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108-615: There were 11 recognized communities in the Abu Basma Regional Council, and their population is 30,000 residents. There were also approximately 50,000 “diaspora” Bedouins living in unrecognized villages outside the council’s jurisdiction. Prior to the establishment of Israel, the Negev Bedouins were a semi-nomadic pastoralist society that had been through a process of sedentariness since the Ottoman rule of

216-642: A court ruling in favor of the State. Judge Sarah Dovrat said that the land was not "assigned to the plaintiffs, nor held by them under conditions required by law," and that they still had to "prove their rights to the land by proof of its registration in the Tabu " (Israel Lands Authority). The judge noted that the Bedouin knew they were supposed to register but did not. In September 2011, the Israeli government approved

324-524: A cultural preference for rural life, caused many Israeli Bedouin to shun these towns in favour of rural villages unapproved by the State. Today, the government estimates that about 60% of Bedouin citizens of Israel live in permanently planned towns, while the rest live in unrecognised villages spread throughout the Negev. These villages are considered illegal under Israeli law, and their legal status, coupled with their periodic demolition and evacuation by police,

432-572: A new problem since they found it hard to prove their ownership rights. Israel relied mainly on Tapu recordings. Most of the Bedouin land fell under the Ottoman class of 'non-workable' (mawat) land and thus belonged to the state under Ottoman law. Israel confiscated most of the Negev lands, using The Land Rights Settlement Ordinance passed in 1969. Israel's policies regarding the Negev Bedouin at first included regulation and relocation. During

540-471: A part of which was paid in water. Initially Jews relied on well water from the Bedouins but later the settlers began drilling for water which impressed Bedouins who offered water to Jewish settlements expecting more water from Jews in the future. In return some Jewish settlements such as Revivim constructed special taps for travelling Bedouins. In 1932 Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini visited Wadi al-Shariya and

648-519: A process of sedentarization which accelerated after the founding of Israel. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , most resettled in neighbouring countries. With time, some started returning to Israel and about 11,000 were recognized by Israel as its citizens by 1954. Between 1968 and 1989, Israel built seven townships in the northeast Negev for this population, including Rahat , Hura , Tel as-Sabi , Ar'arat an-Naqab , Lakiya , Kuseife and Shaqib al-Salam . Others settled outside these townships in what

756-410: A recognition for their claims. More than 3,000 ownership claims were filed for the land sized over 800,000 dunams, which includes nearly the whole area between Be'er Sheva – Arad – Dimona and other areas throughout the entire Negev, including those that belong to kibbutzim and cities. In the first years of the arrangement, anyone demanding area of over 400 dunams had the opportunity to get 20% of

864-568: A revolution, but it can be achieved in two generations. Without coercion but with governmental direction ... this phenomenon of the Bedouins will disappear." Ben-Gurion supported this idea, but the Bedouin strongly opposed. Later, the proposal was withdrawn. IDF commander Yigal Allon proposed to concentrate the Bedouin in some large townships within the Siyag. This proposal resembled an earlier IDF plan, which intended to secure land suitable for settling Jews and setting up IDF bases as well as to remove

972-512: A similar illegal status until then. In the Galilee, most of the illegal villages were regulated and recognized, and from a population of 90,000 Bedouin in the north, a few hundred still live in unrecognized villages. In the south, it is estimated that about 90,000 residents live in unrecognized Bedouin villages; these Bedouin comprise 45% of the total Bedouin population. The unrecognized Bedouin villages were either built without authorization from

1080-839: A specified zone east of Beersheba. In November 1949, 500 families were expelled across the border into Jordan and on 2 September 1950 some 4,000 Bedouin were forced across the border into Egypt. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, Nahum Sarig, the Palmach commander in the Negev, instructed his officers that "Our job is to appear before the Arabs as a ruling force which functions forcefully but with justice and fairness." The stated provisions included: that they avoid harming women, children and friendly Arabs, that shepherds grazing on Jewish land should be driven off by gun-fire, that searches of Arab settlements be conducted "politely but firmly" and that "you are permitted to execute any man found in possession of

1188-673: A sudden burst of machine-gun fire until the sons of the desert were broken and, gathering what little was left of their belongings, led their camels in long silent strings into the heart of the Sinai desert." Israel's land policy was adapted to a large extent from the Ottoman land regulations of 1858. According to the 1858 Ottoman Land Law, lands that were not registered as of private ownership, were considered state lands. However, Bedouins were not motivated to register lands they lived on, because land ownership meant additional responsibilities for them, including taxation and military duty, and it created

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1296-461: A weapon". Prior to 1948, it is estimated that there were between 65,000 to 90,000 Bedouin in the Negev, after the war this number decreased to 11,000. Due to destabilizing tribal wars from 1780 to 1890 many Negev Bedouins tribes were forced to move to southern Jordan, Sinai peninsula. After the tribal war of 1890, tribal land boundaries remained fixed until the 1948 war, by which time the Beduin of

1404-424: Is called the unrecognized villages . In 2003, in an attempt to settle the land disputes in the Negev, the Israeli government offered to retroactively recognize eleven villages ( Abu Qrenat , Umm Batin , al-Sayyid , Bir Hadaj , Drijat , Mulada , Makhul , Qasr al-Sir , Kukhleh , Abu Talul and Tirabin al-Sana ), but also increased enforcement against "illegal construction". Bedouin land owners refused to accept

