Why Does Bush Talk About Israel’s Negev and Galilee?

by Nadia Hijab
(Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies and co-director of its Washington office)

"In his 16 July 2007 speech on the Middle East, President Bush declared: “Prime Minister Olmert has also made clear that Israel's future lies in developing areas like the Negev and Galilee – not in continuing occupation of the West Bank.” Bush also restated US “commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people.” No mention was made of a homeland for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, a fifth of the population. Yet they would be seriously impacted by any development plans that favored Jewish citizens in the Galilee, where they constitute a majority, and in the Negev, where they are a significant minority.1

What Lies Behind the Bush References?......

Reports from the Galilee and the Negev

The Bush remarks are so worrying to Palestinian citizens of Israel because they have experienced extensive loss of land since the state was established. Memories are still fresh of official Israeli programs to “Judaize the Galilee” in the 1960s and 1970s that have left Palestinian citizens with a fraction of the land they had when the state was created in 1948, with little room for the natural growth and development of their towns and villages. Moreover, many of these citizens were internally displaced at that time, and were never able to return to their original land.

And in the Negev, the Israeli government has been relocating some 80,000 Bedouin into seven townships and refusing official recognition to existing villages.8 Most recently, the Israel Land Administration destroyed Bedouin homes in Attir and Umm Al Hiran to establish a Jewish community.9 According to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Attir villagers were moved to that site in 1956 and their original land was transferred to a kibbutz......"