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The State of Israel has reached an
important crossroad. For some months now the nationalist camp,
aided by the media, has been trickling into the public discourse
the idea of expulsion, branded in Israel as "transfer",
despite the fact that it is antithetical to both international
norms and human rights covenants. There are, of course, various
formulations for how the transfer of the Palestinian population
should be carried out, ranging from the aggressive version
proposed by ex-minister Avigdor Lieberman, through the 'soft'
version of "voluntary transfer" according to the right
wing party "Moledet," and all the way to the idea of
abrogating the political rights of the Palestinians and
transferring them from their land and homes "only at a time
of need," as suggested by Minister and inner Cabinet Member
Efi Eitam.
Accordingly, the idea of expelling Palestinians from their land is
already deeply entrenched in the political discourse, and has
acquired legitimacy within broad sectors of the Israeli public.
Labor Party Minister Ephraim Sneh's new plan, which proposes
territorial exchange of Arab localities in Israel with West Bank
Jewish settlements, suggests that even segments within the Israeli
peace camp are prepared to adopt political programs inspired by
the "transfer" idea.
Recently, the transfer proponents have been handed the chance to
begin implementing an expulsion at the expense of a particularly
weak Palestinian population, the cave inhabitants living in the
South Hebron region of the occupied West Bank. The impact of such
an expulsion, particularly as a political and legal precedent,
cannot be overstated. A "small" transfer now is likely
to sanction more extensive expulsions in the future, just as the
first entry of the Israeli military into Area "A" during
summer 2001 prepared the ground for the massive and deadly
invasion dubbed "Defensive Shield."
Here are some of the facts. The cave dwellers live off of
agriculture and tending flocks, and have preserved a unique
cultural way of life since the early 19th century. After the 1948
war they lived under Jordanian rule, while losing all their land
located on Israel's side of the border. Following the occupation
of the West Bank in 1967, Israel set up military bases on parts of
their property and closed off a whole section for training
purposes. The inhabitants' living space was accordingly already
small when the government began (in the early 1980s) to establish
Jewish settlements in the region- such as Carmel, Maon and
Susiya - a considerable number of which were founded in an
attempt to create territorial contiguity beyond the Green Line.
During the 1990s, particularly when Ehud Barak was prime minister,
Jewish ranches were established alongside the settlements, causing
additional friction with the Palestinian population.
In May 1999, Barak's government, in coordination with settler
leaders, carried out the first organized expulsion, in which 750
local residents were driven out of their homes on the pretence
invading state land. Despite a Supreme Court injunction permitting
the Palestinian residents to return to their land, the cave
dwellers continued to be exposed to pressure from the Israeli
military and Jewish settlers; pressure that included the
destruction of houses, tents and caves, ruining water holes,
uprooting olive trees, and preventing the residents from reaching
their land for purposes of cultivation and grazing.
Simultaneously, the government continued to expropriate more land,
setting up illegal Jewish outposts and issuing writs limiting the
stay of Palestinian residents in the area. The principle was to
establish facts on the ground.
Shakespeare
It was Shakespeare who wrote somewhere that "there is
method behind the madness." And indeed, all these actions
were carried out by the military, whether the Defence Minister was
Arens, Barak or Ben-Eliezer with the aim of exhausting the
residents and forcing them out. It seems that the Defence
Ministers acted according to a premeditated plan whose practical
purpose is to annex the whole area to Israel "clean" of
Arabs in order to create a corridor from Be'er Sheva to the Jewish
settlement Kiryat Arba. This claim is not a figment of our
imagination, since it appears on the maps the Israeli delegation
presented the Palestinians during the Camp David talks.
Population Transfer
The threat of transfer has been hovering over the cave dwellers'
heads even since the 1999 expulsion, and it is at the end of this
June that the Supreme Court is scheduled to convene in order to
discuss their status. Underlying the verbal 'laundering' of
'security considerations' or 'illegality' is a vital question:
Will the Supreme Court permit the Sharon- Ben Eliezer -Eitam
government to carry out a "population transfer". If the
Court decides to expel the Palestinian residents it will create a
dangerous precedent, essentially granting legal, political and
moral legitimacy to transfer. A decision of this sort will shake
the precarious barriers still holding back the expulsion option,
and the inevitable horrific consequences of escalating the bloody
conflict. It is with great apprehension that we wait to see
whether the Supreme Court will turn a blind eye to the cave
dwellers' plight or whether it will prevent the further
deterioration of ethnic relations in this troubled land.
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Oren Yiftachel is the head of the Geography Department and Neve
Gordon is a lecturer in the Politics and Government Department,
both at Ben Gurion University, Israel.
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