An entire village in the balance

On Thursday, 10 days ago, the building inspectors from the Ministry of the Interior came to Al-Sidr, an unrecognized Bedouin village that is located next to the Be'er Sheva-Dimona highway. They circulated among the 70 tin shacks in the village and pasted court demolition orders on each of them bearing the heading: "The State of Israel versus Unknown."

The buildings are home to 150 members of the Al-Anami family - more than half of them children. If the orders are carried out, the Ministry of the Interior will be able in another 35 days (the legal period for appeal) to erase the entire village from the face of the earth.

"They told us that if we built houses of stone and concrete they would destroy them - so we built from tin," explains Ali al-Anami, a member of the village committee.

The members of his family have resided in the area since before the establishment of the state; until 1982 they lived undisturbed in the area of the Nevatim airbase. Then, in the wake of the peace agreements with Egypt and the withdrawal from Sinai, it was decided to build an Israel Air Force base on the site.

"They came to us from the Israel Lands Administration and asked us to evacuate the area for the airport. We didn't cause any problems, we left the place and moved two kilometers from there," recalled Mohammed al-Anami, another member of the committee. He added that government representatives approved the new location and promised the inhabitants of the village that they would reside there temporarily until a neighborhood was built for them in the recognized village of Arara in the Negev.

"But then the state forgot us for 10 years. Only in 1993 did we receive an offer to move to Arara and to give up our land in exchange for NIS 2,000 per family," says Mohammed.

The residents refused the offer, which they term "insulting." The government once again broke off contact and left them alone for another 11 years - until this past May. Then the Interior Ministry supervisors came to the village and posted warnings before ordering the demolition of all structures in the locale.

Interior Ministry officials turned to the courts to receive the demolition orders and have pointed out that nobody complained about after the warnings were posted. They have claimed that this is enough justification to make the decision with only one side present: "The petitioner cannot prove who carried out the crime [the construction of the house - N.H.], and the person who carried it out cannot be found."

Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court Judge Ido Rozin accepted the claim and approved the demolition orders.

Unique case

Mohammed al-Anami, however, doesn't understand how the people from the ministry are claiming that they don't know who lives in the houses, if during their two visits to the site there were people there. Moreover, immediately after receiving the warnings, Al-Anami turned to a series of official bodies requesting that the demolition orders be canceled; he produced a large package of letters that were sent to the Interior Ministry official responsible for the district, to the ILA, the justice minister, the interior minister and to Ehud Olmert, minister of industry, trade and employment, who is in charge of the Bedouin issue. "I received no reaction, not even a confirmation that they received the letter," he said.

The next contact with the government occured during the distribution of the demolition orders last Thursday. Each one of the 70 tin shacks received one; even a half-built cave that has been used by the family since before the founding of the state was paid a visit by the supervisors.

Al-Sidr is the third village that the state has decided to erase. It was preceded by Umm al-Hiran, a village in the southern Hebron hills with more than 1,000 inhabitants, and by Tel Arad, next to the city of Arad, with about 2,000. However, in both those cases, the inhabitants were personally involved in lawsuits and received orders to evacuate and demolish their houses themselves; this is presently under discussion in the Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court. Several of the residents of the villages received demolition orders as well. They are being represented by Adalah, a nonprofit, Palestinian-run legal center, which recently also made contact with the people of Al-Sidr.

The case of Al-Sidr is unique: This is the first time that all the houses in a village have received demolition orders. Adalah intends to turn to the courts in a demand to cancel the orders.

Most of those involved assume that the mass lawsuits and demolition orders do not testify to a real intention on the part of the government to erase entire villages, but serve as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the residents, so that they will agree to plans for evacuation and transfer to permanent communities. Attorney Suhad Bishara of Adalah is worried, however: "In light of the government decisions to increase enforcement, it's impossible to know whether someone really intends to destroy an entire village."

"While our sons go out to serve in the army for three years, and some of them sacrifice their lives for the state, they don't know if they'll have a house to return to," says Hassin al-Rafia, chair of the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages.

Dr. Tabath Abu Ras, a political geographer who is active in Bedouin society, says, "It's very sad that in a week when Bedouin soldiers die, the government gives the sector the `gift' of a law to remove squatters [see box] and distributes dozens of demolition orders. The government is making a mistake and is trying to escalate the situation instead of looking for creative solutions."

The residents of Al-Sidr actually agree to leave their homes for Arara. The conditions in the village at present are very poor: It has no water, electricity, telephone or sewage infrastructure, and the road that leads to it is occasionally blocked when there are floods. However, there is a debate with other Bedouin groups regarding ownership of the unclaimed lands in Arara. In the meantime, the Al-Anami family will not consent to move to land whose ownership is under controversy and is waiting for the government to find a new place for them to move.

Says Mohammed al-Anami: "Why do they come to us only with the stick? Let them give us an appropriate solution and we'll leave the place. But if they try to destroy us, we will remain on this land at any price."

The Ministry of the Interior replies: "Demolition orders were issued against several buildings in the area, due to infractions concerning construction without a permit in an area that is designated as agricultural and along the fence of the Nevatim airbase - a place where there is no chance of receiving a building permit in the future. The warnings that were posted on the buildings specifically say that the owners must turn to the supervisor, and his phone number and address are included. The letters to the minister and to the person in charge of the Bedouin at the ministry cannot be a substitute for a legal proceeding. A small percentage of the residents agreed to move to a neighborhood in Arara and to destroy their buildings on their own initiative. In any case, the home owners have the option of appealing the orders."