Israel's Plan To Forcibly Resettle Negev Bedouins Prompts Global Protests

[Purveyor]

Source: Guardian UK

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
The Guardian, Sunday 1 December 2013 11.59 EST

Several thousand people worldwide have taken part in protests at the Israeli government's plans to forcibly remove Bedouin Arabs from their villages in the Negev desert.

In Israeli towns and cities mounted police used teargas, stun grenades and water cannon against demonstrators, in what the Association of Civil Rights in Israel described as a "disproportionate" response to stone-throwing. More than 40 people were arrested at protests across the country, and 15 police officers were injured.

In what was billed as an international "day of rage", demonstrations were also held in London, Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, Cairo and in the United States.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, criticised the protests. "We will not tolerate such disturbances," he said in a statement. "Attempts by a loud and violent minority to deny a better future to a large and broad population are grave. We will continue to advance the law for a better future for all residents of the Negev," he said.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/01/israel-negev-bedouins-day-of-rage

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[Ken Burch]

1. Disgusting. And totally hypocritical

If Netanyahu is going to insist on building more and more West Bank settlements, ALL of which he knows to be illegal, he and his government have no right to oppose Bedouins settling the Negev.

Besides which, nobody BUT Bedouins has ever wanted to live in the Negev(unlike the areas where the settlements were built, all of which were majority-Palestinian at the time the settlers movement was born after the Six Day War)so why does it even matter?

Can't Likud just accept that it does no harm to let Bedouins have the Negev, and move on?

Treating the Bedouins this way is a total betrayal of the original humane and inclusive vision of Zionism-and does Israel's security no good at all.

[iandhr]

2. Its like they are trying to shoot themselves in the foot.

[kelliekat44]

3. The real terrorist nation. nt

[Xithras]

4. It's the dictionary definition of ethnic cleansing.

But that's nothing new for Israel, now is it?