Israeli High Court Votes to Evict Jahalin Bedouins

by Geoff Lumetta

In a recent Washington, DC talk, former Deputy National Security Adviser Peter Rodman called Jewish settlements in the West Bank a “time bomb” that threatens to blow up chances for Middle East peace. The expansion of these settlements has continued, despite the pro-peace stance taken by former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and despite the Oslo accords, which deferred consideration of the settlements until the third and final implementation stage of negotiations. According to Israeli government estimates, over 30,000 Jewish settlers filtered into the West Bank during the four years Labor was in power. One of the largest and fastest growing of these settlements has been on the land occupied by the Jahalin Bedouin tribe just east of Jerusalem.

The Jahalin have fought for years to protect their land from the encroaching Ma’aleh Adumim settlement. Since 1992 the tribe, with the help of Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, has succeeded in staving off the encroaching bulldozers and cement trucks. For the last year Jahalin families have lived in a construction zone—a fence built around their tents has been the only thing keeping out roads, retaining walls, sewage installations and parking lots. But the fight for their land came to an end on May 28, when the Israeli High Court voted to evict the 3,000-member Jahalin tribe, which has lived in the area for over 40 years.

The eviction will allow the continued expansion of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement that currently has a population of over 20,000 and was given 7,500 acres of land expropriated from the Palestinian villages of al-Azariyeh and Abu Dis. High Court President Aaron Barak ruled that the Jahalin must leave the property within three months with a choice of relocating to a site near the Jerusalem garbage dump or receiving monetary compensation. The amount of compensation was unspecified.

The Roman Catholic Society of St. Yves, a human rights group, has been representing Jahalin families in their resistance to the Israeli land grab. St. Yves representatives say there is no suitable place for the 200-250 Jahalin families to resettle and point out that this will be the second time the Bedouin tribe has been displaced by Israel.

In 1950 the Jahalin were “encouraged” by the Israeli military to leave the Tal Arad region in northern Negev where they had lived for generations. “They will be refugees for the second time, forced to leave their home area yet again, further disrupting their lives, which have been compelled to become increasingly sedentary over the years,” the group said in a dispatch from Jerusalem.

St. Yves members allege that the Jahalin eviction is just another attempt to create Jewish settlements to cut off Arab East Jerusalem from the Arab populations of the West Bank. “The Jahalin’s present plight is one by-product of Israel’s feverish efforts to expand the Jewish population of all parts of metropolitan Jerusalem,” they add. The Ma’aleh Adumim settlement would be the eastern tip of a “Greater Jerusalem” that has been planned by some Israeli officials. Ma’aleh Mayor Benny Kashriel points out that “in three years—when they start to negotiate all of Judea and Samaria—Ma’aleh Adumim will be a part of Israel or Greater Jerusalem.”

One of Israel’s own High Court judges expressed concern over the injustice being done to the Bedouin tribe. In a dissenting court opinion, Justice Dalia Dorner criticized the majority opinion that the Jahalin have no legal right to property they have inhabited for years. “An administrative authority that acts with fairness and reasonableness may not evict human beings who reside for years on land without offering them an alternative fair site and even compensation,” the justice said. “We are not talking about an act of mercy to be done outside of the law, but rather a legal obligation which provides an enforceable legal right.”

The dissenting justice went on to state the responsibility that Israel has toward the Palestinian residents of the West Bank. “The authorities of this government are obligated to guarantee the reasonable well-being of the population in the occupied territories,” she said.

Although construction on the houses and villas of Ma’aleh Adumim began in 1982, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that the settlement grew large enough to threaten the Jahalin tents. In 1993 the Israeli government issued eviction orders against the tribe but the St. Yves lawyers stepped in to support the Bedouins. The lawyers persuaded the High Court to issue a temporary order forbidding the eviction in May 1995.

St. Yves’ chief argument in the case was that the original 1981 confiscation of Palestinian property did not include the Jahalin land. The court agreed to look into the matter and a hearing was held in October 1995. At this hearing, however, the state attorney stated that all evidence and minutes from the 1981 decision had been destroyed. It was therefore impossible to tell whether the original order included the Jahalin territory. While this lengthy court case was taking place, however, the Israeli Ministry of Housing sold the property to private contractors. Building increased and the settlement soon began to encircle the Jahalin encampments. The government even petitioned the court to allow building closer to the tents so that no financial losses would occur from delaying construction.

“In essence, the Israeli government intervened on the behalf of private contractors to force construction on stolen lands about which a High Court ruling was still pending,” said the Palestinian human rights group Land and Water Establishment (LAWE), which has been following the plight of the Jahalin.

Although the families have been given until August to leave their property, LAWE said the court’s decision is tantamount to an immediate eviction because the construction makes the area unlivable for the Bedouins. “The heavy building activity effectively will evict the Jahalin even before the three-month period expires,” the group said.