Despite last week’s promise by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “freeze” the plan, the Prawer Plan continues to move forward in the Knesset, and shows no signs of being on hold at all.
The Prawer Plan would involve declaring a handful of north Negev Bedouin villages as the only acceptable places for Bedouins to live, and forcing some 30,000-40,000 Bedouins living across the rest of the Negev into them.
The plan is hugely controversial for both its race-based land confiscation and plans to build Jewish-only towns at the locations of some of the forcibly depopulated Bedouin villages.
The plan is overwhelmingly opposed by opposition parties in the Knesset, and many members of the far-right government have also complained the plan is doomed to failure without Bedouin acquiescence.
Since announcing the plan was “shelved,” the Netanyahu government hasn’t commented again on the matter, and the ongoing progress in the Knesset suggests the plan is still very much alive, though whether it can pass the Knesset vote remains to be seen.
Speaking of relocation, Netanyahu could use new digs in a dungeon.
Along with ambiguity about Israel's nuclear arsenal and ambiguity about the "Samson Option" we now have ambiguity on settlements. Netanyahu may think he's a world class statesman, but he looks like a junior league liar to most of the world, no ambiguity about it.