1512-610: Is intimately tied in with a pastoral nomadic way of life – a way of life they say is over. Although the Bedouin in Israel continue to be perceived as nomads, today all of them are fully sedentarized, and about half are urbanites. Nevertheless, Negev Bedouin continue to possess sheep and goats: In 2000 the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that the Negev Bedouin owned 200,000 head of sheep and 5,000 of goats, while Bedouin estimates referred to 230,000 sheep and 20,000 goats. Historically,

1620-689: Is the largest tribe in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, Al-Tarabin along with Al-Tayaha , and Al-Azazma are the largest tribes in the Negev. Counter to the image of the Bedouin as fierce stateless nomads roving the entire region, by the turn of the 20th century, much of the Bedouin population in Palestine was settled, semi-nomadic, and engaged in agriculture according to an intricate system of land ownership, grazing rights, and water access. Today, many Bedouin call themselves 'Negev Arabs' rather than 'Bedouin', explaining that 'Bedouin' identity

1728-473: Is the subject of considerable debate. In 2003, the government decided to establish a new regional council, known as the Abu Basma Regional Council, in order to oversee the resettlement and development of Bedouin communities in the area around Be'er Sheva, Dimona, and Arad. This was coupled by the formal recognition of a number of existing Bedouin villages within the council in order to encourage Bedouin to move from other unrecognised / illegal villages elsewhere in

1836-507: Is unknown. Different bodies use different definitions of the term "village". As a result, numbers offered by them differ, but there is an increase in the last decade, in spite of a slow recognition process of some of these communities. According to Maha Qupty, representing the Bedouin advocacy organization RCUV, in 2004 there were 45 unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev. According to the Human Rights Watch report based upon

1944-600: The 'Azazme and the Jahalin tribes. They were relocated by the Israeli government in the 1950s and 1960s to a restricted zone in the northeast corner of the Negev, called the Siyaj ( Arabic : سياج Hebrew : אזור הסייג , which means "fenced zone" or ”reservation area”) made up of in 10% of the Negev desert in the northeast. In 1951, the United Nations reported the deportation of about 7,000 Negev Bedouin to Jordan,

2052-519: The Gaza Strip and Sinai, but many returned undetected. The new government failed to issue the Bedouin identity cards until 1952 and deported thousands of Bedouin who remained within the new borders. Deportation continued into the late 1950s, as reported by the Haaretz newspaper in 1959: "The army's desert patrols would turn up in the midst of a Bedouin encampment day after day, dispersing it with

2160-630: The Israel Land Administration , Negev Bedouin claim area 12 times bigger than that of Tel Aviv. According to Arnon Sofer, the Bedouin make up about 2% of the Israeli population , but the unrecognized Bedouin communities spread on a vast territory and occupy more than 10 percent of Israel – north and east to Be'er Sheva . According to him, the Negev Bedouin have also started to settle west of Be'er Sheva and close to Mount Hebron . Their communities spread south to Dimona and towards

2268-577: The Judean Desert . They occupy large spaces near Retamim and Revivim and get close to the Gaza Strip , occupy land in the central Negev near Mitzpe Ramon , and even close to the central area. In 2010 alone about 66 illegal Bedouin settlements were established in the area of Rehovot and Rishon LeZion . According to Sofer, the Bedouin expansion continues rapidly in all directions and occupies spaces that Israel did not know before. Between 1994 and 2007, Israel recognized 21 Arab townships with

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2376-648: The Negev Brigade launched a full-scale clearing operation in the Kaufakha - Al Muharraqa area displacing villagers and Bedouin for military reasons. At the end of September, the Yiftach Brigade launched an operation west of Mishmar Hanegev expelling Arabs and confiscating their livestock. In early 1949 after the war, the Arab population was placed under military rule and Bedouins were concentrated into

2484-600: The Ottoman Lands Ordinance , the Negev area had no permanent settlement. By the year 1896 Negev Bedouin lived almost completely independently of the state. The Ottomans were not interested and did not intervene in the Negev and the Bedouins. According to Yosef Ben-Dor, only after a tribal war, the Turkish government marked tribal boundaries, but did not give the Bedouins in this agreement "ownership" of tribal territorial lands. The British government adopted

2592-600: The United Nation's Partition Plan of 1947. Conversely, other Bedouin groups aligned with the Palestinian National Movement fighting against the Jewish population. This period saw the formation of fighting Bedouin societies that participated in conflicts throughout the country, including the Galilee region, with Bedouin tribes fighting on both sides. In the Galilee, most Bedouins identified with

2700-694: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine estimated the number of bedouins in the Beersheba district to be about 90,000. In preparation for a 1946 census of Palestine that was never carried out, the British government surveyed all the tribes in situ and concluded that the number of bedouin in the Beersheba district was about 92,000 out of 127,000 in the whole country. It also reported that they "cultivated about two million dunums of cereal land and that aerial photographs of

2808-432: The sedentarization of the Bedouin population. In 1963, Moshe Dayan said: We should transform the Bedouins into an urban proletariat – in industry, services, construction, and agriculture. 88% of the Israeli population are not farmers, let the Bedouin be like them. Indeed, this will be a radical move which means that the Bedouin would not live on his land with his herds, but would become an urban person who comes home in

