to cramped townships in the Jordan Valley representing a devastating blow to the cultural practices of these populations, severing links to “fundamental elements in their economic, commercial and social universe”.79 In interviews with BADIL, members of Palestinian communities in E1 reiterated the negative impact that this planned relocation would have on their future prospects; “We want the desert life. In Nuweimeh, there would be many issues for us: a bad economy, lack of education, no place for our animals.” Another commented, “You can’t just put us in a town. What would our role be in a future Palestinian society? You cannot just change from a shepherd to a lawyer or an engineer.” This could be seen as Israel’s intended ghettoization policy of Palestinians, which was raised by the Human Rights Committee as point of great concern during Israel’s fourth universal periodic review.80 Despite the difficulties, such as limited access as a result of cost considerations, the cases being heard in courts in Israel – to which these communities must seek special permits to gain physical access – and with proceedings being conducted in Hebrew, some Palestinian communities have challenged the legality of the relocation process in the Israeli courts. Yet this has achieved only hollow victories in the form of existing demolition orders being stayed in anticipation of the creation of the resettlement sites; “we have stopped the demolitions, but for how long? We do not know”. This is, therefore, merely a temporary reprieve, and according to the Coordinating Office of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), an Israeli governmental institution, once the resettlement plans are finalized and building plots allocated, all ‘illegal’ Palestinian construction “will be dealt with in accordance with the Israeli law”.81 This outcome reveals the inherent bias of the law conceived and applied by Israel within the occupied Palestinian territory. It is a bias reflected in the multiple petitions filed with Israeli courts by the colonist movement, demanding that such demolition orders be executed without delay, thus creating a perverse scenario whereby individuals whose very presence in the West Bank (colonizers) constitutes a war crime are able to utilize the existing legal system to further their own interests at the expense of the occupied population. Even when the Israeli legal system does include some form of procedural check on arbitrary displacement – such as the Israeli High Court’s recommendation to ensure consultation with the Palestinians during the conception of relocation plans – these rulings are ignored. To this end, neither the Jerusalem Bedouin Cooperative Committee nor individual Mukhtars (village leaders) were 79 Dawn Chatty, From Camel to Truck: The Bedouin In The Modern World, 30. 80 Human Rights Committee, “Concluding Observations on the Fourth Periodic Report of Israel (Advance Unedited Version),” para. 9. 81 Amira Hass, “Israeli Government Plans to Forcibly Relocate 12,500 Bedouin.” 29