❶ Israel to Displace Entire Palestinian Communities near Occupied Jerusalem

• Background: “Bedouins’ Politics of Place and Memory: A Case of Unrecognised Villages in The Negev.” Nomadic Peoples

. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Settlements watchdog warns of accelerated Israeli land seizures
❷ Israel orders Muslim worshipers to pay $37,000 after destroying mosque
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israel-Funded App Destroys Al-Aqsa Mosque, Builds Temple in Its Place
❸ Israeli soldiers invade many villages near Jenin, abduct one Palestinian
❹ POETRY by Ibrahim Nasrallah
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAEL  TO  DISPLACE  ENTIRE  PALESTINIAN  COMMUNITIES  NEAR  OCCUPIED  JERUSALEM 
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC
Nov. 17, 2017 ― Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to displace and remove dozens of Palestinian Bedouin families living in their communities around occupied East Jerusalem, after deeming their dwellings as “illegal,” to replace them with colonists.     ___His decision was made after meeting with representatives of the so-called “Jerusalem Belt Forum,” which is actively involved in displacing the Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli colonist settlers, in direct violation of International Law.     MORE . . .

• Hall, Bogumila. “Bedouins’ Politics of Place and Memory: A Case of Unrecognised Villages in The Negev.” Nomadic Peoples 18.2 (2014): 147-164.   Source.
  (Note: This article presents the history of the Bedouin presence in Israel. A longer than usual excerpt is printed at the bottom of this posting.)

. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) SETTLEMENTS  WATCHDOG  WARNS  OF  ACCELERATED  ISRAELI  LAND  SEIZURES  
The Middle East Monitor – MEMO  
Nov. 17, 2017 ― Peace Now has slammed a recently issued legal opinion by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit permitting the confiscation of private Palestinian land for the benefit of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), warning it could accelerate land seizures.
___Mandelblit’s legal opinion was published in the context of Haresha, a settlement outpost near Ramallah, whose residents and supporters are seeking the retroactive legalisation of an access road.
___All Israeli settlements, whether state-sanctioned or unauthorised outposts, are illegal under international law, and are considered to form part of an inherently discriminatory regime.
___According to a statement by the settlements watchdog, “confiscating the land would constitute a severe violation of international humanitarian law and of the Palestinians’ right to own property”.  MORE . . .
❷ ISRAEL  ORDERS  MUSLIM  WORSHIPERS  TO  PAY  $37,000  AFTER  DESTROYING  MOSQUE 
Days of Palestine
Nov. 16, 2017 ― Israeli occupation authorities ordered Muslim worshipers to pay NIS130,000 ($37,000) seven years after destroying their mosque in Rahat, south of Israel.
___Be’er Sheva Magistrate’s Court ruled that the founders and operators of the mosque would pay the fine as a compensation for the state of Israel.
___The lawsuit was filed by the Southern District Public Prosecutor’s Office against eight residents of Rahat, who were members of the mosque committee, and demanded compensation of NIS459,500 ($130,000).   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ)  ISRAEL-FUNDED  APP  DESTROYS  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE,  BUILDS  TEMPLE  IN  ITS  PLACE 
Palestine Chronicle  
Nov. 16, 2017 ―  An Israeli tourist exhibit has launched an app which allows visitors to Jerusalem to virtually destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple, furthering the government’s stated commitment to dismantle the Muslim holy site.
___The smartphone app is part of a government funded exhibition entitled “The Western Wall Experience”. When the app is pointed towards the mosque compound, it makes the Dome of the Rock disappear and replaces it with  a Jewish temple.   MORE . . .
❸ ISRAELI  SOLDIERS  INVADE  MANY  VILLAGES  NEAR  JENIN,  ABDUCT  ONE  PALESTINIAN  
International Middle East Media Center – IMEMC 
Nov. 17, 2017 ―   Dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded, earlier Friday, several Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank governorate of Jenin, installed roadblocks and searched cars, and abducted a young man.     ___Media sources said the soldiers abducted Jihad Faisal Bazzour, 28, from Burqa town, west of Jenin, after stopping him at Barta’a military roadblock, while heading for work.   MORE . . .

