Latest Update: The Prawer-Begin Bill will be brought to the Knesset on Monday 27 May 2013. That same day, Adalah and the Negev Coexistence Forum will deliver your signatures to key decision-makers. Sign now to stop this devastating legislation.

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On 6 May 2013, the Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved the proposed “Law for the Regulation of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev – 2013” (Prawer-Begin Bill). The legislation, which will be brought to the Knesset directly to a first reading, will serve as the implementing arm of the Prawer-Begin Plan, the government’s overarching policy framework for the Arab Bedouin community. If enacted into law and implemented, the plan would forcibly displace tens of thousands of Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the unrecognized villages in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of Israel. The Prawer-Begin Plan will dispossess the Bedouin of their property and historical rights to the land, destroy the social fabric of their communities, and condemn thousands of families to lives of poverty and chronic unemployment.

The representatives of Bedouin villages have repeatedly attempted to engage the government in a dialogue about the plan, but have been rebuffed. They assert that the law and the policy that it embodies are based on false and discriminatory views of the Bedouin as trespassers on their land. The Prawer-Begin Plan ignores the fact that most of the Bedouin villages have existed in their present locations since before the establishment of the state of Israel, or were created when the Israeli Military Government forcibly displaced the Arab-Bedouin to the Siyag region of the Naqab in the 1950s.

A just and feasible solution first and foremost requires recognition that the Bedouin residents of unrecognized villages are equal citizens with equal rights. The unrecognized villages must be recognized and planned according to fair planning standards, and the land ownership rights of the Bedouin must be formally acknowledged.

For more information please visit:

Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel - www.adalah.org

The Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality - www.dukium.org