Keith/Spider

Beduins in Israel
There are 33 elementary schools, three high schools and three vocational schools for the Bedouin community in the Negev. At the elementary level, with an enrollment of 95%, the school population is made up of equal proportions of boys and girls. But because Bedouin society regards females as inferior and does not encourage them to study, girls make up no more than 10% of the pupils in high schools. Today 60 percent of the teaching staff is Bedouin.
All the Bedouin high schools and 60% of the elementary schools in the Negev, are located in seven Bedouin towns. Over the past five years, extensive resources have been invested in schools, especially in buildings, services, water pipes, heating and more. Computers and laboratories have also been introduced [1998].
There are clinics in all seven Bedouin towns in the Negev (in Rahat, proclaimed a city in 1994, there are four clinics and a day-hospital). The medical staff includes Jews and Arabs; fifteen of them are Bedouin doctors. Most of the Bedouin living outside the towns can reach the clinics easily; in the more outlying areas, several mobile clinics provide services.
A total of 12 clinics provide services in the Negev at present (one clinic per 6000 persons); another 10 clinics are in various stages of establishment. Hospital facilities are available in Be'er Sheva. If a gap still exists between health services in the rest of the country and in the Bedouin towns, it relates more to the physical domain than to the level of medicine.
Land Rights: In most countries in the Middle East the Bedouin have no land rights, only users' privileges. Israeli Law is derived largely from Mandatory (British) law which in turn incorporated much Ottoman law. Under Israeli law, a person who has not registered his/her land in the Land Registry cannot claim ownership; but in the mid 1970s Israel let the Negev Bedouin register their land claims and issued certificates as to the size of the tracts claimed. These certificates served as the basis for the "right of possession" later granted by the government.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Egypt, it became necessary to move an airport to a locality inhabited by 5000 Bedouin. The government, recognizing these land claim certificates, negotiated with the certificate holders and paid compensation to them. Most moved to Bedouin townships, built houses and established businesses.
Two kinds of land offenses make media headlines: illegal building and grazing in protected areas:
Illegal building. Tents and light structures (shacks and huts) built illegally are treated forgivingly. But construction of houses of stone or concrete without a building permit is considered an offense, since adequate infrastructure and services cannot be provided. Some 2,000 such locations with buildings already exist, scattered over an area of about 1,000 sq km.
Grazing in protected areas. Most of the livestock of the Bedouin in the Negev who keep flocks of sheep and goats are registered and approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, which provides pasture land outside the Negev for six to seven months of the year, since the carrying capacity of the Negev is limited.
Permanent locations: The establishment of permanent towns did not begin until the Bedouin themselves constructed buildings to replace tents. But the urbanization process is by no means simple, as the planners have to deal with issues involving tradition and social structure and the Bedouin themselves have difficulty in articulating their wishes in planning terms.
The first Bedouin town, Tel Sheva, was founded in 1967. Subsequently, another six towns have been established in the Negev and an effort was made to learn from each previous experience. But the planning concept focused on urban settlement, while many Bedouin wanted to live in rural localities. Today there are plans to found such rural localities and it is hoped that they will satisfy the traditional aspirations of the Bedouin.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/People/SOCIETY-%20Minority%20Communities

By the way the Jews never stole Beduin children.
I would rather be a Beduin in Israel than an Aboriginal in Australia anytime!

Spider: "I was watching an interview with a senior member of the Israeli government..."

No, Spider, you were not. That is a lie. Members of the Israeli government simply do not speak in such terms. If you truly heard this, you'll be able to provide a verifiable reference. Who said it? When and where was this interview broadcast? The fact is, these vile words come from the dark recesses of your brain, not theirs.

…

Peachy,

Use of the word "Apartheid" to the radically different reality of Israel is inappropriate. It adds nothing to our understanding of the situation, and indeed promotes some basic misunderstandings and misconceptions. Even President Carter, who literally wrote the book on this, said that there is no Apartheid in Israel, and that “Israel is a wonderful democracy with equal treatment of all citizens whether Arab or Jew”.

Peachy, Chad might answer you “boo hoo. if you don't like it, leave.” But I won’t. There is much to improve in Israel, and especially in the autonomous Palestinian territories (which perhaps avoid accusations of apartheid by remaining virtually Judenrein), and the West Bank territories that remain under Israeli rule. As you correctly pointed out, the ongoing conflict has had a devastating effect on people, including innocent children on both sides. You gave some of the picture from the Palestinian point of view. Danny Lamm described some of it from the Israeli side. Both are real parts of the overall situation.

