Jews
“disgusted
by
Israel’s
plans for
its own
citizens”
-
Dame
Janet
Suzman
among
eminent
UK
Jews
appalled
at
Israeli
law
displacing
Bedouin
-
British
Government
urged
to
insist
Israel
complies
with
international
human
rights
law
7
November
2013:
On the
anniversary
of the
1917
Balfour
Declaration
that led
to the
founding
of the
State of
Israel in
Palestine,
over 150
British
Jews have
funded
and
signed a
half-page
display
advertisement
in the
Independent
newspaper,
for
publication
7 Nov,
expressing
their
repugnance
at a law
going
through
Israel’s
parliament
now (the
“Prawer
law”)
which
threatens
to wipe
up to 40
Bedouin
villages
off
Israel’s
map.
And
in a
letter to
The Times
Monday 4
Nov,
sixteen
prominent
Jews
including
Dame
Janet
Suzman,
Sir
Geoffrey
Bindman
QC and
film
directors
Mike
Leigh and
Peter
Kosminsky,
call on
Israel’s
government
and
people to
“abandon
this
cruelty
and
injustice
against
defenceless,
law-abiding
citizens”,
and urge
the
British
government
to
“demand
that
Israel
complies
with
international
human
rights
law”.
18,000
American
Jews and
65 Rabbis
in
Britain
have
petitioned
against
the
Prawer
law, and
there are
plans for
a Bedouin
speaking
tour
around
Britain
in the
New Year.
Why are
Jewish
people so
disturbed?
The
Law for
the
Regulation
of
Bedouin
Settlement
in the
Negev,widely
known as
the
Prawer
Law, will
result in
the
forced
removal
of 30-40,000
people
from
their
traditional
lands and
livelihoods
into
squalid
government
townships.
More than
three
dozen
Bedouin
villages
in
Israel’s
Negev
region
are at
risk of
total
demolition.
The
Bedouin
are
supposedly
full and
equal
citizens
of
Israel.
But they
have long
been
denied
basic
services,
have
limited
voting
rights,
and their
land
rights
and many
villages
have
never
been
recognised.
This new
law, much
like
white
South
Africa’s
Group
Areas
Act, will
consolidate
their
exclusion
and
status as
second-class
citizens.
The
Prawer
law
presents
itself as
a
“tidying
up” of
Bedouin
land
rights.
But the
Bedouin
are
overwhelmingly
opposed
to it: it
will
rescind
all their
original
land
ownership
documents,
giving
the
government
a
pseudo-legal
cover to
carry out
mass
evictions
and
forced
transfer
to
overcrowded
dumping
grounds.
Spokesperson
for
Jews for
Justice
for
Palestinians,
Richard
Kuper,
says: “If
a
Westminster
law said
that all
Sikhs in
the UK
should be
internally
deported
to
special
reservations,
or if the
Asian
communities
of
Leicester
or Leeds
were to
be
cleared
out, or
the Jews
from
Golders
Green
—
imagine
the
outcry!
The
Prawer
plan is
unacceptable.”
The
UN has
condemned
the plan
as
racist.
The
European
Parliament
has urged
Israel to
withdraw
it.
Adalah
(which
promotes
the legal
rights of
Israel’s
Arab
minority)
said it
was a
“declaration
of war”
against
the
Bedouin.
“There
is no
pretence
that this
is about
security”,
says
Kuper.
“It is a
land
grab,
part of
an
ongoing
policy
openly
called ‘Judaising’.”
New
Jewish
settlements
planned
on the
Bedouin
lands
will be,
like the
settlements
on the
West
Bank,
racially
exclusive
and will
alter the
ethnic
character
of the
region.
That is
the
expressed
intention
of the
Bill and
its
promoters.
