Here are
some headlines you might have missed in the last few days. Let’s take a fresh
look at them.
Today’s selection
comes from December 12-15, 2013.
The war
against Israel
-Israel
Complains to Dutch Ambassador Over Water Boycott (12/12/13, Arutz Sheva
-Bill in
Jordan: Violence Against Israel Isn't Terrorism (12/12/13, Arutz Sheva)
-PA Formally
Refuses to Recognize Jewish State (12/13/13, Arutz Sheva
The
Leftist war against Israel
- Haifa University Rejects
Nobel-Winning Professor Over Politics (12/15/13, Arutz Sheva
-Ministers
Endorse NGO Taxation - Livni to Appeal (12/15/13, Arutz Sheva)
- NGO bill approved by ministers
despite controversy (12/15/13, Ynet)
-'Rabbis for
Human Rights' Compares Israel to Czarist Russia(12/12/13, Arutz Sheva)
------
There are
many story lines to talk about during this news cycle. You’ll read about only one
today. For the others, you’ll have to do your own research.
It’s a story
about Arabs and Rabbis.
A Leftist organization
in Israel, called, Rabbis for Human Rights, has come out with a film. The film presents
their position on a controversy in Israel’s Negev region.
The
controversy is about the Bedouin.
Many Bedouin
live in the Negev. According to some, they are the fastest growing population
in the world. They have a terrible housing problem.
These Negev Bedouin
do not live in cities or towns. They live in the desert. They sprawl on land
they do not own. They live in shanties that do not meet Israel’s building code.
Everyone
agrees that Bedouin squat illegally on State land. Everyone agrees that their
encampments lack—for the most part--proper access to water, electricity or
other vital services.
What no one
can agree on is, what to do about it all.
One major
problem is, Israel itself. As everyone who lives in Israel knows, buying a
house in Israel is not easy. If you want to own a house or apartment, you need paperwork.
You must negotiate your way through the bureaucracy. Every Israeli goes through
the same process. Everyone groans.
Except the
Bedouin. They’re not like other Israelis. They’re nomads. They don’t ‘do’
paperwork.
So, unlike everybody
else in Israel, they live where they want—with no paperwork, no permits and no
building codes.
Bedouin are
not, as some claim, ‘Palestinian’. They are a distinct group. They are Israeli
citizens. Unlike many Leftists, they serve in Israel’s army.
They are
also very stubborn.
To help
solve the Bedouin housing/infrastructure/services problem, the government came
up with a plan. The plan was designed to legalize some Bedouin communities,
while relocating others. It would compensate anyone moved.
For a
bureaucratic plan, it seemed perfect. It attempted to solve a big problem with
a little thought. Unfortunately, it had all the makings of being the wrong plan
for the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong place. It may even have been
the one plan that was doomed from the beginning because of anti-Israel politics—which,
of course, the bureaucratic planners had failed to anticipate.
Briefly, the
plan was to move app 30,000 Bedouin from their unauthorized and often isolated encampments
to newly built ‘towns’ (or, perhaps, one ’town’).
On paper,
the plan seemed to address all issues: housing, sewage, clean water, etc.
In reality,
it lighted a fire.
For one
thing, the new buildings to be built were to be typical of Israel. They would
be high-rise apartment buildings.
For Israel,
with limited space, such construction makes a lot of sense. It’s a good idea.
Except for one thing: Bedouin don’t live in high-rise buildings.
OOpps.
Bedouin are
desert people, remember? They live in one-story shanty-type structures. Why
would they move into high-risers?
Nevertheless,
the bureaucrats pushed forward. Supposedly, 15,000 Bedouin had said they wanted
this move (the move is about 5-9 km from where they now live). Supposedly,
someone got Bedouin leadership to approve the plan. Supposedly.
In the end,
everyone got angry. The Bedouin denied agreeing to anything. The Palestinian
Authority accused Israel of ethnic cleansing. As soon as the Europeans heard, ‘ethnic
cleansing’, they jumped on the ‘get-Israel’ bandwagon. Europeans
are like that. They have no clue how Israel works. They have no clue who’s a
Muslim and who’s not, who’s Palestinian, who’s not. They have no clue what the
land here looks like—its geography, ecology, topography, archaeology.
But for
Europeans, when it comes to Jews, ignorance has never been a barrier. As soon
as the Bedouin story hit the news, human rights groups began to cry, ‘ethnic
cleansing, ethnic cleansing’ as if it was a war-cry to call out the anti-Jew
protesters.
Actually, it
is a war-cry. It did call out the anti-Jew protesters.
Somewhere
along the line, a report surfaced that the Bedouin had begun to wave
Palestinian flags. They aren’t Palestinian. Why would they wave Palestinian
flags?
Nobody asked
that question. Nobody cared.
It made the
news. That’s all that counted.
Was any of this
true?
Nobody knew.
This is Israel. Nobody cared.
It was onto
this raucous stage that the Rabbis for Human Rights stepped. They wanted to join
with the innocent Arab vs the evil Jew.
They made a
film. They called the film, ‘Fiddler with no roof.’
Get it? It’s
a variation of the title, ‘Fiddler on the roof,’ an old Broadway musical about
Jews in Czarist Russia.
The point of
the film was that the Bedouin in the Negev are exactly like the Jews of Czarist
Russia. In the film, these Leftist ‘Rabbis’ compared the cruel fate of truly
oppressed Jews of Czarist Russia to the fate of these Bedouin. The film suggested
that if the Jews of Czarist Russia did not obey expulsion orders, they faced
forced cleansing and pogroms; and as one critic of the film said, by watching
this film, “The average person is likely to conclude that the Bedouin” faced a
similar fate.
It was pure
anti-Israel propaganda—with a catchy title.
Well, guess
who came to the rescue? The Europeans and the Leftist Rights Rabbis might not
like this, but the rescuers turned out to be the Jews themselves. Worse still,
it was the very bureaucrat (he shall remain nameless) who supposedly had
started all this brouhaha who ended it: he announced that the plan was dead.
The government (read, ‘bureaucrats’) would start all over again, he said. They
would come up with a new idea because, he said, the Bedouin housing problem
wasn’t going to go away.
Damn Jews. They’re
so evil, they’re actually going to try again to solve the Bedouin housing problem.
What must
the G-d of Israel think of all this?
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