The Israeli Press Has Failed The Bedouins.

Longstanding Bedouin communities inside of Israel
are being uprooted
while the media is silent and the public is deaf

IN 2024

4,911

Structures
Demolished

4 Communities
Uprooted

5,000

People Lost Their Homes

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter"

- Thomas Jefferson, 1787

Mission

Without a functioning free press, human rights cannot be guaranteed, and this is where the Media Department of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages, established in late 2023, comes in. Since we began our work, we have reached millions of Israelis through social media and hundreds of stories we initiated in mass media in Israel and worldwide. However, most coverage didn't address land issues and violence against Bedouins. We need your support to significantly expand our activities and reveal the public to the home demolitions happening every day.

Only with a knowledgeable public we will bring the recognition of the unrecognized villages in the Negev. Thank you!

Background

Currently, the Israeli government is implementing a "population replacement plan in the Negev": demolishing 14 villages and communities (4 have already been destroyed since last May), home to about 9,000 residents, and establishing about 20 new Jewish settlements in the same areas, sometimes in the exact same locations. Meanwhile, various government plans threaten tens of thousands of families in Bedouin villages. These crimes occur with almost no media coverage. More than 300,000 Bedouin citizens in the Negev suffer from severe discrimination, including the demolition of approximately 4,000 homes annually and the displacement of thousands of families, largely because most Jewish media outlets in Israel cover them in a biased manner that aligns with Israel's far-right government. The Jewish media in Israel, except for "Haaretz," rarely covers routine extreme violence against Bedouin citizens, let alone other human rights violations, and the situation in the Negev is becoming increasingly similar to what occurs in the occupied West Bank. Worse still: The Jewish media is largely an active participant in severe and long-standing incitement against Bedouin citizens in the Negev, portraying them as prone to criminality, invaders, and land thieves. Against this backdrop, about 150,000 Bedouins living in villages suffer from extreme discrimination in services: they lack basic infrastructure, building permits, connection to electricity, water and sewage networks, proper educational institutions, waste disposal services, and more.

What is an unrecognized village? You live in a place where from the start you were born outside the law. Your house is illegal. The path to your house is illegal, the water you receive is semi-legal. Everything is outside the law - and from there it's very easy to attack you. 'Invader', 'illegal construction'. But you haven't given any of these hundred thousand residents an alternative solution.

Now, with the increase in demolitions, the young generation and existing residents have no housing solution. What does a 25-year-old who wants to start a family like any other person do? What solution is available to them? Move to one of the recognized villages? There's overcrowding there and no solutions. Move to a Jewish settlement? If they're lucky and have money, lots of money, they'll face acceptance committees, and maybe all kinds of conditions that the contractor will set, who fears that if they sell them an apartment, the rest of the building won't sell.

They leave a population without solutions, and the lack of data allows some parties to ignore the problem, and other parties to amplify it and gain many votes through incitement over the issue of unrecognized villages.

Dr. Kaed Ela'atmin

- Dr. Kaed Ela'atmin