Israeli military documents from the 1970s reveal attempts to force Bedouins to become permanent homes – Israel News

When Ibrahim, on the orders of God, abstained from sacrificing his son Ishmael and sacrificed a sheep instead, blood gushed to heaven and created the Milky Way. Drops were also raining on the earth and creating springs of water, a gift from God.

You can still hear this story of Bedouins at Sinai, says an anthropologist who asked to remain anonymous. She did not hear a similar story from the Palestinian Bedouins, but they too were raised about its ethical and practical implications: Because water sources, such as rivers and springs, are a God's gift, it is forbidden to privatize, access to them. And because they belong to everyone, they must be used equitably: The tents must be erected a few hundred meters from a river or a source, so as not to pollute them and not not deter others from using them.

But cisterns to collect rainwater, which Bedouin communities dig at their usual two locations of fixed encampment, are another story. Because people worked for them, they are considered private property.

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In the years of abundance, when the cisterns are full even in the summer, the water can be shared or sold. During periods of drought, the tank is reserved for family use. The dependence of the Bedouins on these cisterns determines where their tents are pitched – typically, on slopes where one can collect as much water as possible.

The winter of 1972 was not enough, as evidenced by an official letter sent in May 1972 by Lieutenant Azriel David, to the Israeli military headquarters in the Ramallah district, at the head of the department from the economy and to an officer at the main military headquarters for the West Bank.

"… I realized that there was a serious shortage of water for Bedouins in Ramallah district," David wrote. "They have cisterns that need to be filled urgently."

He then listed the locations of 12 cisterns belonging to the Kaabneh and Jahalin tribes. The cisterns in question and the Bedouin tents that they served are still located along the Jericho-Jerusalem, Hizma highway and Taibeh-Jericho highway.

In the following years, water was regularly supplied to Bedouins in the southern West Bank, some of which via connections to water pipes. For example, on February 12, 1976, a water quota officer from the West Bank military headquarters sent details to the head of the Department of Economy about the water consumption and costs of the Bedouin communities. in the region of Judea.

This concern about water shows that the military administration understood that one of its jobs, under international law, was to meet the basic needs of the local population in the occupied territory . At the same time, acting on the orders of the governments led by Alignment (the Alignment was a precursor of the Labor Party), it emerges that the military commanders were playing with plans for permanent residences for the Bedouin as soon as the early 1970s.
In other words, they planned to end the Bedouin herders' way of life, which consisted of moving between the two fixed locations (in the highlands in summer and the plains in winter), and installing them in one permanent place. .

Military documents held in the archives of the Israel Defense Forces, dating from the 1970s and the early 1980s, appear. But until 1981, these documents, clbadified or distributed in a limited way, did not explain the reasons for the desire to install the Bedouins. in permanent settlements in the territories occupied in 1967, which were presented to the outside world as being "temporarily administered" by Israel, with the exception of a 1975 document, linked to Minister Yisrael Galili.

Planning continuity

These documents show the continuity of planning, since the 1970s up to the current plans of the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank to forcibly remove the Abu Dahouk clan, which belongs to the Jahalin tribe, from the Khan al-Ahmar region. , 16 kilometers east of Jerusalem. These plans provide for their forced transfer to a semi-urban complex near the Abu Dis dump, on the edge of the city. In the late 1990s, some communities belonging to the Salamat clan of Jahalin were forced to settle there, in order to make room for the expansion of Ma Adumim's colony.

Although previous plans have not been implemented, Israeli military and political levels have continuously taken steps to reduce Bedouin pastures and their ability to earn a living by preventing access to the land. to water sources and stating that canned. Thus, since the late 1970s, some 25 Bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho have been practically forced to live in fixed and constrained places, in increasingly difficult conditions, because of Israel's refusal to build new barracks and even schools or clinics. .

In November and December 1971, intensive correspondence was held between several officers of the Ramallah District regarding permanent settlements for the Bedouins. The recipients were the head of the economics department at the West Bank headquarters (whose name is not mentioned) and the special duties officer for the Bedouins, who was at the time Captain Yigal Hagiladi.

The people involved in the exchange were the staff officers in charge of roads and water, the guardian of abandoned and government property, and the chief of development of the Water from the Ministry of Agriculture. They were looking for suitable locations for several communities affiliated with the two main Bedouin tribes in the region – Kaabneh and Jahalin – and were calculating the costs of relocation.

In January 1972, Ramallah District Deputy Military Commander Major Moshe Levy met with the mukhtars of four local Bedouin communities (Abu Dahouk was not one of them) and informed them of the permanent sites that were had been chosen for them. A tour was planned for the mukhtars on January 11th.

But six months later, the problems had already surfaced. On 27 July 1972, Lieutenant Colonel Moshe Feldman, District Commander of Ramallah, wrote to the Head of the Economics Department: "A few days ago, I informed your badistant that we had failed in our efforts to settle the problem definitively. Bedouin in communities on the mountain ridge, in light of what has been agreed on this issue, to save the costs of permanent settlement. "

The custodian of the missing properties had difficulty finding suitable sites (apparently on land that was not private property). An earlier document states that military commanders also opposed some of the proposed sites. And most importantly, "When we checked with the sheikhs, they all opposed moving from their own locations to this line of settlement for fear of problems with the permanent communities" – that is to say the Palestinian villages neighbors – "and grazing problems".

