When you repeat a lie so many times, it becomes the accepted truth. That’s a tactic the international media and left-wing NGOs have been implementing in the last few days. They’ve been making a lot of noise about a Bedouin ‘village’ in the Jordan Valley that was torn down by Israel — again.
For the sixth time in a year, a number of tents and pens in so-called Khirbet Humsa were removed by the Civil Administration last week, setting the Pallywood machine into full motion, as customary. Israel was portrayed as the evil oppressor that denies poor Bedouin a life of safety and security, blah blah.
But the story is a little more complex.
In an area that has been an active IDF live-fire zone since 1972, Bedouins set up camp in 2010. To prevent their removal from the site, the Bedouins appealed three times (in April & July 2011, and in November 2014) to the High Court of Justice. Each time, the appellants invoked a new excuse – Ramadan, the weather, who knows what – to try to cling onto the land. The appeals were all rejected, and the illegal outpost has been dismantled and re-erected a number of times since the High Court rulings. Anti-Israel groups, foreign media outlets and governments are loving it.
Yet as our satellite images show, in 2008 there was nothing there! In 2013, an image of the same point shows only one structure, and in 2019 there were already a number of EU-funded structures.
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2019
It’s a game. The IDF removes the structures, left-wing “human rights” activists come along with their cameras, and then PA officials come to rebuild the “structures” (more like tents). In the meantime, the vulnerable population that lives there is being exploited cynically by the PA. The Palestinian Authority would serve these people better by enabling them to live somewhere legal, somewhere no Israeli permits are required, such as the 63% of Areas A and B that are completely empty and available for whatever use they choose.
But no. Because this is a political issue.
Bedouin are sent to seize strategic locations in Judea and Samaria, lured by various benefits, often placed in tough and dangerous conditions. It’s a win-win situation for the PA. If the Bedouin manage to consolidate their settlement, it’s a successful land grab! And if they’re kicked out by Israel – false narratives can be peddled through the international media, and Israel can be painted as the evil denier of rights, etc.
Don’t fall prey to the Palestinians’ propaganda. Please help us get the truth out. We don’t expect anti-Semites to be convinced by facts, but regular, fair-minded, truth-seeking people around the world deserve to know the full facts and history. Share this article.
