A one-week hunger strike by a group of Bedouins and their Jewish supporters ended yesterday with a decision to end their campaign against a bill that would allow the government to seize some 40,000 acres of Bedouin land in the Negev without the right to appeal. The strikers decided to end their action in response to appeals from Bedouin sheikhs. The Bedouins apparently want to take advantage of a newly appointed public committee which would resolve the issue within a three-month time limit.
The first reading of the bill was passed in the Knesset last week by a narrow margin of 46-44, with the Labor Alignment leading the opposition to the measure. If the bill is passed on its second and final third reading, some 6000 Bedouins will have to evacuate the Tel Molhata area south of Beersheba in order to allow for the early construction of one of three U.S.-financed air bases to replace those Israel will give up in Sinai.
Under the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the bases must be completed within three years. For that reason, the government-sponsored bill bans the right of the Bedouins to appeal the confiscation of their land, a process that could seriously delay work on the airfields. The Bedouins would be offered compensation, however, and the right to appeal this offer if they consider the offer to be insufficient.
At a press conference Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir held yesterday, he said that the public committee would include a representative of the government, a retired judge and a representative of the Bedouins. He promised the Bedouins they could settle in agricultural settlements; as they have asked for.
Tamir said the requisitioning of land at Tel Molhata resulted from the peace treaty. Israel, he noted, had to find a replacement for the Eitam and Etzion airfields in Sinai “otherwise our planes would have to be stalled.” He added that there is “therefore a supreme national need to take the area needed to build the base.” Tamir argued that the compensation the government is offering the Bedouins was fair and liberal and double that offered by the previous government.
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