The Palestinian Bedouin herding village of Khan Al-Ahmar is very small yet it is receiving outsized attention from around the world. The Israeli military is readying to forcibly evacuate Khan Al-Ahmar’s 173 residents comprised of 32 families, after which it will demolish the village on the pretext that it was built illegally. The village received a last minute reprieve when the High Court of Justice issued a temporary injunction, in essence a stay of execution. The court gave the state until July 11 to respond to the villagers’ contention that they had been unfairly denied building permits. But previous appeals to the court have failed and so this one final challenge to the injunction could also end in defeat.
The casual observer might ask what is so special about Khan Al-Ahmar. Close to half its population has no electricity or running water and almost 80 percent are malnourished. What’s more, what will the disappearance of such a village mean in the overall picture of the Israeli occupation? As they say, here today, gone tomorrow.
What Israel intends to do is demolish the village as part of the so-called E1 plan, which involves building hundreds of settlement units to link the settlements of Kfar Adumim and Ma’ale Adumim with East Jerusalem in the Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank. Continued Israeli settlement construction in the area could effectively divide the West Bank in two, separating the north of the West Bank from the south of it and burying any possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
That is why the threat of demolition and expulsion constantly hangs over the heads of the Khan Al-Ahmar Bedouins. Controlling this area means that Israel could effectively cut the West Bank in half, thus foreclosing the possibility of any Palestinian state there. This violation of international law has spurred the UN and EU to strongly oppose the demolition orders. Late last year 10 US senators, including former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to stop plans to demolish Khan Al-Ahmar. In May of this year, 76 members of the US House of Representatives again implored Netanyahu to abandon the plans.
Israel’s constant refrain to its critics: Khan Al-Ahmar was built without the required permits. But permits are so difficult for Palestinians to obtain, they have no choice but to build without them. Israel’s Civil Administration has had a policy of not granting building permits to Palestinians for the past 70 years, forcing them to build homes for themselves “illegally”.
And anyway, why should Palestinians seek a permit for building on their land? Palestinians are living where their families were forced to leave in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced by Israel’s creation.
While on the subject of illegality, it is ironic that Khan Al-Ahmar, which Israel says is illegal, is located near several truly illegal Israeli settlement blocs.
Israeli authorities have offered the villagers an alternative site, less than 20 kilometers away to another location in the West Bank where Israel says it would provide them housing, a school, and basic services. But it’s next to a rubbish dump. However, even if it were next to the French Riviera, the Bedouins should fight to remain where they are.
The demolition of Khan Al-Ahmar is merely another chapter in a process of displacement that has been going on for 70 years. Israel’s declared intent is to remove all the Bedouin from Area C, part of a process of removal that affects the Palestinian population as a whole. Is it morally right that Israel wishes to banish a people for a second time after their families were banished from the state of Israel the first time? In a few days, Israel will provide the world with its answer.
