'The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967' as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory | Israel-Hamas war | The Guardian
By: Kerem Navot (the Guardian)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Herders report violence driving them from their homes in accelerating, aggressive and highly effective campaign
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The tiny settlement overlooking the Bedouin village of Ein Rashash is named "Angels of Peace", but, says Sliman al-Zawahri, its residents have visited only violence, fear and despair on his family.
This week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and beside an archaeological site.
"They didn't leave us air to breathe," said Zawahri, 52, describing a months-long campaign of violence and intimidation that intensified in the last two weeks. First villagers were barred from grazing lands, and the spring, then violence reached their homes.
"They came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an 85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became unlivable."
A few men are trying to stay on amid the shells of homes, empty animal pens, smashed solar panels and broken windows, staking a fragile claim to their own village.
The empty village, Ein Rashash. The Bedouin community left this week. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
This was not an individual tragedy. Men from Angels of Peace are part of a broad, violent and very successful political project to expand Israeli control of the West Bank that has accelerated, say activists, since the 7 October attacks by Hamas launched a war with Israel.
The unlikely agents of this land grab are sheep and goats, herded by radical settlers on small outposts.
Taking land by building homes and communities on it is slow and expensive. Taking control of large swathes of dry hills needed to feed a herd of animals, by intimidating and isolating Palestinian shepherds and bringing in another herd, is much more efficient.
"This has been the most successful land-grab strategy since 1967," said Yehuda Shaul, a prominent activist who is director of the Israeli Center for Public Affairs thinktank, and a founder of Breaking the Silence, an NGO that exposes military abuses in occupied areas.
Over the last year alone, 110,000 dunams, or 110 sq km (42 sq miles), was effectively annexed by settlers on herding outposts, he said. All the built-up settlement areas constructed since 1967 cover only 80 sq km.
It was also the biggest displacement of Palestinian Bedouins since 1972, when at least 5,000 - and perhaps as many as 20,000 - people were moved from the northern Sinai to make way for settlements, Shaul added.
Settlers and their political allies have celebrated this relatively new approach.
"One action that we've expanded over the years is the shepherding farms," Ze'ev "Zambish" Hever, the secretary general of the settler organisation Amana, told a 2021 conference.
"Today they cover close to twice the land that the built-up communities cover … we understand the significance of the matter: see, it is a lot."
Houses and sheep pens were destroyed at Ein Rashash in the violence, said Sliman al-Zawahri. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
About 450,000 Israelis have settled in what is now Area C of the West Bank - the area under full Israeli military and political control - since the occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967, some motivated by religious or nationalistic reasons, and others by the cheaper cost of living.
Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as a major obstacle to lasting peace, but until recently most focus has been on communities of houses rather than herder outposts.
In September, the UN warned about rising settler violence targeting Palestinian herders and driving them from their homes and land.
"A total of 1,105 people from 28 communities - about 12% of their population - have been displaced from their places of residence since 2022, citing settler violence and the prevention of access to grazing land by settlers as the primary reason," the United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said.
Now with the Israeli military preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, diplomats concerned about rescuing hostages in Gaza and averting regional war, and a national mood of fury after the massacre of 1,400 people on 7 October, there is little focus on the West Bank.
The abandoned village of Wadi a-Seeq. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
In a climate of fear for Palestinians - the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said soldiers and settlers have killed 62 Palestinians over 10 days - the displacement of herders has sped up, say activists.
The Guardian visited two villages abandoned in less than a week, Ein Rashash and Wadi a-Seeq, and a third where some families were discussing leaving.
"This was already the most significant displacement we've seen since the 1970s. Now you have seen two villages abandoned in one week," Shaul said. "This is on steroids."
Herder settlers living near the village of al-Mu'arrajat had begun stopping Palestinians, asking for their IDs and telling them they had 24 hours to leave their homes, said Alia Mlehat, 27.
They had blocked people from leaving the village, pulled people out of their cars, and driven between homes, she said. They all had assault rifles and sometimes shot into the air.
