Uprooting 30,000 Bedouin in Israel

Neve Gordon
'It is not every day that a government decides to relocate almost half a per cent of its population in a programme of forced urbanisation,' Rawia Aburabia asserted, adding that 'this is precisely what Prawer wants to do.' The meeting, which was attempting to coordinate various actions against the Prawer Plan, had just ended, and Rawia, an outspoken Bedouin leader who works for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, was clearly upset. She realised that the possibility of changing the course of events was extremely unlikely and that, at the end of the day, the government would uproot 30,000 Negev Bedouin and put them in townships. This would result in an end to their rural way of life and would ultimately deprive them of their livelihood and land rights.
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