Ramallah: Israeli Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir has warned the regime of the challenges presented by its bedouin-Palestinian citizens, maintaining that it must ensure development for the bedouins, their incorporation into Israeli society, and lower their birth rate.

The minister particularly drew attention to polygamy, stating that the Israelis needed to deal with the practice.

On a visit to the Negev (Naqab) region in the south of the country, Shamir claimed, “First of all we need to take all of the bedouins and start moving them out of the (Negev) desert, and move them closer to the normal country in terms of legislation, life style, socio-economical level, education, job opportunities.”

The Ynet news website has reported that the minister controversially stated that by 2035 the bedouin citizens might number between half a million to one and a half million people.

Bedouins are the nomadic Palestinian Arabs who were forced to accept Israeli citizenship when the Zionist forces invaded in 1948 and set up the Israeli regime. While they are not forced to serve in the regime’s army, they are often lured to do so with promises of benefits.

The Supreme Follow-up Committee for Palestinian citizens of Israel has categorically rejected the minister’s comments, refusing even to consider his remarks on lowering birth rate of the bedouin residents and the prevention of polygamy, stressing that the plan is destined for failure.

“We do not wait for a decision from Shamir nor from the Israeli government to tell us when to produce children and how many of them,” said Juma’a Al Zabarqah, a member of the committee. “This is our own issue. Shamir handled the issue in a racist method and his way has badly violated personal freedom. The families are the only decision makers on rearing children — neither Shamir nor the Israel government has the right to get involved in such a personal matter.”

“Let Shamir propose whatever laws he desires, but surely the bedouins will be the last people to put such laws in place,” he said.

Talab Abu Erar, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, said Shamir’s plan views the bedouins as a serious security and demographic threat. “This is obviously clear racism. Instead of recognising the bedouin villages, recognising the private ownerships of those bedouins and developing their infrastructure in the Naqab bedouin villages, Shamir comes up with desperate plans which regard the bedouins as demographic and security threats for Israel,” he said in a statement.

Many bedouins suffer from low level socio-economic conditions. The Israeli regime has yet to recognise some of the villages they reside in, refusing to extend utilities and services to them. In recent years, the regime has begun expelling bedouins en masse from the Naqab desert in a programme that has been described by critics as ethnic cleansing.