Solar Energy For All of Israel and Land for the Bedouins
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Israeli Bedouins Israeli Energy Israeli Solar Power Middle East Energy Supply Negev Bedouins
The author, Yosef Abramowitz, with Haj Mousa Tarabin at the Ketura Sun Solar Field at Kibbutz Ketura, Israel Photo: Hannah Schafer
If solar energy is working for Haiti and its good enough for the kibbutzim, then certainly solar energy should be an option to all the citizens of Israel seeking a more sustainable and friendly approach.
Unfortunately, if solar licenses are only issued to Jewish land owners, which is currently the case, Israel is not only depriving part of its citizenry the opportunity to be more environmentally conscious, it’s also providing the world with an example of undemocratic policies.
As a society we are on the edge of history, waiting for approval of the first solar license provided to a Bedouin solar field. About a third of the Negev are made up of Bedouins and we are all lucky that Haj Mousa Tarabin, his family and tribe are willing to be the pioneers at a difficult time politically in the relationship between the Bedouin and the State, to provide land for an 8 megawatt solar field which can hopefully usher in a solar revolution to the Bedouins and the state of Israel.
Assuming the approval is made, a single field should not be the only gesture made by the Israeli government towards the Bedouin people. For there to be energy independence through renewables in the State of Israel the best thing is for a historic land compromise between the Bedouin and the State of Israel that would create a just and mutually beneficial solution to the long-running ownership dispute over large tracts of land in parts of the Negev.
This will bring $3 billion dollars of investment and thousands of green jobs to the poorest community in the State of Israel. We should give them the investment, jobs, and dignity they deserve by approving Bedouin solar licenses and laying the framework for a just compromise on a historic land deal.
8:07 pm
I dont think it is about the Bedouins it is about Yosef and his grandstanding ego. Whatever grabs the journalistic focus yosef will do Be it in high school, Struggle for Soviet Jewry and chaining himself to his dorm at BU or challenging Michael Steinhardt for the leadership of Jewish Youth.
He is a bleeding heart liberal who loves the limelight.
6:47 pm
Wonder about the political persuasion of the Judge? Could he be under instructions from the AG? After all, the courts did not get to try the Black Panther thugs at the Voting Center. And, the AG did label the Ft Hood terrorist attack a “workplace grievance”. It’s not the US that has gone PC, it is the Administration and the AG (in particular.) And, I believe the term PC is a coverup for some serious wrong doing. Changing the labels is part of Saul Alinksy’s tactics in Rules for Radicals. You know, the book SA dedicated to Lucifer. “By their fruits, ye shall know them”
6:48 am
So now we have a Beduin people. We have an Arab people, a Palestinian people, a Hamas people and a Beduin people. Each and every one of them has “rights” with which to subdue the jewish people. Beduins are Arab nomads who infiltrate into the land of Israel but have no claim to it. a small minority of beduins serve in the Jewish army, something like 2 percent of the eligible men, to say nothing of women who perform no service. Beduins have brought in innumerbale women as child brides under Sharia law (stupidly respected by the jewish State) and now have four women and many divorcees each, who all collect Social Security cash from the very stupid israelis. So now they want to take part in the sun-boom? Well and good. I suggest they return to the Sinai peninsula, three times larger than israel, sun-drenched, oil drenched, gas-drenched, and there, under Egyptian rule, develop their solar arrays. But no, they will only do such stuff on Jewish territory, while screaming disenfranchisement, while their brothers in Sinai (real brothers, not virtual) blow up the gas-pipe supplying Israel. That’s reality while you guys are playing civil liberties for the “Beduin people”
3:40 am
Your article makes it seem like serious racism is going on, and I don’t think that’s the intention but the consequence. It’s about a struggle for marginalized communities to come into their own, and this same struggle is happening in any corner of the world.
7:23 pm
CONGRATULATIONS… it’s about time!