Conservation plan highlights Arabs’ fraught ties to Israel

By SAM McNEIL
Associated Press

HILF, Israel (AP) — An Israeli conservation plan to erect a wildlife corridor on Bedouin land in northern Israel is angering local communities. They see the initiative as a threat to their traditional way of life as well as an affront to their service to the state. Unlike most Palestinian citizens of Israel, many Bedouins serve in the police or military. They say the plan is in line with other steps taken by nationalist Israeli governments against the country’s Arab minority in recent years that have deepened a sense of estrangement and tested the community’s already brittle ties to the state.