One big problem with using words taken from different realities and circumstances that simply don’t apply to ours, such as “Apartheid” (as well as “ethnic cleansing”, “genocide”, “racism”, and yes, “Judenrein”) is that they distract us from the real issues. Now, people who otherwise might have been usefully engaged in building a peaceful relationship between Jews and Palestinians are instead focusing on how inappropriate and inciting one word can be. Likewise, meaningless phrases such as “the billion dollar Israeli Public Relations machine”. What sort of constructive communication can be built on such hostility?

Continued…

Criticism is vital, but must be balanced, or it becomes part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Use of the word “apartheid” promotes a false black-and-white view of the conflict -- bad guys vs. good guys, aggressors vs. victims, etc. About this, see Muslim commentator Irshad Manji’s “Modern Israel is a far cry from old South Africa” (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21194124-7583,00.html ). Manji is plenty critical of Israel, but realizes that “it's absurd to apply the term apartheid to one of the most progressive states in the world”.

Peachy, you write “you wonder how a young female ambulance driver is driven to strap herself with explosives and commit a devastating act of terror”. Who wonders? Not Lamm, and not I or others here. But once would-be “martyrs” are strapping on explosives and looking for buses and restaurants where they can do the most damage to innocent people, the immediate job at hand is not to wonder about their motivation, but to protect their would-be victims by stopping these murderous missions at any cost.

If that requires putting up walls between the West Bank, where such bombers originate, and the thin coastal strip of Israel where most of the country’s population is concentrated and vulnerable to attack, so be it. Does it inconvenience many people? Yes. Is it hard for Palestinians, who were previously accustomed to quick and easy access to Israeli jobs, schools, hospitals, etc., to now adjust to long lines and tighter security along de facto borders? Certainly. Have new injustices been created by all of this? No doubt. But blame for the so-called apartheid falls squarely on those suicide bombers, not on Israel. As one wag put it, so-called “Israeli apartheid” is “a policy that separates terrorists from would-be victims.”

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Keith: “Still reckon he isn't an avowed Zionist?”

I never doubted that Lamm is a Zionist. I just wonder why you throw around the term like it is some sort of accusation, and why you comically pepper your writing with “avowed” this and “avowed” that. I guess that makes you an avowed poor writer.

Here we have the usual leftists talking about "occupation" and "illegal and Aborigines. When is the left going to read a history book and realise that people came to Australia in the 19th century because of persecution political and religious and economic. Methodists in Cornwall, Highlanders in Scotland, Irish etc - all FORCED OUT. If the Aborigines have a problem with white people being on their land - they should take it up with London.

Israel got where it is because of its values. Can one put nuclear weapons in the hands of an irresponsible people like the Arabs? Their values preclude the US or any sane government from giving them access to the ultimate weapon. They would use it and use it in a heart beat. They praise suicide bombers and condemn the US for getting rid of Saddam while cheering on the insurgency as it holds heads up for the cameras. Who exactly are the "palestinians" and what makes them different from other arabs? Where did they come from? Why did the Ottomans encourage Jewish immigration in the early part of the century? I don't hear keith or anyone else question the right of return for the 800,000 Sephardic Jews forced out of the Arab lands.

Isn't that a reasonable question to ask though? what drives a person to commit such a horrendous act? terrorism, in the blatant sense that we know it by today, did not exist at the establishment of the Israeli state nor were there mass support for extremist, fundamentalist forms of government and all that seems to be occurring is increased mass popular support for such groups as Hamas..

sganot you talk about adding understanding to the situation, but fail to see that terrorism is intrinsically linked to these individuals lives .. It goes beyond the politics of the situation such as exact borders, international law etc. and down to Palestinians "life in the terror zone", there are polar opposite atrocities being committed in Palestine just as bad as what Lamm outlines in his piece, exactly my meaning when i say i hold indignation toward it.. having the mindset that “Who wonders? Not Lamm, and not I or others here”, sounds as if you may as well exterminate every single arab from the land and that “it must not only expel the native population, but also deny the reality of their dispossession” (Nur Masalha, 2003), because all that’s going to happen is more and more terrorists are going to be created, meaning harsher, and harsher vilification and rationalisation for Israeli action.
In the broad sense of the term that’s exactly what’s occurring, apartheid.. any system or practice that separates people according to race, caste, etc? bloody big wall? its certainly not to keep the rabbits out, but again its all part of this vicious, reactionary cycle where a child would use the analysis that “you do this, then I do that"
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