2916-531: The "right of possession" later granted by the government. Following the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Egypt, it became necessary to move an airport from a Sinai peninsula to a locality inhabited by some five thousand Bedouin. The government, recognizing these land claim certificates, negotiated with the certificate holders and paid compensation to them. Most moved to Bedouin townships, built houses and established businesses. The Israeli government has promoted

3024-529: The 1930s and until the establishment of the State of Israel, the Bedouin sold almost 765,000 dunams of land, of which about 180,000 sold to JNF representatives and about 45,000 dunams to private Jews. The rest 545,000 dunams, were sold mainly to Arab peasants from the Gaza Strip. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , the Negev region saw harsh battles between the newly created IDF and the Egyptian army . In

3132-485: The 1950s Israel has re-located two-thirds of the Negev Bedouins into an area that was under a martial law. Bedouin tribes were concentrated in the Siyaj (Arabic for "fenced area") triangle of Beer Sheva , Arad and Dimona . At the same time Bedouin herding was restricted by land expropriation. The Black Goat Law of 1950 curbed grazing, at least officially for the prevention of land erosion, thus prohibiting

3240-699: The 1950s, the 'Azazme were forced off their grazing grounds and settled in Wadi al-Na'am . Since then, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) munitions factory and military fire zone, the Efrat Oil Terminal – an oil-storage site, the Israel Electric Corporation and Mekorot – the national water carrier site have come to surround the village. According to a report by the Israeli NGO Adva Center, "The Bedouin living in

3348-578: The 2006 statistics offered by the Adva Center , approximately half of Bedouin citizens of Israel (85,000 out of 170,000) live in 39 such villages. According to another Bedouin advocacy organization The Association of Forty, in 2013 there were about 92 unrecognized villages in Israel, 59 of them were Bedouin villages in the Negev. According to the head of the Bedouin Administration, Yaakov Katz , and geographer Arnon Soffer , in

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3456-543: The Arab population, however, there were also Bedouins who had defended Jewish security before the establishment of the State of Israel often risking their lives and property by aligning with the Jewish fighters. The first Bedouin tribe to align themselves to help the Jews was Arab-al-Hib and later became the tracker unit in the Israel Defence Forces . After the war, some Bedouins who were neutral or fought with

3564-469: The Arab villages in the south, the lack of water in the Negev area did not allow its residents to revive the land and therefore they preferred nomadic life and shepherding to an organized and rental land cultivation, and this is why the land remained a desolate area. According to the Bedouin, although they did not document land ownership, the Turkish government and the British recognized the rights of ownership of land in which they roamed, and this recognition

3672-526: The Bedouin acquired a monopoly on guiding pilgrim caravans to Mecca , as well as selling them provisions. The opening of the Suez canal reduced the dependence on desert caravans and attracted the Bedouin to newly formed settlements that sprung up along the canal. Bedouin sedentarization began under Ottoman rule following the need in establishing law and order in the Negev; the Ottoman Empire viewed

3780-413: The Bedouin be like them. Indeed, this will be a radical move which means that the Bedouin would not live on his land with his herds, but would become an urban person who comes home in the afternoon and puts his slippers on. His children will get used to a father who wears pants, without a dagger, and who does not pick out their nits in public. They will go to school, their hair combed and parted. This will be

3888-477: The Bedouin community. The RCUV also worried that, as the council covered the region with the largest population but the least jurisdiction, the Abu Basma council's delimitations would strangle future village development necessary to accommodate population growth. The RCUV instead recommended the recognition of all unrecognized villages and their land claims, since "the entire land under dispute is no more than 2% of

3996-578: The Bedouin engaged in nomadic herding, agriculture and sometimes fishing. They also earned income by transporting goods and people across the desert. Scarcity of water and of permanent pastoral land required them to move constantly. The first recorded nomadic settlement in Sinai dates back 4,000-7,000 years. The Bedouin of the Sinai peninsula migrated to and from the Negev. The Bedouin established very few permanent settlements; however, some evidence remains of traditional baika buildings, seasonal dwellings for

4104-700: The Bedouin from key Negev routes. Between 1968 and 1989 the state established urban townships for housing of deported Bedouin tribes and promised Bedouin services in exchange for the renunciation of their ancestral land. Within a few years, half of the Bedouin population moved into the seven townships built for them by the Israeli government. The largest Bedouin locality in Israel is the city of Rahat , established in 1971. Other towns include Tel as-Sabi (Tel Sheva) (established in 1969), Shaqib al-Salam (Segev Shalom) in 1979, Ar'arat an-Naqab (Ar'ara BaNegev) and Kuseife in 1982, Lakiya in 1985 and Hura in 1989. Most of those who moved into these townships were

4212-579: The Bedouin in unrecognized villages consider the urban townships as desirable form of settlement. Denied access to their former sources of sustenance via grazing restrictions, severed from the possibility of access to water, electricity, roads, education, and health care in the unrecognized villages, tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens of Israel resettled in the townships. According to Ben Gurion University 's Negev Center for Regional Development, these first towns were poorly planned and were lacking business districts or industrial zones; as Harvey Lithwick of

