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<h1 class="post-title single-title entry-title"><a title="The struggle for democracy in words and action" rel="bookmark" href="http://972mag.com/the-struggle-for-democracy-in-words-and-action/">&nbsp;</p>
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<p>by Libby Lenkinski</p>
<p><em><strong>UPDATE: Since this post was filed, the village of  Al-Araqib has been demolished again – for the 9th time in a row. Reports  speak of escalation in police and army violence, and information as yet  unconfirmed even mentions rubber bullets fired at Israeli civilians.   We will update on +972 as events progress. </strong></em></p>
<div id="attachment_8701" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width:480px;"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-8701" title="Libby Lenkinski Friedlander in Al-Araqib. Photo: Hagai El-Ad" src="https://i2.wp.com/972mag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/13012011353.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" /></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Libby Lenkinski in Al-Araqib. Photo: Hagai El-Ad</p>
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<p>When people ask me “how are you?” these days, my first, instinctive  answer is “well, there is a lot going on.” On Wednesday night, I spoke  at a Hebrew University event organized by J Street U about democracy in  Israel.  The discussion between myself and Professor <a class="external" href="http://www.idi.org.il/sites/english/AboutIDI/Staff/Pages/BioMordechaiKremnitzer.aspx" target="_blank">Mota Kremnitzer </a>(of the <a class="external" href="http://www.idi.org.il/sites/english/Pages/homepage.aspx" target="_blank">Israel Democracy Institute</a>), was moderated by <a href="http://972mag.com/author/mairavz/">Mairav Zonszein</a> – who began with a brief survey of current events related to Israeli  democracy.  As her list went on and on – everything from the  Parliamentary Inquiry Committee to investigate Israeli NGOs, to the  recent death of Jawaher Abu Rahme in Bil’in, to Jonathan Pollak going to  prison for riding his bike at a protest in Tel Aviv – I realized just  how true my answer is. There has indeed been a lot going on – all of it  underscored by an atmosphere of extreme tension surrounding our own work  and the work of our organizations.</p>
<p>Eilat Maoz described it well in her <a href="http://972mag.com/jonathan-pollaks-life-partner-i-fear-for-the-future-of-israel-2/">article in Yediot Aharonot</a> – when she revealed her dream that she was going to prison along with her partner <a href="http://972mag.com/tag/pollak/">Jonathan Pollak</a>. She  said that this dream can be explained away as the connection that  develops between long term partners. But it can also, and perhaps more  aptly , be analyzed as an expression of the permeating sense that anyone  engaged in activity critical of Israeli governmental policies could  find themselves in the same position as Jonathan.</p>
<p>Eilat hit the nail on the head for me – I have been up during the  past sleepless weeks with precisely these thoughts – these  McCarthyism-inspired fantasies of my own potential persecution.</p>
<p>And in the middle of all this, I had to take a day away and go to the  Negev for a tour that I planned months ago.  Thursday morning, I tore  myself out of my half-dream (I am smoking, it’s black and white, I am  trying to sell a story about Bil’in to Edward R. Murrow) and piled into  Hagai Elad’s car to go to Beer Sheva, where we were to pick up our  colleague, ACRI human rights attorney Rawia Aburabia.</p>
<p>We arrive and are greeted also by political geographer Thabet Abu  Raas. After a brief discussion, we head to unrecognized Negev Bedouin  village of Al Araqib – one of the 37 Bedouin villages in the Negev that  house 190,000 people – approximately half of the country’s Bedouin  population. For every half hour that passes, the missed calls and text  messages on my phone pile up (3 missed calls, 7, 12).  A lot is been  going on.  Part of me is waiting for the day to end so I can get back  into the noisy, busy mess of talking about democracy in Israel,  defending the importance of civil society and so on.</p>
<p>But we arrive in Al Araqib and everything stops.  All the noise, the chatter, the strategizing.  All gone.</p>
<p>It is windy and sunny – we are in the Negev desert. We walk through  pile after pile of demolished material – homes, cars, bicycles, fences.   This is what a village looks like after 8 demolitions since August. The  colors are amazing – the white of the corrugated metal that once made  the roofs of Bedouin homes, the wood from the frames, the rusty pieces  of car engines and bike frames – the black plastic of broken water  boilers.</p>
<p>Salim Abu Mdigem meets us and leads us to the only structure still  standing – a simple wooden frame with a plastic tarp over it.  It is the  current home of Aziz Abu Mdigem – who explains that he and his family  are living in fear that even this structure will be demolished. They  recently heard a rumor that Israeli bulldozers were coming back next  week for a ninth demolition. I wonder why anyone would go to all this  trouble just to knock over the one tent left standing.</p>
<p>To be clear, these people have absolutely nothing. There is no water,  no electricity – there’s no structure left intact at all. And still  they are under threat of demolition.  We ask them, “Why do you stay  here? Why don’t you leave and go to a place with easier conditions?”   Their reasoning – that they have a historical connection to this  particular land that they will forfeit if they leave – reflects the  complexity of the Bedouin struggle for recognition in the Negev,  described by Noam Sheizaf in his <a class="external" href="http://www.promisedlandblog.com/?p=3229" target="_blank">coverage of the initial demolitions</a> of the village in <a class="external" href="http://www.promisedlandblog.com/?p=3261" target="_blank">August</a>.  Since 2005, the number of house demolitions each year has been  escalating, with over 100 houses being demolished each year. In 2009, a  total of 254 homes were destroyed and the number only rose during 2010.</p>
<p>Along the way, I hear on a side note all of the various ways my  colleague Rawia is working on this struggle – attending joint meetings  with village councils and other organizations on new legal and  grassroots strategies for addressing Bedouin unrecognized villages,  public awareness campaigns and more.</p>
<p>Over the past few weeks, I have been so heavily involved in the  discussion of NGOs in Israel – the important role we play safeguarding  democracy, rights and equality.  I have had a million and one  conversations with people saying that the Israeli government has  forgotten the value of a vibrant civil society that offers healthy and  fair criticism of policies to a thriving democracy.  That limiting the  space for us to operate only pushes Israeli society further away from  its own democratic values.</p>
<p>Sitting with Aziz and Salim of Al Araqib, with Rawia and Thabet – two  of the leaders of the legal and grassroots struggle in the Negev, I  came crashing into the reality that while I am busy fighting the  rhetorical fight – an important and necessary one these days – people  are waging an existential struggle for basic necessities like shelter  and water – as well as national recognition and dignity.  I was so proud  of the fact that while we are all banding together under the  “democratic camp” banner – marching in Tel Aviv last night and utilizing  the platform that has been forced upon us to speak about democracy – we  are also still 100% engaged in the struggles of the various groups that  we all work with, in Al Araqib and throughout the country.</p>
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<div><strong><em>Libby Lenkinski is the Director of International  Relations at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and a  human rights activist.</em></strong></div>
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<p><a href="http://972mag.com/the-struggle-for-democracy-in-words-and-action/">The struggle for democracy in words and action</a>.</p>
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