“RENOVATION,” BY IBRAHIM NASRALLAH
He renovates a tin window
to open it for the morning birds.
And renovates some stars that have burned out
in the streets, and a woman massacred in the neighborhood.
He renovates a memory demolished like a wall,
a bird’s scattered ashes,
light reflected off a blade in the dark,
a woman lost in a spacious bed
and a bellow.
He renovates a friend’s face as the sea breaks over it
and the singer who no longer resembles his songs,
the wind when it sleeps forgetting the immensity of an orbit,
the taste of words in conversation,
the taste of air and fruit
and two legs that have never carried a planet
while destruction prevails.
He renovates a womb, subdues horses
and poems that beg for livelihood in the shade
before slipping into a chicken coop or blowing by
like a steaming train.
He renovates pillars, neighs,
guns covered with moss from waiting.
He renovates a promise, roots, clouds,
and in the end he is slain alone like a lighthouse.

From Nasrallah, Ibrahim. RAIN  INSIDE:  SELECTED  POEMS. Trans. Omnia Amin and Rick London. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 2009. Available from Amazon.
About Ibrahim Nasrallah

• From: Hall, Bogumila. “Bedouins’ Politics of Place and Memory: A Case of Unrecognised Villages in The Negev.”
  [. . . .] during the latter stages of British rule, there were between 60,000 and 90,000 Bedouins in the Negev region, occupying 98 per cent of the Negev lands, only 11,000 remained after the creation of Israel. Some of the Bedouins fled . . . while others were expelled to Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai during and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. This was followed by the policy of further displacements of the Bedouin community . . .  Using martial law, Israel relocated the Bedouin to a restricted area, in the north-eastern part of Negev, called ‘Siyag’ (whose literal translation refers to fence) . . . which they were not allowed to leave without official permission. The policy did not aim to settle the Bedouins, as they had already been sedentarised, but rather to remove them from their lands and concentrate the maximum number of people on the smallest possible space. This led to the situation in which the Bedouins were concentrated on ten per cent of the land they used to occupy, and kept under control and military rule until 1966.  [. . . .] In the mid-1960s, by the end of the military rule, the policy of land expropriation was followed by a new strategy. In 1965 the ‘Planning and Building Law’ . . .  denied the existence of Bedouin villages and defined them as agricultural territories, which meant that the villages were to be omitted from all master plans and no building permits could be granted. As a result, any construction on Bedouin land was by definition illegal . . .  The same law also provided for the demolition of unlicensed buildings and deemed necessary the confiscation of land if it was needed for public purposes. The consequences of the ‘Planning and Building Law’ were therefore twofold: firstly, by not recognising the Bedouin villages it condemned their inhabitants to marginalisation; secondly it transformed the dwellers of these grey zones into ‘lawbreakers’, ‘trespassers’ and ‘squatters on the state lands’. . .  the only way for Bedouins to escape this ‘illegality’ was to leave their ancestors’ land. In 1969, Israel enacted the Land Rights Settlement Ordinance, which declared that ‘lands, which at the time of the enactment of this law were classified as mawat, will be registered in the name of the State’. . .      ___Rendering historical Bedouin villages illegal and turning their land into state property was accompanied by a policy of transferring the rural community to government townships, where ‘they would modernise, develop new habits, and become accustomed to life in permanent houses’.  [. . . .] Since Bedouin localities do not exist, according to official records, the Bedouins are denied building permits and all basic services, such as electricity, running water, public transportation and sewage systems. According to Nūra, one of the female activists from al-Sirra, this systematic exclusion can be compared to a ‘slow execution of the villages and their residents.’ Yet, the Bedouins refuse to leave these spaces of denial and instead, relying on their own efforts and creativity, domesticate the landscape of unrecognised villages and transform them into self-governed entities with their own institutions and rules. [. . . .]