On Wednesday, Israeli bulldozers drove into the unrecognized Negev Bedouin village al-Arakib. As the families who lived there looked on, the bulldozers razed the entire community leaving some 300 residents, including 200 children, without a home or water at the height of the summer.

"I saw the smiles of the policemen and the inspectors who did it,” Al-Arakib resident Juma al-Turi told Ha’aretz. “They simply enjoyed it while the children were left without a home. They made victory signs with their hands after the destruction. It seems they were confused and were certain they were in Lebanon in the war against Hezbollah."

NIF grantee Mossawa, a leading activist organization in the Palestinian-Israeli community opposing the demolition policies, said that last year about 254 homes were demolished by the government; however, the Interior Ministry announced earlier this year that it would triple the rate in 2010.

In Israel, 93 percent of the land is owned by the Israeli government or quasi-governmental agencies like the Jewish National Fund. Few Israelis own the land they live on; instead, private dwellings are granted 99-year leases by the government. And, as in most modern countries, building new housing, or adding to existing housing, requires permits from the municipal government. In a country with a growing population, the landscape is filled with construction cranes and bulldozers building houses and apartment blocks where none existed before. With one caveat: Since Israel's founding, almost every new development, town, neighborhood and even city constructed for the growing population has been reserved for Jews.

According to NIF grantee Dirasat - Arab Center for Law and Policy, Arab Israeli and Bedouin citizens have no other options but to build illegally as they are routinely denied building permits. In an interview with Ha’aretz, Dirasat head Dr. Yosef Jabareen said “Young Arabs today feel despair about their future housing options. Lands for use by the public do not exist and therefore natural development has been halted. This reality should be a red warning light for policymakers and cause them to act to ensure the existential rights of Arab citizens before it is too late."

After an earlier demolition, NIF Israel executive director Rachel Liel noted, “we have to look ourselves in the mirror and ask: is the destruction of homes the solution to the historic conflict over land with the Palestinian citizen of Israel? Or, has the time come, as a mature democracy, to search together for a humane, honorable solution that will enable us all to share a common future?"

For more, please see the BBC article and video Israel police raze ‘illegal’ Bedouin village in Negev and the Ha’aretz article Police destroy dozens of buildings in unrecognized Bedouin village in Negev.