The plight of the Bedouins

Israel's misconduct knows no bounds. Flout international law? Not a concern! Ignore humanity or decency? Not a second thought! The plight of the Bedouins is graphically detailed in this piece from Jordan Valley Solidarity.

"Israel plans to uproot Bedouin communities from 60% of the West Bank and forcibly transfer them into controlled enclosures. If this is allowed to happen, 27,000 people will be evicted from their homes and land - they will be forced to live in ghettos, with no land on which to make a living. This cruel and shocking new development represents the acceleration of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Bedouin communities from the West Bank, since it illegally colonised the area in 1967, and they aim to complete this plan within the next 3 – 6 years.

The first phase of this racist, apartheid strategy is scheduled for January 2012, with the forced removal of Bedouin communities from the land around East Jerusalem into a camp/ghetto next to a landfill site by Abu Dis in East Jerusalem. Work on constructing the ghetto has already started.

The second phase will be the expulsion of Bedouin communities from the Jordan Valley into a separate ghetto – the Israeli Civil Military Administration has not yet openly declared where this will be, but it is thought that an area close to Jericho is being considered.

Whilst these plans are now coming out into the open, they are of no surprise to Bedouin and farming communities living in the Jordan Valley. Over the years Jordan Valley Solidarity volunteers have gathered numerous accounts of local people who have been offered small amounts of land or money to leave the Jordan Valley and move to other areas of the West Bank. Others have quite simply been hounded out."

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