Bedouin disappointed; rightists critical

Both Bedouin and Jews are disappointed with the Goldberg Committee's conclusions. "Over the last two months they sold us gold-coated words, but the committee's recommendations have taken us back 60 years," said Hasain al-Rifaya, head of the council of unrecognized Bedouin villages.

The head of the Ramat Hanegev Council and the chairman of the Negev Development Authority, Shmulik Riefman, said, "All the fuss was for nothing. The report dumps the decision on the government and the Knesset, and that is a guarantee for failure." Even the Recognition Forum, an umbrella organization fighting for Bedouin rights in the Negev, expressed deep disappointment with the report, because it did not recognize full Bedouin ownership of the lands. Nuri al-Uqbi, who has lived for two years in his car after claiming the state stole his lands, said yesterday, "The committee proposed what the Israel Lands Administration proposed a long time ago."

There were also sharp reactions on the right. Yisrael Beiteinu chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman called on the cabinet to reject the report outright. "The legalization of villages that were established in complete violation of the law is a dangerous precedent," he said. MK Aryeh Eldad (Hatikva) said, "The report boosts Israeli Arabs who want to take over the state. After they whitewash what they have built and stolen in the Negev, they will begin a new round of theft." (Shahar Ilan and Yanir Yagna)