by Khaled Abu Toameh
The PA and the Palestinian factions called for stepping up the Bedouin protests against Israel’s practices in the Negev.
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Israeli security forces clash with Bedouins during protest against
forestation at the Negev desert village of Sawe al-Atrash, southern
Israel, January 13, 2022.
(photo credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)
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The Palestinian Authority and several Palestinian factions said on
Thursday that they see the recent tensions in the Negev as part of
Israeli measures against “all Palestinians,” including the Arab citizens
of Israel.
Voicing
full support for the Bedouin citizens of the Negev, the PA and the
Palestinian factions called for stepping up the protests against
Israel’s practices.
The tensions erupted this week when Bedouin citizens protested the planting of trees by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund on disputed lands in the Negev.
According
to the Palestinians, the tree-planting in the Negev comes in the
context of Israel’s “settlement policy” and “crimes” in the West Bank,
Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
The PA and the Palestinian factions refer to the Arab Israelis, including the Bedouin, as “Palestinians” or “the Arabs of 1948.”
Israeli
security forces on horses clash with Bedouins during protest against
forestation at the Negev desert village of Sawe al-Atrash, southern
Israel, January 13, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)Some of the factions called on the Bedouin citizens to launch an intifada (uprising) in protest of the Israeli attempts to confiscate “Arab-owned lands.”
“The
crimes of the occupation state in the Negev are an extension of it war
on the Palestinians,” the PA Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The
ministry strongly condemns the heinous crime committed by the
occupation state against the Palestinian Arabs of the Negev and their
lands and properties. This is a continuation of the war waged by Israel
to destroy the future of Palestinian generations and force them to
emigrate in order to replace them with settlers. The Palestinian people
in the State of Palestine are paying a heavy price as a result of the
same policy.”
Rouhi
Fattouh, a senior official with the ruling Fatah faction, on Thursday
condemned the “crimes” of Israel in the Negev. Fattouh accused Israel of
working towards expelling the Bedouin from the Negev and seizing their
lands.
“Our Palestinian people everywhere stand with our people in the Negev and support their steadfastness,” he said.
The
PLO’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also likened
the Israeli measures in the Negev to the ongoing tensions between the
Palestinians, IDF soldiers and settlers in the West Bank.
The
PFLP praised the Bedouin citizens for “rising up in rejection of
[Israel’s] decision to confiscate their lands in favor of settlement
projects.”
The
PFLP called for “uniting all efforts to confront this new project, which
is a repetition of what happened with our people in Khan al-Ahmar.”
KHAN
AL-AHMAR is a Bedouin village located near Ma’aleh Adumim. In 2018, the
High Court of Justice ruled that the village can be evicted because it
was illegally constructed, a move that triggered a crisis and
international outcry and resulted in the postponement of the demolition.
The
PFLP called for a “heroic response” of the Bedouin citizens in the
Negev to Israel’s alleged plan to seize their lands. It also called on
the Bedouin citizens not to serve in the IDF.
“We
call on the masses of our people to mobilize and participate widely in
the demonstrations of anger that will start today [Thursday] and
tomorrow [Friday] in the villages and towns of the occupied Negev,” the
PFLP said.
Maher
Mezher, member of the PFLP Politburo, said what is happening in the
Negev is in the context of the “clash between all Palestinians and the
occupation.”
Mezher
told the Palestinian Quds Network website the Israeli “crimes in the
Negev are a continuation of the frenzied onslaught of settlements and
Judaization in Jerusalem and the West Bank, in addition to the siege of
the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas also accused Israel of seeking to “Judaize” the Negev.
“The
increase in Zionist policies to confiscate Palestinian lands through
the so-called Jewish National Fund confirms once again that the policy
of ethnic cleansing launched by the Zionist movement still governs the
mentality of the Zionist entity,” said Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem.
He
too urged the Bedouin in the Negev to step up their protests “to
consolidate the Arab-Palestinian identity of the occupied territories.”
Palestinian
Islamic Jihad (PIJ) official Ahmed al-Mudalal said the Bedouin in the
Negev and the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east
Jerusalem are in a “state of confrontation with the occupation.”
“What
is happening in the Negev is a crime against our people,” the PIJ
official said. “The Zionist enemy is committing the crime of ethnic
cleansing against our people in the occupied Negev and trying to impose
its Zionist agenda on all the Palestinian lands.”
Mudalal
claimed that the “victory achieved by the Palestinian resistance”
during last year’s war between Israel and Hamas “restored unity to the
Palestinian people in all places of their existence.”
PIJ spokesperson Tareq Ezz al-Din said there was “no difference” between the Negev, Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“What
is happening in the Negev is happening in [the east Jerusalem
neighborhood of] Sheikh Jarrah and [the West Bank village of] Beita,”
Ezz al-Din told Quds Network. “The Palestinian factions and people must
escalate the resistance in all its forms, first and foremost the armed
struggle [against Israel].”
Khaled Abu Toameh
Source: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-692471
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