Thousands of Bedouins protest in southern Israel over evacuation plan

Thousands of Bedouins took to the streets of Israel's southern city of Be'er Sheva on Thursday to protest at a controversial resettlement plan which would displace more than 30,000 Bedouins living in the Negev Desert. The protesters raised banners reading "The people want to overthrow the plan," "Don't displace us from our villages," and " policemen in the Negev are above the law." The plan has been approved in principle in September 2011 by the former cabinet, and now is awaiting approval by the parliament. The plan recommends allocation NIS 1.2 billion (around 300 million U.S. dollars) to expand and relocate Bedouin communities and offers a regulation process according to which the lands will not be registered to their Bedouin owners but to be turned over to the state. There are approximately 200,000 Bedouins living in southern Israel. Bedouins are a desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group, more than half of them reside in the Negev Desert. They live in towns and villages, most of which were built before 1948, without infrastructure or construction approvals from the government. They do not get the same services as Jewish residents of the area. On Wednesday, members of the progressive Jewish reform movement urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set aside the legislation process to authorize the plan. In a letter sent Sunday to the Prime Minister, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the movement's religious action center said that "any plan to resettle the Bedouin community must be developed with its leaders rather than be forced upon them."