Rabbis For Human Rights: The Annual Report 2012-2013

handouts or loans of others, but
rather on God’s full, open and
generous hand, so that we may
never be humiliated or put to shame.”
How wise our rabbis once were, because
now, in the State of Israel, matnat basar
vedam (receiving help) involves shame
and humiliation.
Today in Israel more than 20,000 families
and individuals live in Kafkaesque
situations similar to that of Moshe
Silman, a step away from living on the
street, hungry, with not enough money
to go to the doctor or to buy medicines,
unable to cover expenses of the
deteriorating educational system, and
without any right to receive sufficient
assistance from the State.
Moshe, the mirror you set before us
says “Enough!” You told us it was time
to demand from the State to solve this
national crisis. Contrary to what the
Prime Minister of Israel said, this is
not a personal tragedy – it is a national
tragedy.
The time has come for the citizens of
the State of Israel to have suitable public
housing, a good public healthcare
system, an excellent public education
system, and a welfare system which
helps those who need assistance.
Rabbi Heschel said: “In a democratic
society, some are guilty, all are
responsible.” We, as longtime social
activists and the multitudes who have
joined the social protest movement
in the last year, have assumed our
democratic responsibility of changing
the State in which we live, of turning
it into a place where the Rambam’s
highest level of justice prevails:
“You shall thou uphold him: he live
with you as a resident alien” (Leviticus,
25:35). That is, strengthen him so that
he does not fall and be in need.
The government of Israel does not take
responsibility for its actions, and it is at
fault that Moshe died in vain.
To the ministers in the Israeli
government– you are happy to be
given the honor of being a minister,
but you flagrantly ignore the grave
responsibility that comes with the post,
the responsibility for all the citizens of
the State of Israel. We will not let you
forget your role, and we will not let you
continue to conduct a greedy economic
policy on our backs. You are guilty of
Moshe’s death. You are responsible for
the plight of the homeless and those
sleeping on sofas in Israel, for the hungry
and the sick and those struggling with
poverty.
We demand that you listen to the words
of the Supreme Court: “Personal dignity
includes… Guaranteeing the minimum
required for human sustenance…A
man living on the street who has no
home, is a man whose dignity has been
compromised; a man who is hungry
is a man whose dignity has been
compromised; a man who has no access
to basic medical care is a man whose
dignity has been compromised; a man
forced to live in humiliating material
conditions is a man whose dignity has
been compromised.”
We demand that Moshe be the last
victim. We demand that you will never
again compromise anybody’s dignity,
and that you will never endanger
anyone’s the life.
I pray that Moshe will be the last
victim.
In these days, bayn hametzarim (the
3 weeks between the fast day of 17
Tammuz, marking the breach of the
walls of Jerusalem, and Tisha’ B’Av, the
fast day commemorating the destruction
of the Second Temple) are difficult days,
I ask all those who are in terrible need,
please look after your souls and bodies.
“Guard your souls well”
(Deuteronomy, 4:15).
Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages of the Negev
As we write this report, Israel has
intensified its efforts to eliminate
the “unrecognized” Bedouin
villages in the Negev, which either
existed before Israel was founded
or were created in locations to
which the Israeli army itself moved
Bedouin in the early years of the
State. Being unrecognized, they
receive no services, their homes are
automatically “illegal” and subject
to demolition, and their crops are
sprayed and killed. RHR and our
coalition partners are working to
prevent the forceful transfer of some
40,000 additional Bedouin into
artificially created cities, and the
theft of their land.
Throughout 2012, RHR continued
to take action to publicize the
plight of El-Arakib, which has been
demolished over 40 times since the
first and most traumatic demolition
in July 2010. Rabbi Ascherman has
been the driving force in RHR behind
the support of this community. RHR,
along with RHR-NA (now T’ruah)
and the Jewish Alliance for Change,
successfully pressured the JNF-KKL
to agree to freeze the planting of
forests closing in and threatening to
erase the memory of El-Arakib. They
have agreed to do so on four plots
until the court rules on competing
state and Bedouin land ownership
claims. We asked the JNF to focus
on their admirable work in the
fields of forestry and ecology, and
to leave behind that part of their
history which has been complicit in
unjustly creating facts on the ground
and discriminating against Israel’s
Arab citizens. In December, the
High Court ordered that the District
Court hear these claims, despite
state contentions that all Bedouin
proof of ownership is irrelevant
because the state expropriated the
lands in 1953. RHR is now urging
the JNF to freeze the forestation on
all of the El-Arakib lands, which will
be discussed before the Court, and
not just the four plots.
El-Arakib is but one poignant
reminder of the forced evictions
that some 30,000-45,000 Bedouin
in the Negev may face. Ignoring
the government-sponsored
recommendation of the Goldberg
Committee to legalize most of
the “unrecognized” villages, the
government sought to implement the
Prawer recommendations, calling
for additional mass expulsions and
forced relocation into seven artificial
cities, which have become magnets
for crime, poverty, drugs and despair
and threaten the Bedouin way of
life. In January 2013, the outgoing
government adopted Minister Benny
Begin’s report, which combined the
understanding language of Goldberg
with the cruel recommendations
of Prawer. Because right-wing
extremists have expressed that
the planned expulsions and land
theft don’t go far enough, Begin
apparently felt that this is the best
deal the Bedouin could get.
RHR now faces the very difficult
task of ensuring justice for the
Bedouin in light of the Begin report.
As a part of the Coexistence Forum,
and along with the Negev Bedouin
leadership, RHR will continue with
a public campaign and lobbying
strategy to prevent the passage of
legislation implementing the Begin
report. The JNF-KKL also shares
some of the responsibility for the
Prawer/Begin plan. The CEO of
JNF-USA proudly proclaimed in a
meeting with Rabbi Ascherman that
he lobbied the Knesset to adopt the
Negev Development Plan, which
the Prawer/Begin plan serves. The
JNF-KKL will be asked to create a
green belt on much of the land.
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