Mute Records

This same fear of conflict with the land-owning villagers (and with Salamat, another Jahalin clan), as well as the desire to maintain their way of life, now lead to the demand of Abu Dahouk to be allowed to establish a community in its current location in Khan al-Ahmar.

In 1971-1972, officers likely read a nine-page report written by Yigal Hagiladi. It lists the names of tribes and sub-tribes living in the West Bank by region and describes their history. The Jahalin, he writes, came from the other side of the Jordan at the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century. He knew that they had been expelled from the Negev after the establishment of Israel in 1948; the size of their flocks; if any of their members worked in Jerusalem; which sub-tribes or clans disagreed with each other; and who were the mukhtars.

Hagiladi's report indicates that most Bedouin communities are cultivating and living in herds, and are moving towards a "permanent settlement".

On 10 December 1975, Maj Rani Langer, chief of staff of the IDF Central Command, stated that Minister Yisrael Galili had requested that a working document be prepared on "the places where the Bedouin population is concentrated. " in the West Bank, in addition to "recommendations for a permanent settlement of this population, in addition to the means to create incentives for this, in places that do not disturb [Jewish] the plans of implantation and should not compromise them in the future ". The Jewish settlements on the agenda were located in the Jordan Valley and Ma'Aleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem.

A Bedouin encampment. Israel's military and political echelons have continuously taken steps to reduce grazing and the ability to earn a living by preventing access to water sources. Tal Cohen

Five years have pbaded since the first permanent plans of the Bedouins were evoked. 1971, and they languished (apart from those concerning the Rashida tribe, which was established south of Bethlehem). Did the officers understand that a quick and forced transfer to permanent settlements would be at odds with the Bedouin way of life? On this, the documents are silent.

On December 14, 1975, Dr. Moshe Sharon, expert on Middle East studies, submitted recommendations for the permanent settlement of the Bedouins at the head of the Economic Department of the West Bank Military Headquarters, Dr. Efraim Ahiram, based on one on the Bedouin that he had written for the army a few months earlier. He said that the Jahalin – whose two main sub-tribes, Abu Dahouk and Salamat, "roam the southern Ramallah district and north of Bethlehem district" – and are "the most problematic category ".

Sharon writes that he was "convinced that it is possible to enlist the Bedouins in security activities as watchers and trackers, especially in areas where they roam, who are likely to serve as transit areas for hostile enemies. "But despite its functional attitude toward them, Sharon's proposal still seems, in retrospect, to strive to preserve the Bedouins as a breeding community, with space for grazing and opportunities to improve their herds. and fatten their sheep.

The documents obtained by Haaretz then jump in 1981, four years after the replacement of the government of alignment by the Likud. In May, Dr. Sharon submitted a more detailed and lengthy survey of Bedouin in the West Bank, which was widely disseminated, including among military governors of the various districts and several officers of the Shin Bet security service. Bedouins can be found in all districts of the West Bank, he wrote, but, "they are an administrative problem" only in three districts: Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah.

This time, Sharon explicitly linked the permanent settlement plan of the Bedouins to the Jewish settlements. Regarding the Salamat clan, located in the region of Azzariyeh-Abu Dis, he writes: "The main problem posed by Jahalin is the fact that they took possession of the lands intended for [Jewish] or near.

According to Sharon, the fact that the tribes were there long before the Jewish settlements obviously gave them no rights.

On the other hand, he acknowledged that the Abu Dahouk, like other Bedouin communities in Ramallah District, were suffering from rapid shrinkage of pastures. But what worries Sharon are the security considerations: Abu Dahouk's hostility to Israel will increase, he wrote, "because an important part of it pastures were seized for colonization [Jewish] ".

Pushing to the villages

Sharon proposed to continue encouraging bedouin-free Bedouin to live in villages – a process begun a few years earlier at A-Ram (northeast of Jerusalem) and Jaba (east of Ramallah) – and suggested finding permanent sites for the Jahalin summer and winter tents. Here, the role of military consultant has dominated the politeness of the writer, and Sharon wrote: "To facilitate the operation among the Abu Dahouk, the Bedouin labor force should, in light of the rivalries within of the tribe, consider the possibility of dividing it. appoint another mukhtar and submit recommendations to the district commander. "

In September 1981, Captain Harel Tzuberi, another officer dealing with the Bedouins, followed Sharon's line. He knew that since the 1950s, Abu Dahouk lived between Beit Hanina and Shoafat in the summer and along the Jericho-Jerusalem road in winter. But he proposed to focus them (about 500 people, according to Sharon) in one place – east of Jaba village. Today, this area is controlled by an outpost of the Jewish settlement of Adam.

In Tzuberi's view, to declare this state land or to confiscate it for public purposes would involve a long and complicated legal process that would be opposed by residents of neighboring villages. He therefore preferred a third option: "to move the Bedouins in this zone without resorting to any legal procedure concerning the status of the land. Tell the Bedouins that they can not continue to live on the Hizma-Ma Adumim road and that they have to move to the new area. "

Sharon and Tzuberi wrote their recommendations about two years after one of the founders of Kfar Adumim's colony, Uri Ariel, submitted a proposal (in early 1979) to the IDF to expel the Bedouins from the Khan al-Ahmar area, now known as the Adumim Block, thus creating a dense corridor of Jewish settlements there and limiting the space available for construction in Palestinian towns and villages.