Israel: Kangaroo Court rejects Bedouin petition against eviction orders

Residents of Umm al-Hiran protested the removal of their village, which is unrecognized by the state


Israel's Supreme Court rejected on Thursday a petition by residents of Umm al-Hiran, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the south of the country, against the removal of their community.

A new town for Jewish residents is to be built on the disputed land.

According to the court ruling, the land in question is state-owned and the Bedouin.

“The state is the owner of the lands in dispute, which were registered in its name in the framework of the arrangement process; the residents have acquired no rights to the land but have settled them [without any authorization], which the state cancelled legally," Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein wrote, "In such a situation, there is no justification for intervention in the rulings of the previous courts."

The Supreme Court decision concerns the eviction orders only. A local magistrate's court is expected to hold a hearing within several weeks regarding the demolition orders for the houses in question.

Two months ago, a four-day march led by Arab Israeli MPs in solidarity with Israel's impoverished Bedouin community wound up at the Jewish state's presidency.

President Reuven Rivlin's office said Arab representatives delivered a report on the hardships faced by Bedouin villages to his wife, Nechama, as the head of state was in Singapore for the funeral of its founding father Lee Kuan Yew.

She would hand over the report to the president on his return.

Israel's top Arab MP, Ayman Odeh, began the 100-kilometer march on Thursday with several dozen supporters, saying their aim was to put a spotlight on the "human misery" faced by the Bedouin.

The march started in the Bedouin village of Wadi al-Naam near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba but not recognized by the authorities.

Odeh has pledged to secure formal recognition for more than 40 Bedouin villages which have no running water, are not connected to the electricity grid and lack basic infrastructure because of their unrecognized status.

He visited several of the largest villages on the march to Jerusalem.

Around 260,000 Bedouin live in Israel, more than half in unrecognized villages without utilities. Many live in extreme poverty.

http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/70157-150506-israel-supreme-court-rejects-bedouin-petition-against-evacuation-orders