Home of Bedouin soldier killed in action slated for demolition - Haaretz

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Mon., June 09, 2008 Sivan 6, 5768

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Last update - 07:45 17/04/2008

Home of Bedouin soldier killed in action slated for demolition

By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Israel, IDF, Bedouin, Gaza

Driving along the road from Be'er Sheva to Arad, shortly before the turn toward Darijat, you can see the unrecognized Bedouin village that was home to Manhash al-Baniyat, the Israeli soldier who was killed Wednesday in a clash with Palestinian gunmen near the Gaza Strip border, across from Kibbutz Be'eri.

In order to reach the village, you have to travel for several hundred meters along a dirt path, until you come to a few houses, built close together. One of these is the house Manhash built for himself in preparation for his marriage, next month. Since building permits are not granted to Bedouin, he had no choice but to build the house
illegally. A demolition order has already been issued. The only water pipe leading to the village is also disconnected. Wednesday, a mourners' tent was added to the already harsh landscape, erected by the army. Now that the army's there, at least there's water, someone remarked half-jokingly.

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Musa al-Baniyat was notified of his nephew's death on his pager. The uncle is in charge of the Zaka rescue and recovery service for the unrecognized Bedouin communities dispersed throughout the Negev, and surmised it was his nephew. His fears were confirmed when he, and the rest of the family, arrived Wednesday morning at Soroka Medical Center, Be'er Sheva, where the doctors had fought in vain to save Manhash's life.

The uncle, a tracker in the Israel Defense Forces reserves who served in the career army and whose five sons all served in the army, struggled to take in the news. For two days he had felt his nephew's death was imminent. "I feel guilty, because I persuaded him to enlist," he said, adding: "He was like a son to me. Every time he'd come home he would come see me first, to talk."

Manhash, 20, was the eldest of 18 siblings, born to his father's two wives. He served in the IDF as a tracker, as is customary in his family.

"Here all of the brothers and cousins serve in the army," one relative said Wednesday.

Manhash attended high school in Kseifa, the Bedouin permanent community near his village.

A younger brother is currently in the army.

Asked whether Manhash liked army service, his cousin Awada Smaana gave a sad smile, and said: "That's a tough question. It's a very big dilemma for us, whether or not to enlist. Sometimes you feel like belonging to the state, but sometimes you get fed up because you build a house and they come and destroy it." Smaana grappled with this dilemma himself when he enlisted, caught "between the need to belong and the fact that you feel like you don't belong. It's constant agonizing. I hope our situation will change, but so far it looks like it isn't changing."

Among the mourners who came Wednesday was Faisal Abu Nadi, head of the forum for discharged Bedouin officers and soldiers. The first words he said to the press were: "Why don't you write anything about us? Why do you keep silent about our problems?"

The forum he heads works to increase army enlistment among Bedouin youth. Later he spoke about the challenges army service poses: "The Bedouin soldier who serves is between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand he wants to be part of the state, on the other hand the state does not treat him well, and on the third hand those among Bedouin society who are opposed to enlistment say to him: 'You volunteered, served, and in the end this is how they humiliate you?'"

According to Abu Nadi, 50 percent of Bedouin discharged from the army remain unemployed.

"No matter what we do, no matter how much we prove our loyalty to the state, we will still be third-class citizens, discriminated against," he said.

Reporters Wednesday suspected that the person who persuaded Manhash's relatives not to talk to the media was Yossi Haddad, commander of the tracker unit. In phone conversations with family members, as well as at Soroka, they agreed to let reporters come. But the first reporters to arrive ¬ two Arab reporters from the south ¬ found that Haddad was not permitting access to the family. The IDF Spokesman's Office responded that the reason the family did not want to talk was that army service is not accepted among residents in their area. Nonetheless, family members openly talked about enlistment.

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1.	Very suspect report, many times Haaretz makes up stories	01:45	\|	Genuine Tosefta	17/04/08

2.	Israel is a disgrace! Rotten little ethnocracy!	02:01	\|	Maureen Ann	17/04/08

3.	What a racist society Israel has grown into. JEWS ONLY JEWS ONLY	02:18	\|	POP	17/04/08

4.	#1	03:22	\|	Mike	17/04/08

5.	traitors	03:40	\|	ahmad abouali	17/04/08

6.	collaborators are not respected	04:16	\|	Hugh Ekeberg	17/04/08

7.	"Since building permits are not issued to Beduin?"	04:51	\|	Josh	17/04/08

8.	Was he a patriot or a fool?	05:19	\|	Mark Lincoln	17/04/08

9.	I hope this isn`t true	06:27	\|	Mant	17/04/08

10.	He will burn in this life and the After life!	07:04	\|	Mike Ross	17/04/08

11.	No different than Gush Katif	07:38	\|	Binyamin Dissen	17/04/08

12.	Demolition	08:07	\|	Jake	17/04/08

13.	hero or terrorist, your house gets demolished both ways	08:09	\|	G	17/04/08

14.	Re: Genuine Tosefta; its true	08:30	\|	observer	17/04/08

15.	no good deed goes unpunished	08:42	\|	davidk	17/04/08

16.	Josh - All of Israel is built on illegal land	09:11	\|	Mark	17/04/08

17.	Home of IDF soldier slanted for demo	09:33	\|	Millicent	17/04/08

18.	homes and water	09:44	\|	colin	17/04/08

19.	"Haaretz" has supported jailing of a Beduin IDF soldier who	10:21	\|	Absolute Sweden	17/04/08

20.	Answers are found in the "big picture"	10:30	\|	Natallie Durson	17/04/08

21.	So where will they live?	10:52	\|	bob	17/04/08

22.	Israel is the only democracy!!	11:27	\|	Palestinian	17/04/08

23.	Israelis are such a despicable people	12:05	\|	Johan Odin	17/04/08

24.	My condolences to his family	12:34	\|	Johnny Weintraub	17/04/08

25.	Johan Odin,aren`t you confusing Beduins with Samer in our North?	12:37	\|	Absolute Sweden	17/04/08

26.	unbelievable	12:44	\|	lola	17/04/08

27.	Homes of fallen heroes to be forgotten?	12:45	\|	Magnify	17/04/08

28.	The Human-Dogs!	13:13	\|	Nabulsi	17/04/08

29.	Condolences to the family	14:27	\|	Lynn	17/04/08

30.	To demolish HEROES homes BAD image of Israel	14:30	\|	The Archives	17/04/08

31.	#2	15:06	\|	Rab Burns	17/04/08

32.	Bedouin IDF	15:26	\|	Nomadic Soul	17/04/08

33.	# Natallie, quite right. It is apartheid Israeli style.	15:26	\|	Ben Alofs	17/04/08

34.	Bedouin IDF	15:39	\|	Nomadic Soul	17/04/08

35.	A little reality: The Army treats the Bedouins Nicely!	16:21	\|	G. Lonjalen	17/04/08

36.	What a Grateful Dead?	16:25	\|	Alex	17/04/08

37.	Serving the army	16:29	\|	Suad	17/04/08

38.	This community deserves better	17:00	\|	Nathaniel	17/04/08

39.	fair	23:41	\|	rm	17/04/08

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