Negev, November 30 —Striking back against the Israeli government’s Prawer Plan for “ethnic cleansing” of Bedouins in the Negev, thousands of Palestinian-Bedouin workers and peasants, as well as Jews and Palestinians from the rest of the country, rallied near the poverty-stricken Bedouin town of Hura. The multi-ethnic protestors stood for two hours, facing heavily-armed cops and mounted police and demanded justice, as well as recognition of all Bedouin villages.
Then the cops charged in, attacked the unarmed workers and peasants with clubs, tear gas, concussion grenades, water hoses and horses. Dozens were arrested and brutally beaten, including a 10-year-old child. In response, local youths threw stones at the cops and blocked the road with burning tires. The fighting continued for two more hours. Then some of the protestors drove to the police precinct to demand the release of their arrested comrades.
Two PL’ers joined the protest standing together with their Bedouin comrades against the racist plan. Further demonstrations are scheduled around the country in the following weeks
The plan, also called the Prawer-Begin Plan, would deport 40,000 Bedouin workers and subsistence farmers from the so-called “unrecognized” villages (unrecognized by the government) where they have lived for many generations. They would be moved  to crowded (mis-)”planned” towns where unemployment reaches 50% and over 60% are below the poverty line. The stolen land would then be handed over to real-estate tycoons, including New York City’s billionaire Ronald Lauder, to build housing for the rich. The state calls the Bedouins “squatters,” but the real “squatters” are the Zionist regime and its fat-cat U.S. patrons, who now want to repeat the 1948 deportation of 750,000 Palestinians.
Even if the plan is defeated, the Bedouin workers and peasants who live in the “unrecognized” villages lack basic infrastructure and amenities, and have inadequate education and healthcare. The government claims it can’t provide services to small “scattered” villages, but that’s exactly what it does for dozens of well-off kibbutzim, moshavim and individual farms owned by upper-class Jews.
Capitalism, especially in its Zionist form, is hell for all workers in Palestine, but experience from South Africa and Zimbabwe shows that replacing colonialist (in this case, Zionist) capitalism with national boss capitalism will solve none of the workers’ problems. In both of these countries, racist apartheid was replaced by local capitalist rule, in the service of U.S. imperialism, which oppresses workers and murders striking miners.
As in these countries, capitalist “national liberation” holds no promise to the impoverished workers of all ethnicities and “races.” The only real solution is communist revolution under the red flag of Progressive Labor Party and establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under communism we will share all land and resources, and smash all remnants of racism. Join us!