Conflict over desert trees divides Israeli government

The Bedouin’s stumbling block is a tree-planting project in one of their villages near the city of Beersheba. A state-affiliated Jewish organization began preparations for the reforestation this week. Jewish parties see the plantation as a way to develop the area, but the Bedouins fear another attempt to take their land.

“Look, all around us, forests have already been planted all around us, on lands that actually belong to us,” says Aziz al-Touri. He has been fighting a battle on the ground with the Israeli authorities for years. The place where he lives is not registered as his property, so the simple houses his family builds there are always demolished. “The state does not recognize that this land is ours, but we refuse to give up,” al-Touri said.

It draws the persistent conflict. Bedouins like al-Touri claim property rights in the Negev desert, where they lived as semi-nomadic tribes before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. But according to the government, the vast majority of the area belongs to the state.

“Make the Desert Bloom”

And Israel has plans for this region. “Making the desert bloom” was already the dream of the country’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. It is therefore part of a tradition that the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the organization behind the reforestation plans, also wants to plant this part of the Negev.

“We plant trees to improve the environment and the climate, on behalf of the Israeli government,” said a spokesperson for the JNF, which manages large tracts of land in Israel. “This land belongs to the state, let that be clear.”

This is a problem faced by many Bedouins: the land where they live, according to Israel, does not belong to them. Many of the Negev’s 200,000 Arab residents live in villages that are not officially recognized. They usually have no connection to electricity, running water or other facilities. Unemployment and poverty are much higher in the region than in other parts of Israel.

“People more important than trees”

There is a party in the nascent Israeli government that stands up for the people of the region. It is the Joint List, which has many supporters among the Bedouins of the Negev desert and promises to improve their living conditions. Since the summer, the Islamo-conservative party has been part of an Israeli government coalition for the first time in history.

The party intervened this week. “Trees are not more important than people,” party leader Mansour Abbas said, and he threatened a cabinet crisis if the planting was not stopped. no longer endorsed the proposals of the UAE government.

This had an effect, and eventually the ruling parties reached a compromise to postpone the work. This gives parties the chance to get back to business as usual without losing too much face, and it means the ragtag eight-party coalition is still in the saddle. At least until the next crisis arises.