After more than 20 years since the Israeli government decided to establish Dror, a Jewish settlement of 2,500 families or 10,000 residents, and the defeat of countless Bedouin lawsuits against the plan, work has begun this week to finally turn the plan into reality.
In the area where the settlement was planned stood the illegal Bedouin village of Umm al-Khiran, which the state wanted to evacuate. In 2004, representatives of Umm Al-Khiran appealed to the Magistrate’s Court in Be’er Sheva against the decision to establish the settlement, claiming that the state was the one that established their village in the 1950s.
In June 2007, the state destroyed 30 homes in the Bedouin village.
In 2009, the Magistrate’s Court ruled that the petitioners did not prove the acquisition of rights to the land and rejected their petition.
They appealed the verdict in the District Court, and in 2011 the District Court adopted the conclusions of the Magistrate’s Court.
The petitioners appealed to the Supreme Court.
In 2010, the National Council for Planning and Construction decided to recognize the settlement of Dror, but following the intervention of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office, the Council reversed its decision the next day.
During the 2014 hearing at the Supreme Court, the question arose as to why not legalize the village of Umm Al Hiran, which previous rulings had already determined that its residents were not trespassers, having been settled there by the state. Why not, instead of evicting them and establishing a new settlement on their land, establish a joint settlement for Bedouins and Jews instead?
Would you like blintzes with your camel?
The state representative refused to respond to the offer because it’s impolite to call a Supreme Court Justice an idiot.
.
In May 2015, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Bedouin residents, and Justice Elyakim Rubinstein ruled that the people of Umm al-Khiran had no rights to the land and therefore the government’s actions did not violate such rights.
Judge Dafna Barak Erez wrote in a minority opinion that the government should reconsider the proposed compensation because the Bedouin had lived in Umm al-Khiran for decades. She proposed to allocate them plots of land in the new Jewish settlement.
Yes, children, the highest court in the land harbors anti-Zionist judges. Why not read up about how Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch decided on her final days in office to yank out a perfectly good law that coordinated the Haredi draft because it wasn’t working fast enough – which eventually threw the country into three years of government instability complete with five elections.
But enough about sad things like Dorit Beinisch and Dafna Barak Erez. Today we celebrate a brand-new Zionist future in the south, a small Jewish town that will serve as a bulwark against Bedouin expansion, help put a stop to Bedouin crime, and help establish a contiguous, safe Jewish State between Tel Aviv and Eilat.