4320-527: The Bedouin land fell under the Ottoman class of 'non-workable' (mawat) land and thus belonged to the state under Ottoman law. Eventually, Israel nationalized most of the Negev lands, using The Land Rights Settlement Ordinance from 1969. In order to reinforce the invisible Siyag fence and sedentarize the Bedouin, the State employed a reining mechanism, the Black Goat Law of 1950. The Black Goat Law curbed grazing so as to prevent land erosion, prohibiting

4428-415: The Bedouin male population was less than 3.5%. IDF Chief Moshe Dayan was in favor of transfer the Bedouin to the center of the country in order to eliminate land claims and create a cadre of urban laborers. In 1963, he told Haaretz : "We should transform the Bedouin into an urban proletariat —in industry, services, construction, and agriculture. 88% of the Israeli population are not farmers , let

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4536-403: The Bedouin were granted with a special extension of two months to register their land, they have never done so, and the land remained unregistered. Mandate authorities also conducted a preliminary registration of land and since 1934 began to collect land taxes. Mandatory maps show the location of the Bedouin tribes, however, the maps never marked the boundaries of each tribe. The 1947 report of

4644-673: The Bedouin with no recognized land claims, although the overwhelming majority of historic land claims had been left unrecognized by the Israeli government. Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel are rural Bedouin communities in the Negev and the Galilee which the Israeli government does not recognize as legal. They are often referred to as "unrecognized villages". The exact number of unrecognized Bedouin villages

4752-615: The Bedouins as a threat to the state's control. In 1858, a new Ottoman Land Law was issued that offered the legal grounds for the displacement of the Bedouin. Under the Tanzimat reforms instituted as the Ottoman Empire gradually lost power, the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 instituted an unprecedented land registration process which was also meant to boost the empire's tax base. Few Bedouin opted to register their lands with

4860-613: The IDF. On the other hand, Israel saw the Negev as its " hinterland ", being sparsely populated and as the West Bank came under Jordanian rule. The policy eventually adopted was forcing the Bedouin to concentrate in an area of 1,100 km , that has become known as the Siyagh (Arabic for "the permitted area") region, stretching between the West Bank border to the north-east, Be'er Sheva to

4968-423: The Israeli authorities, on the pretext that the ownership is not appropriately documented or that the lands claimed are not eligible to private ownership . Both Bedouin citizens and state authorities agree that only a small minority of the claim can be backed with full legally valid documentation, however the Bedouin claimants demand that their traditional ties with the lands, namely the fact that they de facto held

5076-532: The Israeli state or predate either the state itself or the "Planning and Construction Law" passed in 1965. As the state considers them a menace, they remain ineligible for municipal services, such as connection to the electrical grid, water mains or trash-pickup, and they cannot elect government representatives. These communities dot the Northern Negev, with military fire zones, natural reserves and landfills often being built around them. For example, in

5184-510: The Mandate authorities. The only exception were the Negev Bedouin who remained semi-nomadic. Prior to the founding of Israel, the Negev's population consisted almost entirely of 110,000 Bedouin. Compared to rural Arabs Bedouins were more willing to accept and sell land to Jews but outbreaks of violence and having different views on land ownership created a complicated relationship. The Bedouins expected payment for land , and labour as well as

5292-683: The Negev Bedouin fought with the Turks against the British , but later withdrew from the conflict. Sheikh Hamad Pasha al-Sufi (died 1923), Sheikh of the Nijmat sub-tribe of the Tarabin , led a force of 1,500 men from Al-Tarabin , Al-Tayaha , Al-Azazma tribes which joined the Turkish offensive against the Suez Canal. The British Mandate in Palestine brought order to the Negev; however, this order

5400-515: The Negev Bedouin into their system of governance, thus the Mandate's policy regarding the Bedouin tribes of Palestine was often of an ad hoc nature. But eventually, as had happened with the Ottoman authorities, the British turned to coercion. Several regulations were issued, such as the Bedouin Control Ordinance (1942), meant to provide the administration with "special powers of control of nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes with

5508-507: The Negev Center for Regional Development explains: "the major failure was a lack of an economic rationale for the towns". On 29 September 2003 Israeli government has adapted a new "Abu Basma Plan" (Resolution 881), according to which a new regional council was formed, unifying a number of unrecognized Bedouin settlements – Abu Basma Regional Council . This resolution also regarded the need to establish seven new Bedouin settlements in

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5616-679: The Negev area alone, there were about 1000 illegal Bedouin concentrations with over 64,000 homes in 2011, with about 2200-2000 new buildings adding every year. For comparison, in 2008 the Goldberg Commission stated that there were 50,000 illegal buildings in the Negev, and about 1,500 to 2,000 more were built every year. Testifying before the Goldberg Committee in 2010, Israeli right-wing NGO Regavim reported 2,100 separate concentrations in Negev of 3–400 constructions each, covering over 800,000 dunams . According to

5724-465: The Negev constitute the only group of Arab citizens of Israel that still has a large-scale hold on the land, a hold that the state officially denies in principle, while recognizing in practice." According to the Israel Land Administration (2007), some 60 per cent of the Negev Bedouin lived in seven permanent state-planned townships, such as Rahat , Tel as-Sabi , Shaqib al-Salam (Segev Shalom), Ar'arat an-Naqab , Kuseife , Lakiya and Hura , while

