Victory! Prawer Plan to ethnic cleanse the Naqab (Negev) Bedouins cancelled!

Architect of the proposal told a Knesset committee earlier this week that he had never received community support for the proposal, despite claims to the contrary. 

Umm al-Hiran. The government has decided to raze the Bedouin village in the Negev to make way for a new Jewish community.

Haaretz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has decided to drop the current draft of a controversial bill to resettle nearly 30,000 Bedouin living in the Negev into already recognized villages, the former minister overseeing the plan said on Thursday.

Benny Begin, an architect of the Begin-Prawer Plan, told a press conference that Netanyahu had accepted his recommendation to halt progress on the bill. It is not clear whether the billl has been shelved or just temporarily postponed.

He also accused critics of the plan of exploiting the proposal for their own benefit. "Right, left, Arabs and Jews joined hands – while exploiting the plight of many Bedouin – to heat things up for political gain," he said. "We've done our best, but sometimes you need to recognize reality."
During the drafting of the legislation, Begin said, more than 1,000 Bedouin were heard, and as a result changes in the bill were introduced. "I myself met with 600 of them… We didn't just hear them out, we listened to them attentively," he said, adding that some viewed his willingness to engage with the Bedouin community as excessive.
The possibility of the bill being shelved emerged three days ago, after Begin denied claims that community leaders had accepted the proposal – a key defense used by the government in advancing the plan.
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