Home of a Bedouin family from the Naqab demolished by Israel (photo: Amanda Schweitzer).

“The Knesset must legislate a compensation/eviction law for the Bedouins in the South, similar to the compensation/eviction law for settlers from Gush Katif.” So says Minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee, Yaakov Edri, to ynet . Adri suggests generous compensation for lands taken over, relying on recommendations of the committee headed by Judge Eliezer Goldberg which is dealing with this topic. This committee is currently drawing up policy concerning the settlement of Bedouins in the Negev, and Edri suggests that the committee’s recommendations be anchored in law. According to Edri’s suggestion, a precise timetable must be determined for evacuating the lands held by Bedouins. Afterwards, if they don’t leave voluntarily, Edri suggested establishing a special unit of the police and military, the task of which will be to forcibly evict the Bedouins. Edri notes that “we must prepare the enforcement officials, the police and army for implementation of the law, as we did with Gush Katif. One who does not agree to evacuate for compensation – we will treat him as we did with the settlers.” Edri added that after the law passes, the state will be obligated to demolish within a short time period all new illegal building in the Negev. The taking over of state lands by the Bedouins is a phenomenon occurring for years. Past attempts to find practical solutions did not work, and various plans and reports on this matter are gathering dust. At the end of 2007 the government decided to establish the Goldberg Commission. In parallel, an implementation body was established which will act in accordance with the commission recommendations to regulate the settlement of Bedouins in the Negev within five years.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli children from the social periphery attend overcrowded and underfunded state schools, while the Israeli middle class takes care of itself through democratic schools.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli children from the social periphery attend overcrowded and underfunded state schools, while the Israeli middle class takes care of itself through democratic schools.

In Forbidden Reminisces, Ella Shohat examines multiculturalism as an empowering force in which power is decentralised and a clear stand is taken on behalf of the marginalised and oppressed.

I remember the moment in which I began to read Forbidden Reminisces by Ella Shohat. I was sitting outside in the sun, on the sand of Jaffa’s beach. The statement of intention, already, in the opening article of the book, brought me to tears. I mumbled the words as I read them: “Polycentric multiculturalism does not deal with heart-touching emotionalism or sentimentalism toward the ‘unfortunate others’: it deals with decentralizing power, empowering the disempowered, in changing institutions and means of discourse. It does not preach for illusionary equality between perspectives, but takes a clear stance on the side of those whose perspectives are not represented, i.e. to stand at the side of those pushed to the margins and subject to oppression…It does not deal with minority groups as ‘interest groups’ which must be ‘added’ to the existing national or social core, but as active partners and creators in the heart of a joint history that includes from its inception contradictions and struggles.”