Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages - Current Role

Current Role

According to Maha Qupty (2004), a RCUV coordinator, the council builds community solidarity and mobilizes outside supporters to empower unrecognized villagers "to defend themselves against the onslaught of the State against their lands and livelihoods."

The RCUV seeks to address:

1. The government's treatment of 45 Bedouin villages as illegal "squats," and its residents as "trespassers";
2. The failure to extend municipal services afforded all other Israeli citizens;
3. The lack of community representation of the unrecognized villages in local councils, municipalities, planning and administrative bodies;
4. Protection from home demolitions, uprooting, land confiscation, and transfer; and
5. The Israeli national development plan and regional plans that ignore the existence of the villages.

In addition, the RCUV is working with the Abu Basma Regional Council to assure that villages which are de jure recognized by the government receive de facto recognition through government allowances for herding and agriculture, and the provision of services within a reasonable time frame.

In 2008, the Goldberg Committee, the government body assigned to assess the status and future of the unrecognized villages, reported its recommendations. No member of the RCUV or of the unrecognized villages was included on the panel of the Goldberg Committee. But the RCUV has worked to bring public pressure to bear on the Committee, from the outside.

On the contrary, implementation of the Prawer plan has started from the full cooperation of the government with the Bedouin and several important agreements were made between the Bedouin and the State.