By Amira Hass
"Unless immediate action is taken to destroy the public buildings at the site, the illegal settlement there will be a fait accompli and could effectively dictate the status of the whole huge area between Ma'aleh Adumim and the Dead Sea ... It is easy to anticipate the complications the authorities would face when coming to implement demolition orders against a religious place of worship and a school, once their construction is completed and they begin to fulfill their functions."
This is not a warning from the Palestinian Authority or Peace Now about a Jewish settlement in the West Bank: It is a petition, submitted in September 2009, to the High Court of Justice to order Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the head of the Central Command Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni and the area's Civil
Administration chief, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, to exercise their authorities as representatives of the sovereign power in the West Bank to destroy structures that the Bedouin-Palestinian Jahalin tribe has built.
About two weeks ago, the High Court had its say on the matter. Actually, Justices Uzi Vogelman, Esther Hayut and Isaac Amit ruled simultaneously on two petitions. One urged the legal authorities to immediately order - or at least set a timetable for - the demolition of the structures, on the grounds
that they constitute unauthorized construction on state-owned lands. That petition was filed by attorney Amir Fischer on behalf of the Kfar Adumim settlement, together with the Regavim association. The other petition was filed by attorney Shlomo Lecker on behalf of the Jahalin residents who seek to have their school left intact, and to take measures which would remedy decades-old discrimination against the Bedouin in that area. While the Civil Administration had issued demolition orders, the High Court of Justice ruled in its decision that the structure could remain in place until the end of the school year.
The issue began last summer when Bedouin in the are built a school from used car tires, sand and mud in Khan al-Ahmar, southeast of Jerusalem, alongside the highway to Jericho. It was very cheap, environmentally friendly and provided natural insulation - unlike the other structures that Regavim also
wants to see demolished: tin huts that are stifling in the summer and freezing cold in the winter, or the windswept tents and flimsy sheds that typify the residents' dwellings.
Some 90 children, aged 6 to 10, have been studying since August 2009 in this ecologically friendly facility, which has made it possible for Bedouin youngsters, especially girls, to comply with the Palestinian Authority's laws regarding compulsory education. Some parents cannot afford the daily
bus ride to the school in Azzariyeh or to the one in Jericho. Furthermore, many are afraid of the children being involved in accidents along the busy highway while they wait for transportation.
However, the issue at hand far exceeds the problem of destroying a homemade building or preventing girls from dropping out of school.
First of all, Regavim - which submitted its petition along with Kfar Adumim and its Alon and Nofei Prat suburbs - describes itself as a "nonpolitical movement that seeks to preserve the nation's lands and assets, to prevent various groups from illegally seizing control of these territorial assets and to monitor the way the administrative authorities handle such matters so as to ensure that they follow proper procedures."
In its petition, Regavim wrote: "Within the area of jurisdiction earmarked for Kfar Adumim and its future development, there used to be a few Bedouin tents ... [However,] in recent years many Bedouin Palestinians migrated there and, within Kfar Adumim's bounds, erected solid structures, prepared
[land for] agriculture, and illegally seized [land] on a massive scale, in violation of the law ... [They] severely harm the appellants' natural and public spaces, and the areas designated as reserves for natural growth."
Moreover, the appellants claimed that in recent years, the Jahalin tribe erected 257 illegal structures on state-owned land, and that the area "along this strategic axis [Route 1, which links Jericho to Tel Aviv via Jerusalem] is being taken over, on a daily basis, by the owners of the structures - Palestinian Bedouin who behave as though they own that area ... which all Israeli governments treat as an inseparable part of the State of Israel."
Shlomo Lecker is one of the veteran Israeli lawyers who represent Palestinians - in particular, Bedouin in Area C. His efforts, for example, have enabled hundreds of cave dwellers to return to some 30,000 dunams of land (four dunams is approximately one acre) in the southern Hebron Hills. Another of his appeals led to the cancellation of a 70-kilometer-long stretch of the security barrier in the Ma'aleh Adumim area, which would have deprived Palestinians of 66,000 dunams of land.
In rebutting the Regavim and Kfar Adumim petition, which was submitted to the High Court last February, Lecker reminded the judges that the village of Khan al-Ahmar existed long before the establishment of Kfar Adumin in 1979. Now it is a collection of tin shacks, covered with burlap and boards, on the outskirts of the luxurious neighborhoods of Kfar Adumim and Ma'aleh Adumim. He added: Ma'aleh Adumim's area of jurisdiction covers 48,000 dunams, that of Kfar Adumim is 16,000 dunams, and the entire area targeted by Regavim's petition is a meager 150 dunams.
Moreover, Lecker claimed: "There are no 'migrants' in the tents there; all the people are the original residents and their offspring, and any additional huts are because of natural population growth." He stressed that the school, the rickety dwellings and the adjacent animal pens are located on recognized, privately owned lands leased from the residents of the nearby village of Anata.
In addition, there has been no "massive seizure" of lands, Lecker declared. Quite the contrary: In the past, the Bedouin's herds used to graze in areas that have been turned into a military firing range or have become part of a Jewish settlement's jurisdiction, so now their movements and livelihood are restricted.
Lecker appended to his petition a formal opinion drafted by Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights, a nonprofit human rights organization, which outlines the history of the Jahalin people in the area in question since 1948, when they were forcibly relocated from the Negev to the West Bank. Two of the 12 sections of the document relate to the history of the Jewish settlements there, particularly Kfar Adumim.
According to that document, which is based on official data, Kfar Adumim's detailed master plan was only approved nine years after its establishment. When the Regavim petition was submitted to the High Court, there were 300 illegally built structures in Kfar Adumim and its suburbs.
Referring to Lecker's claim of discrimination, Justice Vogelman declared:
"Even if we assume, for argument's sake and without even ruling on this matter, that the petitioners [the Jahalin] have a case when they argue that the respondents did not seek to obtain a master plan that would make it possible for them to receive building permits - that should not halt the process of enforcement [of rulings] in light of the illegal construction. However, the High Court expects the state to fulfill its promise to initiate proper planning procedures which facilitate the issuance of building permits for permanent structures for Bedouin residing in Area C."
As for the Regavim/Kfar Adumim petition, Vogelman ruled that there was no basis for court intervention in Civil Administration enforcement of the law, after the latter had issued demolition orders for the school and some 40 structures. Since the court trusted the authorities' judgment, he added, it would not address the state's claim that Kfar Adumim's petition ought to be rejected because it is "generalized." Nor did it address Lecker's contention that the petition ought to be rejected outright "for lack of good faith and lack of integrity" because of the hundreds of illegal structures built in and around Kfar Adumim.
The attorney representing Regavim and Kfar Adumim did not respond to Bimkom's document. Responding to a request for comment from Haaretz, Regavim's media adviser, Amnon Shomron, said: "Every other day, extreme-left organizations make appeals against resumption of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria. If attorney Lecker has complaints about the establishment of the Kfar Adumim settlement, and seeks to join these organizations, then he surely knows how to do so."
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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