Israelis Banish Tribe to a Dump
The Independent
06/20/1998
By Patrick Cockburn in Jerusalem
Israel is moving bedouin who used to graze their flocks of sheep and goats
in the Judean desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea to a 50-acre shanty
town of corrugated iron huts on a stony hilltop beside Jerusalem's main
rubbish dump. The aim is to empty the area of Palestinians in order to
expand Jewish settlements and make it easier for Israel to claim in
negotiations on the future of the West Bank.
"They came with helicopters, police and soldiers and destroyed our tents,"
says Suleiman Mazara, a member of the 7,000-strong Jahalin tribe of bedouin
who used to encamp beside the road to Jericho. "People were dumped on
this hilltop, where it is too rocky to drive in a tent peg. We live in
houses made out of corrugated iron. It is very hot in summer and cold in
winter."
On the road into the camp Bedouin children were scrabbling through rubbish,
apparently brought from Jerusalem's main dump 500 yards away. There is a
single water pipe, but no sewage system. In one place somebody had tried to
build a garden, but had succeeded in growing only a few dried-out weeds.
Some 20 goats were fenced inside a barn made out of old pieces of scrap
metal.
"The general intent to take over the Judean desert is an important part of
the policy of the government," says Shlomo Lecker, a lawyer in Jerusalem
who is trying to stop demolition of the Jahalin homes. "It is ethnic
cleansing. It is easier to get rid of the bedouin than other Palestinians,
because they are weaker. They don't care whose authority they live under,
so long as they have the right to live."
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, makes the point that the
areas on the West Bank Israel wants to keep are "98 per cent empty of
Palestinians". What he does not say is that Israel has adopted a conscious
policy of driving out Palestinians who do live there. After Israel captured
the West Bank in 1967 much of the desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea
was declared a military area. No building permits were issued. When the
bedouin erected tents or shacks, demolition orders were issued. Shlomo
Lecker says: "There is no way for the bedouin to remain within the law
except to leave."
Some of the bedouin's old encampments have already been engulfed by the
Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim, whose red roofs house 22,000 people,
and is spreading across the hilltops to the east of Jerusalem. From the
hilltop camp beside the rubbish dump Suleiman Mazara has a clear view of
this rapidly expanding settlement. He says bitterly: "When you look at
Maaleh Adumim you see people living there who have just arrived from Russia
and Ethiopia. But the people like us, who lived there before, get nothing."
In fact the Jahalin have not always lived east of Jerusalem. Before 1950
they lived in the Negev desert near present-day Beersheva, a semi-settled
tribe, which grew flowers as well as herding sheep and goats. Chteiwi, a
90-year-old member of the Jahalin, recalls: "One day the Israelis arrived
and gave us three days to get out. When we didn't go they came and set fire
to our tents. We came to live between Jerusalem and Jericho which was then
under Jordan."
When Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, half the Jahalin fled across
the Jordan valley further into Jordan and half stayed where they were. But
they found themselves under pressure, because Israel did not recognise their
right to live and build their homes in the desert, which was viewed as
belonging to the government. It was set aside for military use or for
settlements.
"My father was still hoping we can go back to our homes in Beersheva," says
Suleiman Mazara. "When he heard of the Oslo accords [between Israel and
the Palestinians in 1993] he welcomed it. Two weeks after Oslo, the
Israelis told us to move from where we had been living since 1950. They
stopped us grazing our flocks. They immediately started expanding Maaleh
Adumim. They say it is military land and then use it for settlers."
The demolition orders and forced evictions have been stepped up. In
February bulldozers demolished 100 shacks and tents in which 200 people
were living. A foreign diplomat, who happened to pass at the time, says: "I
saw children coming home from school to find their houses gone. I saw them
burst into tears."
The Jahalins' mood is generally despairing. "My father used to have 90
sheep, but now he has only 10 because there isn't enough grass," says one
man. "Our job is tending our animals. Now we must sell them and go and
work as labourers in Israel."
The campaign against the Jahalin is only one aspect of an Israeli effort to
rid the Judean desert and the Jordan valley of as many Palestinians as
possible.
However, the Jahalin say they would accept being moved from the Jericho
road, if Israel would find them somewhere other than Jerusalem rubbish
dump. Suleiman Mazara points out that the land at Beersheva from which
they were expelled in 1950 is still unused by Israel and there is no
practical reason they should not go back there.