5832-431: The Negev lands. The Bedouins are more than 25% of the Negev population." The last head of the council was Rahamim Yona, preceded by Amram Qalaji. The council had the highest rate of unemployment in Israel. A 2011 audit by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss revealed failures of local authorities. It is accepted to give all the newly established councils a four-year trial period before elections are held. According to

5940-487: The Negev numbered approximately 110,000, and were organized into 95 tribes and clans. When Beersheba was occupied by the Israeli army in 1948, 90% of the Bedouin population of the Negev were forced to leave, expectating to return to their lands after the war – mainly to Jordan and Sinai peninsula. Of the approximately 110,000 Bedouin who lived in the Negev before the war about 11,000 remained. The first Israeli government headed by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion opposed

6048-476: The Negev were nationalized, and the area was declared a military zone. The government saw the Negev as a potential home for the masses of Jewish immigrants, including Jewish emigrants from Arab lands . In the following years, some 50 Jewish settlements were established in the Negev. The Bedouin who remained in the Negev mostly belonged to the Al-Tiyaha confederation as well as some smaller remaining groups of

6156-499: The Negev, literally meaning the official recognition of unrecognized settlements, providing them with a municipal status and consequently with all the basic services and infrastructure. The council was established by the Interior Ministry on 28 January 2004. Moreover, Israel is currently building or enlarging some 13 towns and cities in the Negev. According to the general planning, all of them will be fully equipped with

6264-416: The Negev, many unrecognised by the Israeli government, were classified as "open areas" during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict and so their 200,000 residents did not have warning sirens or anti-rocket protection. In the 1970s Israel collected all the "claims of ownership" in the Negev, without permits and without proof, for the purpose of registering these claims. However, the Bedouin saw the state registry as

6372-421: The Negev. The council was formed as a result of Government Resolution 881 of 29 September 2003, known as the "Abu Basma Plan", which stated the need to establish seven new Bedouin settlements in the Negev. The council was established by the Interior Ministry on 28 January 2004. At the time, the regional council had a population of approximately 30,000 Bedouins and a total land area of 34,000 dunams , making it

6480-616: The Ottoman Tapu , due to lack of enforcement by the Ottomans, illiteracy, refusal to pay taxes and lack of relevance of written documentation of ownership to the Bedouin way of life at that time. At the end of the 19th century Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Abdülhamid II) undertook other measures in order to control the Bedouin. As a part of this policy he settled loyal Muslim populations from the Balkan and Caucasus ( Circassians ) among

6588-407: The Ottoman Empire. Most of the land in the Negev was classified as muwat (موات, dead land, wasteland unsuitable for cultivation). The Bedouin did not create a written record of their connection to the land, and some argue that even opposed to it, since it would make them subject to the Ottoman empire , what would require them to pay taxes and serve in the Ottoman army. Also, when the publication of

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6696-555: The Ottoman land laws, and added to them the Land Ordinance, intended to prevent squatting and recognition of unauthorized takeover of land. In 1921, the government of the British Mandate issued an order for all the Negev residents to register their land. According to the Land Ordinance of 1921, any Bedouin who cultivated and improved a "mewat" (dead) land received a confirmation of ownership on that same land. Although

6804-667: The Sinai to build Saint Catherine's Monastery . Over time these soldiers converted to Islam , and adopted an Arab Bedouin lifestyle. In the 7th century, the Levant was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate . Later, the Umayyad dynasty began sponsoring building programs throughout the region, which was in close proximity to the dynastic capital in Damascus , and the Bedouin flourished. However, this activity decreased after

6912-677: The Zionist forces remained in the State of Israel. Others were forced to leave. The IDF prevented some tribes, including some known to be neutral or friendly towards the Jews, from reaping their crops. The crops were either burned or reaped by Jews. Most of them left for Jordan , the Sinai Peninsula , the Gaza Strip , and the West Bank . In March 1948, Bedouin and semi-Bedouin communities begun to leave their homes and encampments in response to Palmach retaliation raids following attacks on water-pipelines to Jewish cities. On 16 August 1948,

7020-451: The aftermath of the war, most of the Negev was included within the borders of the newly established State of Israel. Censuses before and after the war indicate that about 80% of the Bedouin population left the Negev to areas that remained under Arab rule. The Israeli authorities' treatment of the Bedouin population was ambivalent. On the one hand, the Bedouin were considered loyal to the new state, and some of them even volunteered to serve in

7128-432: The afternoon and puts his slippers on. His children will get used to a father who wears pants, without a dagger, and who does not pick out their nits in public. They will go to school, their hair combed and parted. This will be a revolution, but it can be achieved in two generations." Dayan added, "Without coercion but with governmental direction ... this phenomenon of the Bedouins will disappear". The Bedouin communities in

7236-714: The amendment to the Regional Councils’ Law passed in 2009, that period can be extended by the Interior Ministry indefinitely. Following a decision taken by the Knesset’s Interior Committee in 2010 to force the government to present a detailed timeline for the council’s development the date for the first elections in the Abu Basma Regional Council was set as 2012. But due to the unpreparedness and low level of municipal services eventually these elections were delayed once again and never took place since

