24
August 2015

I
have written recently about
Israel’s efforts to wipe off the map the 1,000-strong Bedouin community of Umm
al-Hiran in the Negev (Naqab) so that Jews can live in their place. Dozens of
other Bedouin communities in Israel – known as “unrecognised villages” and
representing tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens – are facing similar
fates.

The
short animated film below adds another absurdist angle to the Umm al-Hiran
story.

Appealing
to racist assumptions about the Bedouin, Israel has claimed that it cannot
provide services such as electricity and water to what it calls “scattered”
communities like Umm al-Hiran, even though the Bedouin have been settled in Umm
al-Hiran in large numbers and in permanent homes for decades after their
forced removal from their own ancestral lands at Israel’s creation.

Right
next to Umm al-Hiran is one of what Israel terms Negev “ranches” – usually run
by a single (Jewish) family and styled on the huge ranches familiar from Texas.
Ariel Sharon owned a famous one in the Negev. Despite the tiny number of
(Jewish) people living on these ranches, and their scattered nature, they are
instantly connected to water and electricity by the state.

The
family running the one next to Umm al-Hiran has made it a dog hotel (and a pet
cemetery), where the dogs have more rights than the inhabitants of Umm
al-Hiran. You can visit the dog hotel’s website here.

As
the film concludes, there’s a word for this: it’s called apartheid.

– See more at: 

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