Now that the Prawer-Begin Plan is dead, it’s time to look at how we got here. Why are there so many unrecognized Bedouin villages? Did they spring up not only carelessly but nefariously, as many supporters of the Prawer-Begin Plan maintained?
In his recent column for the Jewish Journal, Gerald Steinberg of NGO monitor once again seeks to defame lovers of Israel who dare to believe that the Jewish state can and should live up to the moral values of our tradition.
They can’t agree on the project’s goal. They can’t agree on who supports it. They can’t even agree on its name. But when it comes to the Israeli government’s plan to relocate 30,000 Negev Bedouin, representatives and allies of the Bedouin community agree with the right wing on one thing: The Prawer Plan must be stopped.
The Israeli government is shelving a proposal to resettle tens of thousands of Bedouin residents of the Negev that had drawn fierce criticism.
Israel is promoting a plan to transfer some 40,000 Bedouin citizens from traditional villages into towns despite opposition by activists and senior government officials that threatens to derail it.
While many believe that a successful peace process will end demonization of Israel based on incendiary terms such as “apartheid” and “racism,” and in accompanying boycott campaigns, the evidence suggests that this hatred goes far deeper.
The writing was on the wall. The Prawer bill to regulate Bedouin settlement in the Negev will not go through quietly.
You can abuse people, and you can also abuse values. Take two great Jewish values: self-criticism and caring for the stranger. How would one abuse such values? By lifting them up at the expense of other great Jewish values — such as fairness and balance.
A Knesset committee advanced a plan that would require the resettlement of some 30,000 Bedouin.
An Arab-Israeli man from Nazareth who was kidnapped by Bedouin in Egypt was released.
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