Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality (NCF)

Profile

Country/TerritoryIsrael
Websitehttp://www.dukium.org/eng/
Founded1997
In their own wordsProvide a framework for Jewish-Arab collaborative efforts in the struggle for civil equality and the advancement of mutual tolerance and coexistence,” focusing “solely on problems confronting the Negev."

Funding

Activities

  • Active in delegitimizing Israel internationally, and one of the most active NGOs in lobbying European governments to oppose Israel’s Bedouin-Negev policies.
  • Submits appeals to the United Nations calling for “world intervention to aid the Bedouin community” and identifying Israel as a “discriminate country” that denies many rights by “forced politicization” and “policy of displacement.”

Demonization of Israel

  • NCF rhetoric includes accusations of “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” “discrimination,” and “racism.”
  • Regularly distributes publications, such as “Newsletters” and “House Demolition Diaries,” alleging Israeli “racism” toward Bedouin citizens.
  • NCF arranges tours in the Negev for foreign diplomats and Members of Knesset to gain an “in-depth understanding of the state’s policies toward the Arab Bedouin residents” as well as learn about the “violation of the Bedouin’s human rights [and] the challenges they face as a community today.”
  • In February 2022, NCF international relations and research coordinator Elianne Kremer accused the Jewish National Fund of “foresting” – planting new forests – as a method for “prevent[ing] them [Bedouins] from going back to their original land…The clear objective here is displacement of the Bedouin Palestinians.”
  • In October 2021, NCF Coordinator Yeela Raanan participated in a webinar titled “The Negev Bedouin: Emptied Lands and Displaced People.” The webinar discussed how “Israel’s treatment of the Negev Bedouin has been a story of displacement and dispossession” and aimed to “explore the unique nature of Bedouin resistance, the history of coerced urbanization, and the situation in the unrecognized Bedouin villages.”
  • In a December 2015 position paper, NCF called on the Israeli Government to “cease its discriminatory policy of encouraging the expansion of Jewish settlement in the Negev and concentrating the Bedouin residents in towns while demolishing their villages.” In the conclusion of the paper, NCF states that the “demolition of Atīr and Umm al-Ḥīrān is oppressive and racist” and will “deepen the rift between the Arab and Jewish populations.”
    • In January 2017, violence erupted between activists and the Israeli police who were sent to carry out the Israeli High Court of Justice’s decision to demolish Umm Al-Hiran.
  • In November 2015, Palestine Solidarity Campaign hosted Director of NCF Haia Noach for a Q&A on the “situation of ongoing forcible dispossession and the adverse impact it has for the basic human rights of the Bedouin in the Negev.”
  • In May 2015, Khalil Al-Amour, a board member for NCF, was a featured speaker at the ICAHD UK Annual Spring Conference to discuss home demolitions as “nothing demonstrates the existence of one (apartheid) state more graphically than Israel’s policy of house demolitions.”
  • In February 2015, NCF Content and Research Coordinator Michal Rotem stated, “Planting a forest is not in my view a reasonable excuse to demolish a village. And neither is making room for a Jewish settlement. These are racist and discriminatory excuses.”
  • On May 30, 2013, NCF (with Adalah) published a one-sided and factually inaccurate position paper (funded by the EU) titled, “Prawer-Begin Bill and the Forced Displacement of the Bedouin,” accusing Israel of “forcible displacement,” “dispossession,” and attempting to implement “the complete and final severance of the Bedouin’s historical ties to their land.”
  • On June 20, 2013, a representative of NCF spoke in a session  of the  European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, regarding an agenda item “Exchange of views on the human rights situation of the Bedouin and other minorities in Israel.” He/she claimed that the “Begin Plan” “represents two principles: Apartheid and Military Rule.” In response apartheid, MEP David Martin of the Socialists and Democrats group stated: “I would go further than our guests describe it as apartheid. I don’t use this word lightly but I think what we are seeing taking place is ethnic cleansing…under any definition” (emphasis added).
  • On October 17, 2013, NCF representatives participated in a seminar, “Bedouins in the Naqab/Negev: Dreams and Nightmare,” hosted by the Socialists and Democrats group of the European Parliament, which featured a banner accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing.”
  • In October 2012, four members of the European Parliament’s Working Group on the Middle East toured the Negev guided by representatives from NCF and other political advocacy NGOs. The MEPs were told about “the policy of the displacement of population and house demolitions” and the way in which “Arab Bedouins deliberately prevented from all basic services and infrastructure.”

NCF Partial List of Grants Received, 2018-2021 (amounts in NIS)

2018-2020 amounts based on NGO annual financial reports; 2021 amounts based on quarterly financial reports submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits.

Donor2021202020192018
Switzerland521,225226,790265,521
Rosa Luxemberg Stiftung77,810122,163126,151
European Union180,411196,36123,732
Canada12,884
Pro Victims Foundation29,750151,159141,537
MAZON92,133105,658103,741

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Further Reading