Haifa district court last week rejected a petition to connect the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev to clean water sources, citing the larger underlying issue of village regularization.

In its session as a water court, the court ruled that the water commissioner has no authority over considerations pertaining to town regularization in Israel, and therefore rejected to appeal by the Adalah Legal Center on behalf of over 100 Negev families.

The Adalah Center plans on appealing the decision with the Supreme Court. They said there is no connection between realizing the basic right all state residents to clean water and the legal standing of the Negev towns.

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In the appeal filed by the organization against the water commissioner, it claimed that the right for a guarantee of minimal sustenance conditions is anchored in Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, as well as in international law.

Even so, Judge Ron Shapira stated in his decision that behind the appeal lies a larger issue of the regularization of "Bedouin settlements," and added that a public interest exists "not to encourage additional illegal settlement."

The court ruled that it does not ignore the problem of discrimination against the Bedouin residents, but that in the court's opinion, the problem of unrecognized villages cannot be resolved in this manner.

The Adalah Center said the ruling meant that the court decided the right to water is not absolute and can therefore be limited.

"The court's decision in effect makes the water commissioner a tool in the hands of the government, which works to expel Arab-Bedouin citizens, residents of unrecognized villages in the Negev, through the non-provision of basic services, such as the right to clean drinking water," the center said.

The appeal against the commissioner's decision was submitted in April 2005, and the ruling on the matter was delivered to the Adalah Center offices last Thursday.