For
information
about
jfjfp,
the anti-Prawer
campaign
or
interviews
with
signatories,
contact:
Richard
Kuper
richard@richardkuper.com
07985
575768
or
Deborah
Maccoby
deborahmaccoby@hotmail.com
07928
812825
NOTES FOR
EDITORS
1. Full
text and
signatories
of letter
signed by
Dame
Janet
Suzman
and 15
others
“We write
as Jews,
appalled
by the “Prawer”
law in
Israel
which
will
enable
the
internal
deportation
of
30-40,000
Bedouin
from
their
villages
into
designated
townships.
The
Bedouin
are
Israeli
citizens.
They have
been
living in
the Negev
region
for
generations,
from long
before
Israel
existed.
Their
villages
will be
demolished
and their
lands
given for
new,
racially
exclusive,
Jewish
settlements
and
farms.
The
Jewish
National
Fund will
take
control
of lands
as their
owners
are
evicted.
Its
“Blueprint
Negev”
aims to
move
250,000
Jewish
residents
into the
area.
Expansionist
settlers
call it
“the next
frontier”.
One
village,
Al Arakib,
has
already
been
demolished
over 50
times,
and
re-built
in a
dogged
resistance.
Meanwhile,
in place
of their
destroyed
olive and
date-palm
groves,
the JNF
plant
environmentally
damaging
eucalyptus
trees.
Many Jews
are
disgusted
by what
Israel is
doing to
its own
citizens.
18,000
American
Jews
petitioned
against
it. 65
British
rabbis
have
condemned
its
“great
injustice”.
And 170
Jews
signed
and
funded a
display
ad in the
Independent.
The EU
parliament
and UN
say the
Prawer
bill
contravenes
international
human
rights
law. In
Israel
it’s been
met with
strikes
and
demonstrations.
We call
on
Israel’s
government
and
people to
abandon
this
cruelty
and
injustice
against
defenceless,
law-abiding
citizens.
We call
on the
British
government
to take
up the
Bedouins’
case with
Israel
and to
demand
that
Israel
complies
with
international
human
rights
law. We
urge
people to
write to
their
MPs, and
hope that
many more
Jews will
join us
to stand
with the
Bedouin
for the
cause of
justice.”
SIGNED
Sir
Geoffrey
Bindman
QC; Prof.
David
Epstein
FRS;
Morris
Farhi
MBE; Dr
Julian
Huppert
MP; Prof.
Francesca
Klug OBE;
Nobel
laureate
Prof. Sir
Harry
Kroto
FRS;
Peter
Kosminsky;
Mike
Leigh;
Miriam
Margolyes
OBE; Prof
Susie
Orbach;
Prof
Laurance
Pearl
FRS;
Michael
Rosen;
Prof.
Jonathan
Rosenhead;
Alexei
Sayle;
Dame
Janet
Suzman;
Zoe
Wanamaker
CBE
NOTES FOR
EDITORS
2. Sample
Images
   
All
images ©
Negev
Coexistence
Forum
2013. To
use these
images
and for a
selection
of other
high
resolution
images,
contact
www.dukium.org
NOTES FOR
EDITORS
3. Links
and
Organisations
* Rabbis
for Human
Rights
Israeli
campaign
Rabbis
for Human
Rights is
making a
priority
of
defending
the Negev
Bedouin.
Its
spokesman
Arik
Asherman
believes
the
Prawer
Plan is
the worst
human
rights
abuse he
has seen.
http://rhr.org.il/eng/
* Jews
for
Justice
for
Palestinians
Jfjfp is
a UK
pressure
group
supported
by over
1700
Jewish
signatories
who
believe
that the
humanitarian
values of
Judaism
have been
corrupted
by
Israel’s
human-rights
abuses.
Many of
us
descend
from Jews
driven
out in
the 1890s
by
Russia’s
racist
pogroms.
Slandered
and
persecuted,
their
homes and
communities
were
destroyed.
Today,
such
displacement
of a
whole
people is
a crime
under
international
law.