7344-399: The areas predominantly populated by the nomads, and also created several permanent Bedouin settlements, although the majority of them did not remain. In 1900 an urban administrative center of Beersheva was established in order to extend governmental control over the area. Another measure initiated by the Ottoman authorities was the private acquisition of large plots of state land offered by

7452-463: The attempt to urbanize them. The largest Bedouin locality in Israel, the city of Rahat , was established in 1971. Other townships include Tel as-Sabi (Tel Sheva) (established in 1969), Shaqib al-Salam (Segev Shalom) in 1979, Ar'arat an-Naqab (Ar'ara BaNegev) and Kuseife in 1982, Lakiya in 1985 and Hura in 1989. Since grazing has been severely restricted, and the Bedouin rarely receive permits to engage in subsistence agriculture , few of

7560-414: The authorities taking into consideration any legal rights the Bedouins had to the land recognized by either government. Furthermore, Jews who dealt with redemption of lands in the establishment of Israel gave ex gratia funds to the Bedouin to enable the rapid registration of Israel lands in the land registry, and not because legal recognition of ownership of the Bedouin on the land. Since the beginning of

7668-537: The capital was moved to Baghdad during the subsequent Abbasid reign. Most of the Negev Bedouin tribes migrated to the Negev from the Arabian Desert, Transjordan, Egypt, and the Sinai from the 18th century onwards. Traditional Bedouin lifestyle began to change after the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. The rise of the puritanical Wahhabi sect forced them to reduce their raiding of caravans . Instead,

7776-625: The court order and all the legal procedure – demolishes houses built without state's permission on what it considers to be state lands. The unrecognized villages are not accurately marked on any official maps. A number of villages has been recognized in the 2000s as a part of creation of the Abu Basma Regional Council . In 2009 the Goldberg Commission recommended that most of the 46 unrecognised villages east of Route 40 should be recognised and their 50,000 illegal structures be legalized. In 2010, Israeli authorities demolished

7884-532: The development of water sources in the region and to learn science and technology from the Jews. The relations also varied between tribal groups with tense relations between Jews and the Azazma around Bir Asluj and Revivim compared to warm relations with the Tarabin in western Negev. In addition to payments in exchange for the purchase of lands and of salaries to field guards, Bedouin sheikhs were paid protection money,

7992-405: The government for their return. Various claims committees were established to make legal arrangements to solve land disputes at least partially, but no proposals acceptable to both sides were approved. In the 1950s, as a consequence of losing access to their lands, many Bedouin men sought work on Jewish farms in the Negev. However, preference was given to Jewish labor, and as of 1958, employment in

8100-487: The grazing of goats outside recognized land holdings. Because few Bedouin territorial claims were recognized, most grazing was rendered illegal. Since both Ottoman and British land registration processes had failed to reach into the Negev region before Israeli rule, and since most Bedouin preferred not to register their lands, few Bedouin possessed any documentation of their land claims. Those whose land claims were recognized found it almost impossible to keep their goats within

8208-409: The grazing of goats outside recognized land holdings. Since few Bedouin territorial claims were recognized, most grazing was thereby rendered illegal. Most Bedouin who had the option, preferred not to register their lands under the Ottoman rule as this would mean being taxed without representation or services. Those whose land claims were recognized found it almost impossible to keep their goats within

8316-457: The judges ruled in favor of the state, since there was no document proving Bedouin land ownership. According to recent data submitted to the Goldberg Commission by the Bedouin Administration in July 2008, 2840 claims remained, whose overall area is 571,186 dunams. Dealing with the problem of the Negev Bedouin, between 1968 and 1989 Israel built seven planned townships especially for the Bedouin in

8424-477: The land from the Land Registry , and for the rest of the area they would receive financial compensation. Anyone who demanded less than 400 dunams, had received only monetary compensation. In addition, the state of Israel compensated the Bedouin for any building, tin shack, barn or even a tree that the Bedouin placed and the government removed. The compensation value was even higher than the property's value in

8532-471: The later part of the 19th century would wander between Hijaz in the east and the Sinai Peninsula in the west. Today most live in the Negev region of Israel , while a minority who were expelled during the 1948 war live in Palestine. The Bedouin tribes adhere to Islam and most are Israeli citizens. Some Bedouins voluntarily serve in the IDF . From 1858 during Ottoman rule, the Negev Bedouin underwent

8640-450: The market. In 20% of the claims the state has reached a settlement with the Bedouin. At the same time, some Bedouin tried to claim the land ownership in the court, despite the May 1984 Supreme Court precedent ruling of Justice Avraham Halima, stating that Bedouin are nomads by definition and thus cannot have any ownership of land. In all 80 cases in which Bedouin claims arrived to court,

8748-493: The most populous regional council in the Southern District but the smallest in jurisdiction. There was considerable controversy within the Bedouin community regarding the establishment of this council. The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) argued that while the creation of the Abu Basma Regional Council involved the recognition of villages that were previously under threat of demolition, it has involved

8856-431: The new State, and thus re-located two-thirds of the southern Bedouin population into a closed area under the authority of the IDF . This situation was maintained until the late 1970s. Starting in the 1980s the civilian government took back control of the northern Negev Bedouin from the IDF and began to establish purpose-built townships specifically for Bedouins in order to sedentarize and urbanize them, and to allow for

