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Israel should freeze the Bedouin relocation bill

The Israeli plan to relocate Bedouins cannot be properly discussed before a series of actions to mend the rift between them and Israeli authorities rebuild trust.
A protester rolls a burning tyre towards Israeli police during a demonstration showing solidarity with Bedouin Arabs who are against a government displacement plan for Bedouins in the Southern Negev desert in the village of Hura in southern Israel November 30, 2013. REUTERS/Baz Ratner  (ISRAEL - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTX15YV8
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The writing was on the wall. The Prawer Bill to regulate Bedouin settlement in the Negev will not go through quietly. Not because it is a really bad bill, and not because it fails to provide a critical and necessary solution for the regulation of unrecognized Bedouin localities, but mainly because of the attitude and approach taken by its authors and the Israeli establishment toward the Bedouin population.

On Nov. 30, even before bulldozers fanned out to demolish unrecognized Bedouin localities and Israeli border and municipal police were called in to forcibly remove tens of thousands of Bedouin residents from their homes, the anger and fury had already erupted. In a series of demonstrations in various locations throughout Israel, dozens of police officers were injured in arresting scores of Bedouin protesters, who view Israel today as having set itself a goal of forcibly robbing them of their land.

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