NIEUWS NEDERLANDS PALESTINA KOMITEE

(Ook in Nederland is het Joods Nationaal Fonds actief. Regelmatig worden bijv. advertenties in Trouw geplaatst. In wezen steunt dit (uit het verzet voort gekomen) dagblad daarmee de uitbreidende Israelische bezetting. Juridisch is JNF Nederland onderworpen aan JNF-KKF in Israel (afdragen van gelden, benoemen bestuur, etc.).

JNF is een belangrijk instrument bij het financieren van de uitbreiding van nederzettingen en het discrimineren van Arabische inwoners m.b.t. hun huisvestingsmogelijkheden.

מייל בעברית נשלח בנפרד
The Government of Israel Continues to Confiscate Bedouin Lands.
Old-New Partners in Crime: the Jewish National Fund

Do not allow the JNF to do this in your name, with your donations, and with American tax money!

Yeela Raanan, RCUV
Short background
Since the foundation of the State of Israel it has entered into a process of confiscation of land from its indigenous inhabitants: the Arab residents of the country. Before 1948 the Bedouin occupied 99% of the Negev lands. The majority of the Bedouins fled/ were banished during the war, and the remaining 11,000 swore allegiance to the State, while the State in return promised to allow them to maintain their traditional way of life and their lands. However, less than a decade later, the government relocated and concentrated the Bedouin into a reservation, named the Siyag, which was only about 10% of the Negev. Most of the lands outside the Siyag were officially confiscated and most became land for the new Jewish agricultural settlements.

Photo: RCUV

A partial process of registering land claims in the northern Negev was instigated by the Government of Israel in 1969, only to be hastily stopped in 1971. During this short and partial process members of the Bedouin community had registered only 8% of the Negev lands. These are the total land claims today of the Negev Bedouins (today they comprise 28% of the Negev residents while occupying only 3% of Negev lands). These land ownership claims since then are in a state of legal limbo – the process never completed. The land does not officially belong to the original Bedouin owners, nor to the government.

Now the Government of Israel is intensifying its attempts to take over these lands by planting trees.

Three villages just north-west of the Siyag: Karkur, Al-Araqib and Twail Abu-Jarwal, are now being targeted for forestation by the JNF. The residents of these three villages were forcefully relocated in the early 1950s. Many of the descendents of these people still live in unrecognized villages until today, at times, not two miles from their original villages. The lands of these villages have remained empty, apart from a few of the family members whom the government did not harass, and a few areas planted by the JNF over the years. The people of these villages have been requesting and struggling to return to their original villages since the day they were removed. Some of you know the struggles of Nuri el Uqbi and his battle to return to his village of Al-Araqib. The village of Twail Abu-Jarwal has been razed to the ground more than 30 times. Some of you have heard of the hardships of the villagers of Al-Qrien, forcefully pushed off El-Araqib in 1952. Resettled by governmental decision in their current location… regardless, the government served all the houses in the village demolition orders. So these 1,500 people – cannot stay in the designated government location, and also cannot return to their original lands. Instead – the JNF is planting trees… 

In an attempt to start an outcry against the confiscation of their land, Dr. Awad Abu-Friech, the elected leader of the village of el-Araqib, set up a tent on the land.


The government of Israel was swift to strike: last Thursday, October 29th, they sent bulldozers to destroy the tent.

Watch on UTube: the JNF seizes the lands of El-Araqib.

And it is being done by the JNF, an organization receiving donations from Jews in the U.S with a U.S. tax exempt status

They need your help!!!

As a small indigenous population, they have no power facing the governmental machinery – that is backed by laws, bylaws, police, courts, and the help of the JNF.

It is up to you! Find out who are the large donors to the JNF, and expose them to this reality. Demand that the tax exempt status be revoked – as long as they use your money to seize indigenous minority lands. Help us by providing any information you can on who has the authority to revoke this status, and who can talk to them and to these large donors. (Pass this information to Dr. Yeela Raanan: yallylivnat@gmail.com)

Write! To the Israeli ambassador in your area. To your representative in the government – demanding that the government of Israel treat its Bedouin minority with justice, and immediately transfer full land rights on all lands under dispute. To the Jewish leadership in your country. Demand that they do not allow this ongoing and unnecessary destruction of the Bedouin community and their relationship to their country – Israel.

Boycott the Jewish National Fund! Campaign in your Jewish community. We will be happy to provide any information you may need. You can also contact Rabbi David who has much information.

And Donate. Dr. Awad Abu-Friech needs a laptop… so he can work from his old-new home in his village of el-Araqib… any donation is welcome.

Thanks to the people from the Negev Co-Existence Forum, who have been following closely and providing updates. Read more about this subject on their website.

For more information (and how to donate) – contact Dr. Yeela Raanan from the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) at yallylivnat@gmail.com, or +972 54 7487005
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Dr. Yeela Livnat Raanan
Regional Council for the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev - RCUV
+972 54 7487005