8964-491: The northern Beersheva taken by the Royal Air Force revealed the existence of 3,389 houses and 8,722 tents." The same figure of two million dunams appeared in a 1944/5 book of Yosef Weitz , but in contrast "Shimoni and Tartakover estimate the area cultivated by Bedouin in the Negev at only 60,000 dunam." According to Sasson Bar Zvi, a cultural researcher of the Negev Bedouin, and Arie Efrat who served as director for

9072-461: The number of Bedouin living outside the government- planned and officially recognized communities. During the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the semi-arid region of the Negev was inhabited mostly by semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes. In 1858 the Turks enacted a law stating that all landowners names must be officially documented as a means of regulating matters relating to land in

9180-691: The object of persuading them towards a more settled way of life". The ample powers of the Ordinance empowered the District Commissioner to direct the Bedouin "to go to, or not go to, or to remain in any specified area". Mandatory land policies created legal and demographic pressures for sedentarization, and by the end of the British Mandate the majority of the Bedouin were settled. They built some 60 new villages and dispersed settlements, populated by 27,500 people in 1945, according to

9288-604: The offer and the land disputes still stood. The majority of the unrecognized villages were therefore slated for bulldozing under the Prawer Plan , which would have disposessed 30,000-40,000 Bedouins. After large protests by Bedouins and severe criticism from human rights organizations, the Prawer plan was rescinded in December 2013. The Bedouin population in the Negev numbers 200,000–210,000. Just over half of them live in

9396-417: The periphery of their newly limited range. Into the 1970s and 1980s, only a small portion of the Bedouin were able to continue to graze their goats, and instead of migrating with their goats in search of pasture, most Bedouin migrated in search of work. Despite state hegemony over the Negev, the Bedouin regarded 600,000 dunams (600 km or about 150,000 acres) of the Negev as theirs, and later petitioned

9504-408: The periphery of their newly limited range. Into the 1970s and 1980s, only a small portion of the Bedouin were able to continue to graze their goats. Instead of migrating with their goats in search of pasture, the majority of the Bedouin migrated in search of wage-labor. In the mid-1970s Israel let the Negev Bedouin register their land claims and issued special certificates that served as the basis for

9612-458: The pipelines. On 9 December 1947 a platoon of Jewish guards from Palmach encountered a Bedouin camp near kibbutz Mivtachim and violence ensued and was followed by several incidents of violence between Jewish patrols and Bedouins. During the 1948 Palestine war , Negev Bedouin supported both Jewish and Arab sides of the conflict. Some Bedouin groups aided Jewish populations against the Palestinian National Movement and Arab armies, particularly after

9720-412: The policy of sedentarization of Negev Bedouins imposed by the Ottoman authorities in the early 20th century, mirroring developments in nearby Arab nations. Early stages of this process included regulation of previously open lands used for grazing and re-location of Bedouin tribes. In the decades after the war of independence, the Israeli government was concerned about the allegiance of the Negev Bedouin to

9828-451: The provision of government services. The government promoted these towns as offering better living conditions, proper infrastructure and access to public services in health, education, and sanitation. The new development towns constructed by the state in the 1980s absorbed a large proportion of the Negev Bedouin population but were unable to handle the entire Bedouin population, and their later reputation for crime and poor economy, together with

9936-423: The rainy season when they would stop to engage in farming. Cemeteries known as "nawamis" dating to the late fourth millennium B.C. have been also found. Similarly, open-air mosques (without a roof) dating from the early Islamic period are common and still in use. The Bedouin conducted extensive farming on plots scattered throughout the Negev. During the 6th century, Emperor Justinian sent Wallachian soldiers to

10044-501: The region. During the British Mandate period, the administration did not provide a legal frame to justify and preserve lands’ ownership. In order to settle this issue, Israel’s land policy was adapted to a large extent from the Ottoman land regulations of 1858 as the only preceding legal frame. Thus Israel nationalized most of the Negev lands using the state’s land regulations from 1969 and designated most of it for military and national security purposes. The 1947 UN Partition Plan , which

10152-795: The regional council was split. In 2007, the council ran 24 elementary schools (21 based in temporary housing) and three high schools . Due to the shortage of high schools in their villages, students attended regional schools in Kuseife and Shaqib al-Salam . The dropout rate was 16%. 31°15′28″N 34°58′26″E  /  31.25778°N 34.97389°E  / 31.25778; 34.97389 Negev Bedouin The Negev Bedouin ( Arabic : بدْو النقب , Badwu an-Naqab ; Hebrew : הבדואים בנגב ‎ , HaBedu'im BaNegev ) are traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab tribes ( Bedouin ), while some are of Sub-Saharan African descent , who until

10260-544: The relevant infrastructure: schools, medical clinics, postal offices, etc. and they also will have electricity, running water and waste control. Several new industrial zones are planned, some are already being constructed, like Idan HaNegev on the suburbs of Rahat. It will have a hospital and a new campus inside. Israel is trying to solve the problem of unrecognized villages by attracting the scattered communities into government-planned townships and villages offering land plots at low prices and as an extreme measure – following

