REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TEHRAN -- More than 50 public figures in Britain, including known artists, musicians and writers, have put their names to a letter opposing an Israeli plan to forcibly remove up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins from their historic desert land.
The letter, published in the Guardian, is part of a day of protest on Saturday in Israel, Palestine and two dozen other countries over an Israeli parliamentary bill that is expected to get final approval by the end of this year.
The exile and destruction of about 35 "unrecognized" villages in the Negev desert will, according to the letter, "mean the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land, and systematic discrimination and separation".
The participants including the artist Antony Gormley, the actor Julie Christie, the film director Mike Leigh and the musician Brian Eno, are demanding that the British government holds Israel to account over its human rights record and obligations under international law.
The population of these villages will be removed to designated towns, while plans for new Jewish settlements in the area are enacted.
Adalah, a human rights and legal centre for Arabs in Israel, says: "The real purpose of the legislation [is] the complete and final division of the Bedouin's historical ties to their land."
The "unrecognized" villages in the Negev, whose populations range from a few hundred to 2,000, lack basic services such as running water, electricity, landline telephones, roads, high schools and health clinics. Some consist of a few shacks and animal pens made from corrugated iron; others include concrete houses and mosques built without necessary but unobtainable permission.
The Bedouin comprise about 30% of the Negev's population but their villages take up only 2.5% of the land. Before the state of Israel was created in 1948 they roamed widely across the desert; now, two-thirds of the region has been designated as military training grounds and firing ranges.
The actor David Calder said: "The Israeli state not only practices apartheid against the Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, but it seems they have no hesitation in practicing apartheid on their own citizens which is in this instance, the Bedouins. When is the west going to find these actions intolerable?"
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