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The Los Angeles Times and the Jahalin Bedouin

(CAMERA) Tamar Sternthal - "Bedouins in the West Bank hold fast to their land - as pressure builds for them to leave," is the Los Angeles Times headline last week about Khan Al Ahmar, the Jahalin Bedouin encampment in the contested E1 area east of Jerusalem. Shlomo Dror, a former spokesman for the IDF's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said in a 1996 interview: "In 1988, the Jahalin tribe moved near Maaleh Adumim. Many members of the tribe work in Maaleh Adumim. They knew the whole time they were on government land." Indeed, a photograph of the site in 1967 shows that Khan Al Ahmar was virtually empty. The 160-person outpost sprung up only within the last 15 years or so, with a significant number of the residents having arrived within the last 10 years. As Ha'aretz reported, "In the past, the Civil Administration has offered residents to move to a permanent location....The Bedouins living in Area C near Maaleh Adumim endure harsh conditions and poverty, and the EU has often provided structures in their villages. These buildings have been put up illegally, but the EU makes sure to put a large sticker with the EU flag on all of them." COGAT said it is currently promoting 12 residential projects including infrastructure for water, electricity and sewage for Bedouin throughout the West Bank. The projects are suitable for the Bedouin lifestyle and many families inhabit the 200 legal buildings that Israel constructed a few years ago in the Jahalin HaVatikah neighborhood of nearby Abu Dis. By encouraging the Bedouin to entrench themselves in illegally-built encampments on state land, while Israel has repeatedly offered alternative housing including infrastructure lacking in their current homes, the EU is exacerbating the Palestinian-Israeli divide. Were the EU to assist the Bedouin to move to nearby legal homes with running water, electricity and sewage, 12-year-old Nasrin would not have to wash her hair with a bucket in her dilapidated shack.
2017-07-14 00:00:00
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