US embassy cable - 05TELAVIV1124

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 001124 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, SOCI, IS, GOI INTERNAL, ISRAELI SOCIETY, ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS 
SUBJECT: BEDOUIN OF THE NEGEV'S ILLEGAL VILLAGES LIVE IN 
POVERTY, SQUALOR 
 
REF: 2004 TEL AVIV 3393 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary: Emboffs met February 17 with Bedouin 
community representatives in two Negev desert Bedouin 
villages not legally recognized by the GOI to discuss issues 
affecting their lives and possible PD small grants assistance 
to educational programs.  The Bedouin in these two 
unrecognized communities live in poor, makeshift conditions, 
without the benefits of municipal services or basic 
infrastructure.  Highlighting the Bedouin's tenuous 
residential status in the state, and GOI distrust of this 
segment of the population, the Jerusalem Post reported 
February 18 that the GOI intends to relocate hundreds of 
Bedouin families in illegal Negev communities near the 
perimeter fence of an airbase.  The report draws the 
conclusion from unnamed Israeli military sources that the GOI 
fears that the Bedouin, who are citizens of Israel, may 
acquire anti-aircraft missiles for use against Israeli 
aircraft.  This cable offers a snapshot of life in these 
illegal villages and a Bedouin perspective on the political 
context.  End summary. 
 
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Many Bedouin Marginalized 
------------------------- 
 
2.  (U) Emboffs met February 17 with Attia El-Asam, southern 
region coordinator of the Association of Forty, a Bedouin 
advocacy organization, and Haled Abu Huti, manager of the 
Association to Promote Advanced Technological Community in 
El-Asam's spartan Be'er Sheva office.  El-Asam explained that 
his organization was established in 1987 to advocate for 
Bedouin communities in the Galilee that did not receive legal 
recognition from the GOI.  Since then, El-Asam said, the GOI 
has recognized about 70 percent of those Galilee communities 
and his organization has turned its focus to the Bedouin 
population of the Negev. 
 
3.  (SBU) According to the Association of Forty's data, 
El-Asam said, the Negev has about 45 so-called "unrecognized" 
Bedouin villages, with some 70,000 Bedouin residents, or half 
of the total Negev Bedouin population.  These unrecognized 
villages have never been included in GOI land planning, do 
not qualify for provision of any public services, and 
therefore do not officially exist on Israeli maps.  Many 
Bedouin are life-long residents of these communities, but are 
considered squatters by the GOI.  Without legal status, these 
communities receive no government resources, including 
municipal services and infrastructure development. 
 
4.  (U) El-Asam highlighted that, while the Bedouin now 
compose about 30 percent of the Negev population, the GOI has 
recognized as legal only seven communities or "townships" 
wherein the Bedouin population can legally reside.  According 
to The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights In Israel - 
Adalah, the GOI initiated a program to resettle the Bedouin 
in these seven townships during the 1960s-70s.  Many Bedouin 
refuse to move to the legal townships, El-Asam said, because 
they assert that conditions in the townships are not much 
better than those in the unrecognized communities.  The GOI 
is in the process of recognizing another 10 of the 45 
unrecognized villages, El-Asam noted. 
 
5.  (SBU) (Note: Seven of the 10 villages slated for such 
recognition will ostensibly house Bedouin from surrounding 
areas as well.  GOI plans for these villages include new 
houses, landscaping of surrounding hills to allow for grazing 
of camel and sheep, installation of sewage systems, and 
construction of schools, mosques, and community centers.  The 
GOI planning team responsible for these seven villages, 
however, told emboffs in the summer of 2004 that the GOI does 
not have even a quarter of the money needed for completion of 
the projects.  End note.)  El-Asam claimed that the GOI 
nonetheless provides electrical and other municipal services 
to 60 Jewish National Fund-sponsored single-family farms in 
the Negev for Israeli Jews, none of which are connected to 
larger communities. 
 
6.  (U) No high schools exist in any of the unrecognized 
villages, according to El-Asam, and only 16 of the villages 
contain even makeshift elementary schools.  El-Asam claimed 
that 70 percent of the children in the unrecognized villages 
live below the poverty line.  (Note: According to Adalah, a 
September 2004 Supreme Court ruling rejected Adalah's 
petition demanding establishment of preschools for 300 
Bedouin children in two unrecognized Negev villages.  The 
Court deferred to the Ministry of Education, which argued 
that existing preschools in neighboring villages are 
sufficient to meet the children's needs and that since the 
villages are unrecognized, publicly funded preschools could 
not be set up there.) 
 
--------------- 
Is this Israel? 
--------------- 
 
7.  (U) After the office meeting, Emboffs followed Haled Abu 
Huti to the unrecognized village of Elfawy, population 3,500, 
where he resides.  Emboffs drove down dirt roads that ribbon 
the barren Negev landscape into a congested, tin-roofed 
shanty town.  Livestock were scattered in the living areas of 
homes, parts of which were outdoors.  A gaggle of children 
played on the dirt floor porch of the provisional 
kindergarten.  Piles of garbage lay at the village entrance. 
Abu Huti said that his organization received assistance from 
the German Embassy to construct a kindergarten in Elfawy that 
serves some 20 children during the day.  In the afternoons, 
Abu Huti's organization conducts courses for mothers in the 
school.  The one-room facility is equipped with some toys and 
educational material and a generator provides electricity for 
only three hours in the evening. 
 
8.  (U) In the neighboring village of Abu Ashiba, population 
1,500, Abu Huti showed Emboffs a kindergarten for which he is 
soliciting funding.  The school is held in a stable-like 
structure with concrete floors and a corrugated sheet metal 
roof, but without a toilet, electricity, or playground 
equipment for its 25 children.  The children playing on the 
dirt porch and single swing seemed oblivious to the 
still-nursing camel and her baby standing several meters 
behind them.  According to Abu Huti, the village is currently 
in what he described as the long process of being recognized 
by the GOI. 
 
---------------------------- 
Bedouin Viewed with Distrust 
---------------------------- 
 
9.  (SBU) Although many Bedouin -- who are citizens of Israel 
-- continue to serve voluntarily in the IDF and otherwise 
support the state, media commentators and Israeli politicians 
often refer to the threat of a second "intifada" coming from 
the Negev Bedouin.  The February 18 Jerusalem Post reported 
that the Israel Air Force (IAF) is currently moving scores of 
Bedouin families to create a buffer zone around the Nevatim 
airbase in the Negev to "reduce any missile threat" from the 
Bedouin.  "(Israel Defense Forces) intelligence didn't rule 
out the possibility," the Jerusalem Post reported, that 
anti-aircraft missiles from Gaza could "reach" the Bedouin 
living near the airbase "since the smugglers were Bedouin 
from the Sinai with close links with their Negev tribesmen." 
(Note: According to Embassy sources, another possible reason 
for the IAF to create the buffer zone is to prevent vandalism 
by the surrounding Bedouin communities, including the 
stealing of construction materials.  The Jerusalem Post 
article notes that members of the Bedouin community around 
Nevatim "apparently" have stolen equipment and left gaping 
holes in the fence.... ")  The GOI reportedly plans to expand 
the Nevatim base and has already issued orders to demolish 
some 50 illegal structures, home to some 300 Bedouin. 
 
 
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