PROTESTERS IN ISRAEL RALLY AGAINST PRAWER PLAN
Beersheba, 21 Ramadhan 2013/29 July 2013 (MINA) – Palestinian youth groups in Israel on Saturday demonstrated against Israel’s Prawer Plan, which will displace thousands of Bedouin families in the Negev desert.
Dozens of people gathered in Kafr Kanna, north of Nazareth, to protest the plan. Israeli police detained Majd Dahamsheh and Ibrahim Ammara, witnesses said, Ma’an News Agency quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Sunday.
Head of Kafr Kanna’s popular committee, Baker Awawdeh, was summoned by Israeli police, together with Abed al-Hakim Dahamsheh and Muhammad Ali Taha.
Demonstrations also took place in the Galilee village of Rayna and Tarshiha, northeast of Acre. Dozens of protesters shouted slogans against the displacement plan and urged people to join an upcoming ‘Day of Anger’ planned on Aug. 1.
The Israeli government approved the Prawer-Begin plan in 2011, in what it says was an attempt to address the problem of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev desert of southern Israel.
The 2011 proposal was formulated without any consultation with the Bedouin community and rights groups slammed it as a major blow to Bedouin rights.
According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the plan will forcibly evict nearly 40,000 Bedouins and destroy their communal and social fabric, condemning them to a future of poverty and unemployment.
Israel refuses to recognize 35 Bedouin villages in the Negev, which collectively house nearly 90,000 people.
The Israeli state denies them access to basic services and infrastructure, such as electricity and running water, and refuses to place them under municipal jurisdiction.
What is the Prawer Plan?
Adalah calls on the Israeli government to:
- Cancel the Prawer Plan
- Recognize the “unrecognized villages” and the land claims of the indigenous Arab Bedouin community
- Halt home demolitions and forced evictions
- Engage in meaningful dialogue with the Arab Bedouin community and the Arab political leadership to justly resolve the land claims
- Invest in greater health, education, and employment opportunities for Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel
(Adalah (“Justice” in Arabic) is an independent human rights organization and legal center. Established in November 1996, it works to promote and defend the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, 1.2 million people, or 20% of the population, as well as Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).)
(T/P012/E1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)