Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and a number of other senior government ministers have decided to drop a key element of Israel’s Five Year Plan for the Bedouin sector, according to a report by Globes Thursday evening.
Bennett, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin, and Labor Minister Meir Cohen, reportedly agreed to remove the ‘Enforcement Chapter’ of the Five Year Plan, separating the move to bolster efforts to crackdown on illegal Arab construction in the Negev from other measures set to be implemented in the plan.
According to the report, the ministers intend to push the Enforcement Chapter through as a separate bill, and agreed to separate it from the Five Year Plan at the request of the United Arab List, a coalition faction which represents the Bedouin sector.
Opposition MKs and the Regavim movement – a watchdog group which monitors illegal construction in the Arab sector – condemned the move, accusing the government of giving a green light to land grabs in the south of Israel.
“The Israeli government has sold out the Negev to the Islamic Movement,” Land of Israel Lobby leaders MK Orit Strook (Religious Zionist Party) and MK Yoav Kish (Likud) said in a joint statement Thursday night.
“We are horrified and worried by the government’s total surrender to the United Arab List, and we call on any coalition members who still have a drop of Zionism in them to announce their resignation now.”
The Regavim movement accused the government of ‘bartering away’ the Negev to the Islamic Movement.
“Enforcement statistics for the past several years are unequivocal: New illegal construction in the Bedouin squatters’ camps is down, and law enforcement is up -significantly, reaching its peak in 2021 – as a result of the previous government’s policies and actions: The Kaminitz Law of 2018 and the enforcement chapter of the Five Year Plan for the Bedouin Sector, launched in 2017,” Regavim said in a statement Thursday.”
“By removing the enforcement chapter from the new Five Year Plan for the Bedouin Sector, the government has turned its back on the Negev and bartered away the south of Israel to the Islamic Movement.”
“The decrease in illegal construction in the squatters’ camps of the Negev that has been documented over the past several years is attributable to two factors: The Kaminitz Law, and the enforcement chapter of the Five Year Plan - which has just expired.”
“Removal of the enforcement chapter from the Five Year Plan that is now being launched will undermine enforcement bodies and their ability to stop the sprawl of illegal settlement, and will put wind in the sails of illegal construction, resulting in the loss of more and more state land in the Negev.”