Talk Elections

F**king criminals. (http://www.btselem.org/area_c/20140917_plans_to_transfer_bedouins_to_ramat_nueimeh)

absolutely horrifying.

Bedouins are pretty much screwed either way. Palestinians hate them because many of them sided with Israel post-1948 and apparently Israel has decided it has little use for them either.

It says Israel plans on controlling all of Area C.

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Anyone arguing that Israel isn't an apartheid state is off their rocker.

That's a really misleading thing, dumb to say.  There are really legitimate issues when it comes to nomadic people living in a modern country.  I have no idea about this particular village, but Israel does have a problem with bedouins and land rights.  Many bedouins build villages on land they don't own without any building permits or legal right to remain.  Letting people build shacks on land they don't have legal title to is not ultimately a good policy for anyone.  Maybe you Israel haters want this story to be about some secret plan to put all bedouins in ghettos, but that's not at all true.

Imagine if we had bedouins in America, would we be cool with people building villages with no building permits on land they didn't have title to? In America, these people would be arrested.  And, here in the USA, we would consider most bedouins criminals because they're polygamists. 

Thank you. People will say anything to make Israel look bad.

We have the same issue in this country with Irish Travellers.

Because Israel has never built settlements on others' land, right?

That's not the same issue, regardless of how you feel about the merits.  As a matter of basic economic development and planning, you don't want to tolerate unpermitted shanty towns.  It might seem very benevolent to allow people to build wherever they want, but it's ultimately bad for the people living in them.

If this was any other country demolishing a shanty town, nobody would care.  This is a situation where Israel did something and it's bad because Israel did it.  I don't support their settlement policy either, but you're clearly just demonizing Israel. 

Surely then the correct thing to do is to look at how to realistically legalise their way of life, instead of demonising and criminalising?

I mean, to look at the analogy of the Roma in Europe, something like 80% of their applications for planning permission for settlements are rejected, so its no surprise they end up building illegal shanty town.

It seems that forcing the Bedouin out of their way of life will just exarcebate the problem of illegal settlements.

parochial_boy is correct. Dealing with nomadic tribes can be a logistical pain, but this doesn't excuse the Israeli government's tactics.

How would you legalize their way of life? Do away with building codes? Legalize polygamy? Make schooling for children optional?

Maybe Israel could do a better job, I'm no expert.  But, don't act like this is akin to Jews being forced in live in ghettos in Tsarist Russian or something. 

And, I just have to challenge your premise.  You can and should try to accommodate people of different culture and lifestyles.  But, you can't just say, laws don't apply to one group of people and you can never have a system of legal land ownership truly coexist with the system of nomadic tribes.  They just conflict.  How Israel manages that conflict, I don't really know honestly.  But, it's not that simple.

I'll add that recognizing property rights is not some evil capitalist Western scheme.  If you look at patterns of development, it's a huge net plus for the entire social welfare to create well-managed property rights.

No, I agree it isn't simple, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least try to accomodate that way of life, maybe by agreeing specific areas they can use. Forcing people out of their way of life and into sub-standard fixed accomodation is rarely succesful either, to use my previous example, look how poorly integrated European Roma still are to this day.

I wasn't arguing that this is somehow comparable to the Lodz ghetto either, that would be an offensive point to try and make. But, why can't we have a definition of property that includes some scope for communal ownership? it's not like that is completely unheard of as a concept or practice.

Except that Israel does this all the time. Jews are subject to a different set of laws. Orthodox Jews are free to abide by their @$$-backwards Halachic law and Muslims can abide by their @$$-backwards Sharia. This is a country that has yet to grasp the civilized Western concept of secular, civil marriage.

Agree with MasalpinaGold and parochial_boy.  Traditional nomadic societies like the Bedouins and the Roma have a right to preserve their way of life, and if that conflicts with the prejudices and customs of the majority, then the majority needs to be willing to make reasonable accommodations, stop throwing up roadblocks, find a way to accommodate these persecuted minorities within their borders.  Obviously what Israel is doing here is the wrong thing.

Of course, it's equally as dumb and prejudicial to single out Israel, given the sort of sh*t that Europeans have heaped on their Roma, or other Arab countries have heaped on the Bedouins, etc.  What they're doing stinks to high heaven, but it's hardly unique.

Posting an article about Israel qualifies as "singling out?" If someone posted an article about European mistreatment of Roma, would you complain about prejudice against Europeans?

Context matters.

Sure, I agree in general.  I think you need to give Israel some slack though on their specific protection of Judaism.  Israel is the only Jewish state so it has a special duty to maintain Jewish culture.  

No it doesn't. The Jewish citizens of Israel and their organizations are more than well enough equipped to protect Jewish culture without help from the government.

In what context is it prejudiced to post an article about Israeli mistreatment of Bedouins? How is that context relevant to the posting of such an article on Atlas?

Thinking like that would have resulted in no Israeli Mizrahi community.

Sounds a lot like Israeli settlement policy.

I don't agree with Israel's settlement policy either.  But, it's a different issue, it's national claim to land versus individual title to land. 

All quotes from the ASV since despite its language, which is awkward at times, makes clear the distinction between a nomad (sojourner) and other non-Israelis.

Exodus 23:9 And a sojourner shalt thou not oppress: for ye know the heart of a sojourner, seeing ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:10 And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am Jehovah your God.

Leviticus 24:22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the sojourner, as for the home-born: for I am Jehovah your God.

Deuteronomy 10:19 Love ye therefore the sojourner; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 27:19 Cursed be he that wresteth the justice due to the sojourner, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Psalm 146:9 Jehovah preserveth the sojourners; He upholdeth the fatherless and widow; But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

How would this compare to the Reservations in the US?

Native Americans weren't all nomadic.

In terms of forced transfer of certain populations, the US is hardly alone. That's been going on and goes on all over the world.