young people can find professional opportunities. The project will also help to diversify household income and keep traditional livelihoods alive by offering support to women to produce high quality yoghurt and cheeses, traditional woven rugs, jewelery, and other handicrafts that can be marketed locally through tourism and specialty shops and globally through Fair Trade channels. Women will also be given the opportunity to increase their income by learning new skills, such as hair dressing, business administration, and information, communications, and technology (ICT). To help the communities resist displacement and claim their rights, the project will help bring members of the 20 communities together to form a representative body that can advocate for their social, cultural, and economic rights. Through workshops on public policy, planning, media, public speaking, and campaigning, the project will help the members of the representative body gain the technical skills that they need to be better advocates for themselves. Through the establishment of 2

internet hubs in each of the 20 communities, the project also seeks to better connect these communities to each other and to the world, giving them a platform that can help ensure that their story is heard.

Community Voices
Mihtawish Community - Khan Al Ahmar, E1, Area C Abu Raed lives in Mihtawish community in Khan Al Ahmar, one of twenty Bedouin and rural herding communities facing an imminent threat of forced displacement. His community is home to about fifteen families, all dependent on small scale farming, raising animals for meat and milk production, and trading in livestock. The community settled on this land in 1952, after being displaced from their original land in Beer Sheva in the Negev desert. Now, they are waiting to be displaced a second time. Abu Raed inherited nearly 300 goats and sheep from his father and had a very successful business trading in animals and meat products. Today, he has just sixteen animals left. He was forced to sell most of them because due to Israeli restrictions he can no longer use grazing land and nearby water sources. Having no other skills but herd management and trading in animals, Abu Raed, who is 60, has been pushed from a producer to someone who is now unable to provide for his family. Abu Raeds wife, Um Raed, is excited about the EU and Oxfam Italia project. She says that women in the community are very active and have a lot of skills and ideas. The women in her community came up with the idea of making traditional jewelry and carpets, which they could market to tourists and through Fair Trade. She says the women are interested in this, not only because it could help generate income, but also because it would be a way to keep their traditions alive at a time of great uncertainty regarding the future. Young women in the community also like the idea of learning hairdressing, which they can earn extra money from, particularly during wedding season in the summer.

Still, Abu Raed and his wife are worried about their physical security and their future. They are very close to the settlement of Maale Addumim and live under the reality of frequent abuse from settlers and constant threat of demolition of their home, which is a simple shack constructed from a combination of concrete, plastic, and tin. The government of Israel proposes to move us to a new place that they say will be better for us because they will allow us to build a proper home and have electricity and water and all that. Why do they have to move us to let us do that? Why cant they let us do that here? We have been here now for 60 years, longer than the settlement of Maale Addumim. That settlement has everything, schools, roads, hospitals, and we have nothing, Abu Raed said. 3

Wadi Abu Hindi Community - Khan Al Ahmar, E1, Area C A huge heap of garbage lines the entrance to the Wadi Abu Hindi Bedouin camp. Originally from the area of Tal Arad, in the Negev desert, residents of Wadi Abu Hindi settled on this open piece of land in the 1950s after being displaced from their land in Israel. As Jerusalem grew, the communitys new land soon became used as a municipal dumping site, and 400 people in Wadi Abu Hindi are now living amongst 7 million tons of waste. The Israeli authorities plan to forcibly move the community to another dumping ground, rehabilitating the one they are currently living on in order to allow for the expansion of the settlement of Maale Addumim. It will not be the first time the community has been threatened with displacement. In 1997 Israeli soldiers demolished the entire village. They were 500 soldiers and it was 5 a.m. I remember that it was terrible, like a war. They said they were demolishing everything because we were in a closed military area. This is our home. The next day we started to build everything again, said Abu Hammad, a lifelong resident of Wadi Abu Hindi. Faced with the threat of being moved from one dump to the next, the community feels powerless and people are constantly stressed. Still, Abu Hammad says that residents are certain that resisting the displacement plan is the first step towards taking control over their communitys future.

Waar Al Bek Community Anata, E1, Area C

Late at night on 23 January 2012 a single bulldozer backed by

100 Israeli soldiers in military jeeps rolled into the village of Waar El Bek. By the time the vehicles moved out, several homes had been demolished and 32 people were left with nowhere to sleep, having lost everything they owned. When the soldiers arrived they said to us that we had five minutes to leave our houses, says Joseph Jahalin. They started throwing all our furniture outside and when I asked them to at least take more care with our things they started yelling and hitting me. They said that I wasnt allowed to speak with them and that it is forbidden for me to live here because it is Area C. That night we were forced to sleep between the earth and the sky. I was really afraid for my five sons; the youngest one is only eight months old. The soldiers told me that I could bring my sons to my neighbors house if they needed a roof. The next day an Israeli NGO came to hand out emergency supplies and the Red Cross gave Joseph and his family two tents, which will help to protect them from the cold winter rains. While this kind of assistance helps meet basic, immediate needs, people need economic and social stability to help them stand up to the ongoing violations of their rights, and this is what the Oxfam and EU project hopes to build. Up until 2004, before the establishment of the new settlement and the closed military zone, the situation was quiet. We had faced some demolitions before, but we used to rebuild and they would leave us alone for awhile. Now things have changed, it is not just about demolishing the houses, it is also about deporting us from the area, Joseph explained.
For additional information about the project or to schedule a field trip please contact: Willow Heske, Oxfam OPTI Media Lead at +972 (0) 59 7133646 or +972 (0) 54 6395002 or willow.heske@oxfamnovib.nl Photos and interviews: Valentina Lanzilli/Oxfam