Bedouins in Jerusalem

On a recent field trip out of Jerusalem, we saw Bedouin camps on the hill sides. The Bedouin are nomadic people who are descendants from Arabian desert nomads. The city of Jerusalem is comprised of about 48 square miles. East Jerusalem, one of 16 Palestinian divisions, contains about 133 square miles and some areas overlap. As a result, Bedouins literally find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

The Bedouin lifestyle relies on raising animals that graze on pasture lands. The Bedouin now face the threat of being stripped of the lifestyle they know and thrown into an urban life with concrete houses and no mobility or room for grazing animals or for making a living. The stretch of land the Bedouin roam is about 12 acres, an arid area of desert hills on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho and a West Bank settlement about 4 miles from Jerusalem.

After the Six Day War, the military of Israel restricted the Bedouin's access to many of the grazing lands and little by little they were forced into the vicinity where they currently live. Before that (until the 1980's) the Bedouins built a couple of permanent structures, including a mosque and some semi-permanent camps but they were demolished unmercifully.

The problems Bedouins face are endless, ranging from water scarcity to a lack of schools and any form of infrastructure. They are not allowed to build or graze their livestock and are often confiscated when military moves in. Innocent Bedouin children are chased and taunted by settlers so many parents are no longer sending their children to school or are schooling them at home. I ask myself, "What chance do they have in life for a future? It's too easy to turn our backs and forget about these people (all God's children) when we have so much ourselves." The Bedouins have been warned and are paying the price of their persistence to live on their lands as they resist orders to leave. The warning allocated only 35 pieces of land for all of the more than 170 families. If they leave and move to where the Israeli government wants them to live, they will be confined to just one quarter of an acre in an urban environment and they could not survive. The whole situation is tragic!

Israel wants to move them so as to link Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem, a plan which is vehemently opposed by the United States government. In February, 2016, the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank demolished water tanks, sheep pens, outhouses, tents and semi-permanent structures which left nearly 500 Palestinians(including more than 200 children) homeless. Life is hard for many but not nearly as hard as for Bedouins. Those reading this blog live comfortable lives and it is heart-wrenching to see people in this world having to live in these conditions. What is this world coming to?

If Bedouins build any type of permanent structures, they will be knocked down. They want a better life but is it even possible?