10368-557: The renunciation of considerable swathes of village land claims in exchange. The RCUV was concerned that the creation of Abu Basma would set a precedent for the transformation of unrecognized villages into urban ghettos by limiting their boundaries to the area of habitation and zoning most Bedouin grazing grounds; this type of de jure recognition has not entailed the introduction of business districts or de facto recognition through equitable provision of education, health, transportation and municipal waste services long denied to, and demanded, by

10476-567: The rest (40 per cent) – "in illegal homes spread over hundreds of thousands of dunams". Since 2003 a number of previously illegal Bedouin communities were recognized by the state (such as al-Sayyid ), and several new ones were built (such as Tirabin al-Sana ) totaling 12 (not including the previous seven townships). They were united under Abu Basma Regional Council that was split on 5 November 2012 into two newly created bodies: Neve Midbar Regional Council and al-Kasom Regional Council . As of July 2013, there are no updated official statistics on

10584-424: The return of the Bedouin from Jordan and Egypt. Furthermore, Ben-Gurion also wanted to expel the small number of Bedouin (11,000 or so) remaining in the Negev. He eventually changed his mind holding the view that the remaining Bedouin would not pose an obstacle to Jewish settlement there. However, he had most of them uprooted and relocated in the northeastern Negev, to an area referred to as the “ Siyag .” The lands of

10692-520: The rights on these lands without objection on behalf of the former Ottoman or British authorities, be recognized by the State of Israel as ownership. Implementing her land policies, Israel started to rely on the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 , the only preceding law frame in the region. According to these regulations, lands that were not registered as of private ownership, were considered state lands. Israel relied mainly on Tabu recordings. Most of

10800-716: The seven government-built Bedouin-only towns; the remaining 90,000 live in 46 villages – 35 of which are still unrecognized and 11 of which were officially recognized in 2003. The Negev Bedouin are Arabs who originally had a nomadic lifestyle rearing livestock in the deserts of southern Israel . The community is traditional and conservative, with a well-defined value system that directs and monitors behaviour and interpersonal relations. The Negev Bedouin tribes have been divided into three classes, according to their origin: descendants of ancient Arabian nomads, descendants of some Sinai Bedouin tribes, and Palestinian peasants ( Fellaheen ) who came from cultivated areas. Al-Tarabin tribe

10908-425: The south-west and Arad to the south. All the Bedouin remaining under Israeli rule were granted Israeli citizenship, but the Siyagh region was placed under martial law until 1966, like many other mostly Arab-populated areas in Israel at the time. This was the time when most of the unrecognized villages of today were established. The Bedouin claims for ownership on lands in the Negev were, by and large, rejected by

11016-461: The sultan to the absentee landowners (effendis). Numerous tenants were brought in order to cultivate the newly acquired lands. And the main trend of settling non-Bedouin population in the Palestine remained until the last days of the empire. By the 20th century much of the Bedouin population was settled, semi-nomadic, and engaged in agriculture according to an intricate system of land ownership, grazing rights, and water access. During World War I ,

11124-451: The unrecognized village of al-Araqeeb . Since then it has been rebuilt and destroyed several dozen times (September 2012). The matter of land ownership in the area of al-Araqeeb was raised in court when several members of al-Uqbi family filed a suit against the State claiming ownership of land. After a thorough examination of this case involving leading experts in the field, in March 2012 came

11232-481: Was accepted by the Jewish leaders, envisaged most of the Negev (including most of the Negev Bedouin territory) as part of the planned Jewish state. After the rejection of the UN plan by the united Arab nations, their subsequent declaration of war on Israel, and their eventual defeat in the 1948 Palestine war , the Negev became part of Israel and the Negev Bedouin became Israeli citizens. The new Israeli government continued

11340-473: Was accompanied by losses in sources of income and poverty among the Bedouin. The Bedouin nevertheless retained their lifestyle, and a 1927 report describes them as the "untamed denizens of the Arabian deserts." The British also established the first formal schools for the Bedouin. The Negev Bedouin have been described as remaining largely unaffected by changes in the outside world until recently. Their society

11448-417: Was expressed when the Bedouins sold land to the Zionist movement during the British Mandate, and the sales were recognized and recorded in the Tabu (land registry). In contrast, Yosef Ben-David explains this fact by claiming that the Ottoman and British authorities saw a blessing in transferring land from the Bedouin to the applicant for registration, because they will be likely to use land intensively, without

11556-504: Was hosted by Sheikh Ibrahim el-Sana who with other sheikhs agreed to counter Negev from the Zionist settlement. They agreed to stop selling land to Jews and to consider those that do as outcasts. However the implementation of the agreement was varied across groups with some ignoring it. By 1947 Jews had begun building pipelines in cooperation with Arabs and Bedouin villages who were promised their own taps. However this also increased conflict between Jews and hostile Bedouin tribes who damaged

11664-530: Was often considered a "world without time." Recent scholars have challenged the notion of the Bedouin as 'fossilized,' or 'stagnant' reflections of an unchanging desert culture. Emanuel Marx has shown that Bedouin were engaged in a constantly dynamic reciprocal relation with urban centers and Michael Meeker, a cultural anthropologist, states that "the city was to be found in their midst." The British Mandate authorities, laws and bureaucracy favored settled groups above pastoral nomads and they found it hard to fit

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