"Since the beginning of the war, no one can go anywhere," she said. "It is a slow process of deepening fear … there is no way out, as the war has restricted our lives."
The only journeys out of her community now were one-way trips. "One man left already with his wife and children. Five other families are considering leaving," she said.
Alia Mlehat, from al-Mu'arrajat: 'No one can go anywhere … there is no way out,' she said. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
Israeli herder settlers had taken control of 10% of Area C and 6% of the entire West Bank in about five years, Shaul said, citing figures compiled by Kerem Navot, an NGO that tracks settler activity.
The denial of grazing access adds economic warfare to physical violence. Cutting off land for grazing and growing fodder forces herders to sell off some animals, and with smaller flocks, they make less money and are more vulnerable to sickness, injury or other loss.
"Palestinian herders should be self-reliant based on their established livelihoods. Instead they need humanitarian assistance because of settler violence and the failure of Israeli authorities to hold perpetrators accountable," the UN OCHA report said.
The impact was so serious, it may amount to a war crime, the statement added. Along with demolitions, evictions and restrictions on movement and construction, the attacks on herders created "a coercive environment that contributes to displacement that may amount to forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva convention".
The enclosure of herding lands has also left some villages virtually besieged, with people forced to take long circuitous routes to land that is near home but on the other side of a section claimed by settlers.
The abandoned village of Wadi a-Seeq. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
In the most extreme cases, villagers are so frightened of travelling on roads controlled by settlers that Israeli activists from groups that try to protect Bedouin communities - living with them, walking with them as they herd flocks and documenting abuses - are bringing them food and water.
They toosometimes become targets. Hagar Gefen, 71, was beaten so violently last year that she ended up in hospital with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
"Nothing could make me stop," said Gefen, an anthropologist whose sense of humour matches her courage. "Unless maybe they cut off my legs - you have to be able to walk to be with the shepherds."
No one has been prosecuted for that attack, and activists and Palestinians say they have little faith in Israeli authorities in the West Bank. The UN said that in four out of five communities, residents had filed complaints about settler violence, but only 6% knew of any follow-up.
For many communities the displacement is a second upheaval driven by the Israeli state and its citizens. Al-Zawahri's family were forced out of the Negev area in 1948, and wandered for several years before settling in their current homes.
They hope that when the war is over, the Israeli state - or international pressure - will ensure this new exile is not permanent.
"We are eager for the war to finish, to try to come back home," said Ayoub al-Zawahri, 50. "We are living in places that don't belong to us."
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It is difficult to understand what Israel is doing here. The Bedouins are not a threat to Israel and many are citizens of Israel. They serve in the IDF and in fact there is one whole battalion named the Bedouin Battalion. They also have another unit in the IDF that are trackers and they guard some of the most dangerous border areas for Israel.
The Druze also serve in the IDF.
The Bedouin have been in the ME since 6,000 BCE so I believe that they should have their communities and be safe from having their homes and flocks taken by settlers.
This is quite interesting;
I agree, and what goes on in the WB is a big problem, that lays in the current leadership.
It also lies in the 2nd Intifada which followed Yasser Arafat in ability to come to a deal at Clinton's Camp David negations. "I regret that in 2000 Arafat missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being and pray for the day when the dreams of the Palestinian people for a state and a better life will be realized in a just and lasting peace."
During the 2nd Intifada with the suicide bombings of Israelis on buses, restaurants and other public places, mainstream and even leftist Israelis began turning their back on the Palestinians. This is one of the reasons Bibi could stay in power.
It's the Bedouins that are being harrased and driven from their homes and they have done nothing to harm the Israeli's many are citizens of Israel and serve in the IDF. When you do something like that you lose credibility.
A small percentage of West Bank Arabs are of Bedouin heritage. Virtually no Gazans are of Bedouin origin.
There is over 200,000 Bedouins living in Israel and 40,000 in the West Bank and the number in the WB are being driven out because of Bibi and his nutty followers.
There is more than 3M Arabs in the West Bank and 2M in Gaza, few are of Bedouin ancestry.
