Bimkom

Activities

• According to its website, Bimkom “conduct[s] research and write[s] reports whose findings we use to advocate vis-à-vis policy and decision makers, on the local and national level (government ministries, municipalities, the planning institutions, and the Civil Administration in the West Bank). We also take legal measures against inappropriate or discriminatory planning, when necessary.”
• Regularly files petitions and criticizes the Israeli government in an attempt to alter policies related to spatial planning, planning procedures, and Bedouin communities.

Political Advocacy

• Bimkom’s rhetoric includes accusations of Israeli “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” “discrimination,” and “war crimes.”
• Bimkom is active in “Advocacy and awareness raising among decision makers and planning professionals.”
• In May 2023, Bimkom was a signatory on a statement blaming Israel for the death of Khader Adnan following his 86-day-long hunger strike and refusal to receive medical treatment from the Israeli Prisons Service. According to the statement, “Israel’s unjust system of arrests and detention are part and parcel of the policies used by Israel to maintain its occupation and apartheid regime.”
  • The statement erased Adnan’s leadership in  Palestinian Islamic Jihad who was indicted for membership in a terror group, supporting a terrorist organization, and incitement.
• In December 2022, Bimkom was a signatory on a statement claiming that the “occupation and apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories have made Jewish supremacy the de facto law of the land and the new government seeks to adopt this into their official policy.”
• In August 2022, signatory on a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “We stand in solidarity with our fellow human rights defenders in Palestinian society. We repudiate these baseless declarations and call on the international community to pressure Israel to revoke its decision.”
  • In October 2021, Bimkom signed a joint statement claiming that “The Minister of Defense’s designation of prominent Palestinian civil society organizations, among them our colleagues in the Palestinian human rights community, as terrorist organizations, is a draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work.”
• In February 2022, Bimkom signed a statement defending a report published by Amnesty International accusing Israel of apartheid. According to the statement, “The debate around the crime of apartheid of which Israel is accused, and its geographical scope, is not only legitimate, but absolutely necessary. We wholeheartedly reject the idea that Amnesty International’s report is baseless, singles out Israel or displays antisemitic animus.”
• In December 2020, Bimkom Planning and Community Director Alon Cohen Lifshitz accused Israel of maintaining a “matrix of control” over the Palestinian population.
• In May 2020, in an interview with Haaretz, Bimkom co-founder Haim Yakobi referred to Israel as an “apartheid state” and a “colonial project.”
• In September 2019, Bimkom was a signatory on a statement “condemn[ing]” an IDF raid of Palestinian NGO Addameer’s offices. According to the statement, “It is through the work of organizations such as Addameer that Palestinians and Israelis can struggle against the ongoing, catastrophic damage caused by the occupation.”
  • Addameer is a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) “affiliate.” The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. For more information on Addameer’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Addameer’s Ties to the PFLP Terrorist Group.”
• In September 2017, Alon Cohen-Lifschitz from Bimkom participated in a Congressional briefing titled “Palestinian children speak about peace.” The briefing aimed to have members of Congress “personally make calls to the Israeli Embassy to express concern, stop the demolitions, recognize Palestinian planning rights, assure due process, turn on the lights in Gaza.” The briefing was organized by Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), Rebuilding Alliance, and Jewish Voice for Peace and also featured Arik Ascherman (Torat Tzedek).
• In February 2017, Bimkom and Ir Amim wrote a report titled “Deliberately Planned: A Policy to Thwart Planning in the Palestinian Neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” placing sole responsibility on Israel for the conflict and accusing the Israeli authorities of “deliberately suppress[ing] the growth and development of the Palestinian community.”
  • The report was published with the support of the Netherlands and the German Federal Foreign Office.
• In an article in Haaretz about the African Migrant refugees in the South of Israel (June 19, 2012), Bimkom was quoted as comparing the refugee camps to “a huge concentration camp with harsh conditions.”
• Executive Director Hedva Radovanitz (who has worked with other advocacy groups including Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and Shatil/ New Israel Fund-Israel) told U.S. embassy officials in February 2010 “that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.” (emphasis added)
• In response to the 2009 Gaza war, Bimkom launched a website, together with Adalah, ACRI, B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gisha, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Yesh Din, and others, that collected low-level soldier testimonies accusing Israel of war crimes and violating international law.

Advocacy Against Israel’s Bedouin Policies

• In 2017, Bimkom published one-sided and factually inaccurate position paper accusing Israel of “forced displacement,” “forced transfer,” and “subjugation” of Bedouins, as well as stating that “The main reason for the forced transfer and the expulsion of communities from the areas in which they have lived for decades is Israel’s intention to realize its own interests in the West Bank.”
• In May 2013, UNRWA and Bimkom co-authored a report on the “plight” of Bedouin communities in Area C of the West Bank, saying: “With the occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank including East Jerusalem ongoing, and a durable solution to the Palestine refugee problem yet to be arrived at, the plight of the Jahalin Bedouin Palestine refugees in al Jabal reflects—albeit in a vastly less violent context—a number of the common elements of the Palestine refugee experience since 1948. These include: displacement from and dispossession of traditional territories and other properties… the dilution of traditional decision-making bodies; and friction over land, housing and property rights.” The report includes a quote comparing the move to al Jabal as “Our own mini Nakba.” (Click here to read more about how politicized NGOs exploit the issue of the Bedouin in the Negev to wage political warfare against Israel.)
• Published a 2013 position paper, together with Israeli NGO ACRI, urging “Members of Knesset to vote against the [Prawer-Begin] bill,” maintaining that it “only causes problems, mistrust and alienation of Bedouin citizens.” The position paper claims that the Bedouin are the “original inhabitants of the Negev” and that “[a]fter  the  establishment  of  the  state,  Israel  began  to  ignore  the  existence  of  the  Bedouin  villages  in  all  planning  laws  and  master  plans,  and  disregarded  their  property  rights.” This approach seeks to demonize Israelin the international arena by advancing the idea that the Bedouin are the native and legitimate residents of the land and that Israel is a foreign, occupying power.