Jews who
stand for
Justice
for
Palestinians
feel they
have the
right and
duty to
say: do
NOT do
this to
the
Bedouin,
and do
NOT do
this in
the name
of
Jews.
Full
information
at www.jfjfp.org
Contact:
richard@richardkuper.com
07985 575
768
* The
Negev
Coexistence
Forum for
Civil
Equality
The NCF
is based
in Beer
Sheva, in
southern
Israel.
Meet the
Bedouins
on its
site,
which has
publicity
tools,
photos
and
newsletters,
updates
and a
record of
all
demolitions,
crop
destructions
and
invasive
tree
planting.
NCF is
UN-recognised
and does
legal and
political
reports
and
advocacy,
education,
social
and
support
projects,
emergency
help with
tents and
building
materials,
protests
and
promotion
of “Arab
Jewish
partnership”.
www.dukium.org
PHOTO:
Stop the
JNF
Campaign
* Stop
the JNF
In 1901
the
worldwide
Jewish
National
Fund
(JNF) was
set up to
buy land
for
settlement
in
Palestine.
After
1948 when
most of
Palestine’s
original
population
was
displaced
and
prevented
from
returning,
their
lands
were
handed
“in trust
for the
Jewish
people”
to the
JNF, now
a
quasi-state
body.
Some 530
Arab
villages
were then
demolished
and the
JNF
planted
over
them.
Today the
JNF (a
Registered
UK
Charity)
is still
fundraising
for
exclusive
Jewish
settlement,
still
taking
over
demolished
villages
and still
planting
forests
over
them. Its
“Blueprint
Negev” is
spearheading
the move
to clear
out and
replace
the
Bedouin.
Stop the
JNF,
an
international
campaign,
highlights
their
role and
wants to
end their
Charity
status.
www.stopthejnf.org
and
http://goo.gl/01GrrU
See also
*
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/10/israel-bedouins-relocation-negev-resistance.html
* Max
Blumenthal,
author of
“Goliath:
Life and
Loathing
in
Greater
Israel”:
http://jfjfp.com/?p=50288
* Seth
Morrison
in +972:
http://972mag.com/lying-by-omission-the-jnfs-role-in-setting-negev-land-policy/80885/
*Dan
Gazit in
+972:
http://972mag.com/the-historical-truth-about-bedouin-expulsion-from-the-negev/78404/
* Rabbi
Alissa
Wise in
Huffpost:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-alissa-wise/prawer-plan_b_3438201.html
NOTES FOR
EDITORS
4. Quotes
from
Balfour
Declaration,
Mandate
of the
League of
Nations,
UN
Resolution
194
(1947)
and
Israel’s
Declaration
of
Independence
(1948)
From the
Balfour
Declaration
2 Nov
1917 and
the
Mandate
of the
League of
Nations
24 July
1922:
…it being
clearly
understood
that
nothing
shall be
done
which may
prejudice
the civil
and
religious
rights of
existing
non-Jewish
communities
in
Palestine…
From UN
General
Assembly
Res. 181,
29 Nov
1947:
No
discrimination
of any
kind
shall be
made
between
the
inhabitants
on the
ground of
race,
religion,
language
or sex.
All
persons
within
the
jurisdiction
of the
State
shall be
entitled
to equal
protection
of the
laws.
The State
shall be
bound by
all the
international
agreements
and
conventions,
both
general
and
special,
to which
Palestine
has
become a
party.
No law,
regulation
or
official
action
shall
conflict
or
interfere
with
these
stipulations,
nor shall
any law,
regulation
or
official
action
prevail
over
them.
From
Israel’s
founding
Declaration,
14 May
1948:
The State
of Israel
…
will
promote
the
development
of the
country
for the
benefit
of all
its
inhabitants;
will be
based on
the
precepts
of
liberty,
justice
and peace
taught by
the
Hebrew
Prophets;
will
uphold
the full
social
and
political
equality
of all
its
citizens,
without
distinction
of race,
creed or
sex…
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