Visitors Now:
Total Visits:
Total Stories:
Profile image
Story Views

Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

Forced Removal of 30,000 Bedouins Reminiscent of Sophiatown in 1955

Saturday, October 20, 2012 9:48
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)

Source: Earth Heal – News For An Earth In Transition

Forced Removal of 30,000 Bedouins Reminiscent of Sophiatown in 1955

The State of Israel’s policies of dispossession and forced removal are a mirror of South African apartheid, with plans to displace 30,000 bedouins in the Negev reminiscent of the forced removals of 65,000 blacks in Sophiatown in 1955.

On September 12, 2012, the Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in Israel’s Negev region was demolished for the thirty-ninth time – despite tenure dating back to the Ottoman period.

More recently the government won the right to build a Jewish settlement on the site of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran. The planned Jewish settlement will become Hiran.

Israeli policies of dispossession reminiscent of South African apartheid

Plans to displace bedouins in Israel are reminiscent of the forced removals of blacks in Sophiatown.

by Heidi-Jane Esakov

During the forced removals of the South African suburb of Sophiatown in 1955, around 65,000 residents were moved and “dumped in matchbox houses” in black townships. Only a few years before that, in 1948, Bedouins of Israel’s Naqab/Negev region, who Israel had not expelled, were also forcibly moved “from their ancestral lands into a restricted zone called the Siyag (literally, ‘fenced in’)”. And, just as Sophiatown was completely bulldozed, the Negev village of Al-Arakib was recently razed to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest.

As a South African it is particularly difficult not to see the stark parallels between the experiences of black South Africans under apartheid and of Palestinians today.

Read more…

Report abuse

Comments

Your Comments
Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

Top Stories
Recent Stories

Register

Newsletter

Email this story
Email this story

If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.