What is your point, the Bedouins are being driven out illegally by Bibi and his followers. There are also 500,000 plus Jews living in the West Bank.
The article is about how the Bedouins are being treated not how many Arabs are in the WB or Gaza.
Yeah, it's pretty sad. The Israeli government should be stopping it but not necessarily to protect Bedouins. Rather, because settlers shouldn't be doing what they're doing in the West Bank.
Unfortunately, I fear that, regardless of whether Israel were to annex all of the West Bank or, somehow, it becomes a Palestinian state in the future, the Bedouin's time is about over and what is happening now is inevitable. There is only so much land and, Palestinian or Israeli, they're going to take it. That's what always happens. It's happening all over the world right now.
There are over 200,000 Bedouins living in Israel and many are citizens. There are around 40,000 living in the West Bank. The Bedouins have been in the area since 6,000 BCE long before many other groups.
Just from the light reading I've done on the issue since noticing your article the issue is a bit more complex than simply that. In any case, my point isn't whether or not what may be going on is fair or just. I'm simply pointing out that this is all very predictable. Probably inevitable, even. It's also why the Left's ideas of multiculturalism is never going to be a good thing for a society.
I understood your point and perhaps your scenario is inevitable..
If it isn't what should be done in the US which certainly is a huge multiculturial society? Should all the whites go back to Europe, or the Asians to Asia?
Well, I suppose it would be helpful if I defined what I mean by multiculturalism. I don't mean various traditions practiced by various groups. Things like Ramadan or Christmas practiced as holidays, for instance. I mean various people groups trying to live according to their own cultural mores and values rather than assimilate into the dominant culture of their geopolitical society.
Your article touches on this issue indirectly. Bedouins have a nomadic tradition but, with every year which goes by, that tradition becomes more and more impossible to maintain. It isn't anyone's fault. Nor is it moral, in my opinion, to restrict other cultures in order that one culture can remain in the past. Human nature will not allow it. No culture is going to proceed on the assumption that maintaining some other's culture is more important than their own and so, must be worked around so as not to disturb it.
So, to answer your question, what can be done about it, probably nothing. Again, human nature won't allow it. But, if I could impose my desired solution, it would be for people to "get naked" for a moment, metaphorically speaking. Shed national identity. Shed cultural identity. Shed everything except the awareness of being a human being. Then, think about the core things one wants. I want not to be hungry. I want not to be naked, meaning clothes, shelter, safety. I want to have a purpose. I want to be loved.
Then look at all the other humans around oneself and realize they all want the same thing as I do. Then, build a culture from that. Unfortunately, even the best of us can't quite do this. We end up focusing more on our own desires rather than the betterment of others.
As for sending people back to where their ancestors originated, that was never a solution. How far back? Eventually, the entire population of the planet would be standing around in Africa somewhere asking, "Now what"?
Thanks for clarifying it.
I don't see that as a problem in the US. Each wave of immigrants brought their own culture/customs/language to the US except for Native Americans who were here for tens of thousands of years before the Europeans showed up. Each group takes several generations to ''assimilate'' into the American way, which is nothing more than hundreds of mores/values/cultures/food and language melted together.
I do not see it as a problem and speaking for myself I have no interest in giving up my culture/customs/language to satisfy some. The US government tried it for hundreds of years not allowing us to speak our language, outlawing our religions just for starters.
"Now what"?
The land grab on the continent of Africa is largely ignored. There are ongoing battles and hundreds of thousands of people are left homeless.
Ad if I'm not mistaken, the % of Druze in the IDF is higher than the % of Jews!
Integrity of demographics.
What's the point about Bedouins vs other Arabs are being driven out illegally by Bibi and his followers?
BLUF: The Arabs have screwed themselves for decades. Palestinians are professional, multigenerational refugees. They have targeted civilians for a century.
What integrity of demographics? I stated that there are over 200,000 Bedouins in Israel and 40,000 in the WB.
Many Bedouins are Israeli citizens and serve in the IDF. Palestinians cannot serve in the IDF. Only the Bedouins and Druze can and do.
Did you read the article?
Oh, a few Bedouins were taken hostage by Hamas, one is a diabetic and his brother is trying to get insulin to him.
Why are you trying to associate the Bedouins with terrorists?
Actually if I'm not mistaken (I haven't been following developments in the area closely the last few years)., Israeli Jews are drafted into the IDF (both men and women).
All others are draft exempt but can volunteer.
There are also some Christian citizens of Israel (idigenous Christians, who were there long before the first Muslim ever appeared in the area).). Some of them volunteer to serve in the IDF.
A bit of off-topic trivia::
1.At one point over 10% of the population of Egypt were indigenous Christians! They are called "Copts". They are generally mistreated by the Egyptian gov't. I met some in Egypt. When I told them I was American all they wanted to talk about was if I could somehow get them into the U.S.
2. The highest percentage of Christians of any country in the Middle east used to be in Lebanon-- for a while the Lebanese population was majority Christians, well over 50%. Some were murdered or died in wars, but a very large percentage of Christian Lebanese emigrated to other countries.
You are correct Palestinians can volunteer for the IDF. The Druze and Circassian are conscripted.
Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Bedouins are not conscripted, though all of them may still serve voluntarily. Among Israel's non-Druze and non-Circassian minorities, the Bedouin community has been notable for their voluntary contributions to service in the IDF.
I find the Druze and Bedouin people a fascinating group and would love to have the chance to meet with them.
"Why are you trying to associate the Bedouins with terrorists?"
Maybe because they support Hamas terrorists?
Perhaps none of this would be going on if Hamas could learn to live with the Jews instead of eradicating them
I'm not sure Bedouins support Hamas. I think what they mostly want is to live in their own communities (many of which are tent communities in or at the edge of the desert).
At one point the Israeli gov't wanted to help improve their conditions and give them incentives to have their own towns closer to populated areas, offered modern healthcare etc. IIRC they mostly refused, they want to keep their traditional ways.
Bedouins are not terrorists. Sadly the Bedouins living in the West Banks per the article are being forced out violently by Bibi and his followers. I find his criminal. These are people that trace back their time in area to 6,000 BCE and have supported and fought for and are citizens of Israel.
that's my main issue with the israeli gov't. our gov't has looked the other way for too long when it comes to the illegal land grabs and annexations done by bibi and the religious radicals that support him. it makes the US look complicit, we lose credibility dealing with the palestinians and arabs, which the terrorists use as recruiting propaganda.
That is my issue with the Israeli government which is Bibi and his far RW followers. In turning a blind eye to that we lose what little credibility we have with the Arabs and it puts us in a position that if we try to mediate a settlement why in the world would the Arabs trust us? It is, IMO a black mark against Israel one would think that they would understand that pushing out a people that have done them no harm and fight in the Israel army is exactly the type of terror that was used against them.
A growing number of ME nations want normal relations with Israel regardless of Palestinians.
Egypt was first, followed by Jordan, then the USE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Hamas staged this attack to disrupt the peace negotiations ongoing with Saudi Arabia.
There is likely intel being shared amongst these countries as a hedge against Iran.
it's that manifest destiny bullshit all over again, only playing in a different theater. I don't believe in biblical land grants unless I see god's signature on them...
neither side has clean hands on this decades old conflict as there are people on both sides that profit from it.
Yes, that seems to be the consensus.
More than likely and with Jordan and Morocco with the US.
As long as Israel pushes out the Bedouins et al it going to create a problem for them. I think if Bibi loses the election after this is over Israel may stop the land grab.
They do not support Hamas nor any terrorist group. They serve in the IDF and there a Bedouin Battalion and they also serve as border guards in some of the most dangerous border areas.
The Bedouins do not support Hamas. They in fact, participate in many fasciitis of Israeli life. The settlers are a different crowd from Israel proper, and have been allowed to be my the current administration.
Isnt it true that most of the Palestinians in the West Bank do not support Hamas?
I don't think they did any polling, so am not sure.