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This is how the government escalates the longstanding process of evicting Bedouin from their lands. First article in a series.

By Rosa Media

Reseatch assistant Shany Payes

Editor Anat Zalzberg

Translation by Avi Bram

Date of original publication: 31/12/2024

Original Hebrew text: https://www.rosamedia.org/episodes/articles/63

The ‘exchange of populations’ is gathering strength. While public attention is focused on attempts to create new settlements on the wreckage of Northern Gaza, the eviction of Bedouin residents of the Negev and their replacement with Jewish residents continues at pace. A month and a half ago, on the 14th November 2024, the well-publicised struggle over the village of Umm Al-Hiran came to an end. Its residents, from the Abu Al-Kian tribe [see comment below], were compelled to destroy their own houses after the Supreme Court ruled they were intruders – in their own homes. On the ruins of the village, a Jewish village will be built, to be called Dror [Hebrew term meaning ‘freedom’] (formerly Hiran). Four villages have been destroyed in the past two months, and another ten are expected to be destroyed. Around 10,000 Bedouin citizens will be displaced, compelled to destroy their own homes. In their place, 23 Jewish villages will be built – 14 on the site of former Bedouin villages.

300,000 Bedouin live in the Negev, of which 100,000 are living in ‘unrecognised’ villages. ‘unrecognised’ in this context, means a community that the state did not recognise through the official planning procedures. In 1965, the newly legislated Construction and Planning Law [חוק התכנון והבנייה] was retroactively applied to all communities in Israel, except for Bedouin ones. The implication of unrecognised community is that all construction is automatically illegal, and there are no public services and infrastructure such as water, electricity, transportation infrastructure or educational institutions. Unrecognised villages take up approx. 2.7% of the land area of the Negev (350,000 dunams [one dunam=1,000 square metres]). The overall area subject to disputed claims makes up approx. 4.9% of the Negev (640,000 dunams) – the competing claims of ownership are at the heart of the dispute between the Bedouin and the State.

The Bedouin claim of ownership of the land is supported by extensive research. Prof. Oren Yiftachel, lecturer in Geography and Urban Planning at Ben-Gurion University, points to various sources to support the Bedouin claims, including a map from the Ottoman governor of 1856 that shows around 100 Bedouin farms. These farms sustained a dual lifestyle – a nomadic one for grazing flocks, which took place around permanent settlements for growing crops. In addition, Prof. Yiftachel found dozens of archived documents that indicate Bedouin ownership of various sites in the Negev, and even registration of Bedouin ownership by Zionist organisations. Among these, there’s documentation by the Palestine Land Development Company [Hakhsharat HaYishuv or הכשרת היישוב; a Zionist private company, founded 1909] that show the Al-‘Uqbi tribe owned 26,000 dunam, including the village of Al-Araqeeb which was vacated following a Supreme Court decision in 2015. In addition, the Zionist movement bought over 100,000 dunam of land from Bedouin in the Northern Negev, on which they established the kibbutzim Hatzerim, Gvulot, Revivim, and Mishmar HaNegev, transactions which demonstrate that Bedouin ownership of the land was already established.

Despite this evidence, how does the State justify its claim that the Bedouin do not own the land that their villages sit on? In 1984 the Supreme Court considered this issue in the Al-Hwashla case. The Supreme Court rejected the Bedouin claim to have their land ownership recognised and registered. The State claimed that these were “Mawat” lands, i.e. they were abandoned at the time of the Ottoman census of 1858 [see comment below]. According to Prof. Yiftachel, “[the case] was constructed in a similar way to [other cases in] many colonial regimes. They [the State] choose an arbitrary date for when land registration is formalised. Who chooses the date? Empires, not the Bedouin”. Thus, non-written evidence and contradicting documents are disregarded. In line with the judicial doctrine of precedence (common in Israeli law – inherited from British law), from the Al-Hwashla case onwards all applications for recognition of ownership by the residents of the unrecognised Bedouin villages are refused using the same argument. Recently, the pace of village demolition has been accelerated rapidly under cover of the present war, but the policy of eviction precedes the war by many decades.

The tough socio-economic conditions and the scourge of violence and crime in the Bedouin communities – symptoms of the many years of neglect and discrimination they suffer from – are used as justifications for the damage done to the Bedouin. The Bedouin face severe poverty: all the recognised towns [see comment below] (which those in unrecognised villages are forced to move to when evicted) are classified as ‘Segment 1’, the lowest socio-economic segment [according to official statistics of all communities in Israel]. A main driver is lack of employment; 1 in 3 Bedouin youth is unemployed. In a hearing in the Knesset Employment and Welfare Committee in June, it was revealed that one single job centre serves the entire Bedouin population of the Negev (around 312,000 residents), with about the same number of staff as the job centre that serves the 5,000 residents of the town of Mitzpe Ramon. The state of the educational system is also poor – the number of children per class in Bedouin schools is the highest in the country, and the dropout rate is high (3.5% according to 2021 figures, although the true figure is probably much higher). The eligibility for Bagrut [the diploma marking the graduation from high school and completion of 12 years of education] is the lowest in the country – only 3 in 10 Bedouin boys make it.

Predictably, poverty and limited access to education impact crime rates. Violence and crime in Bedouin communities are rising consistently. The instigation of a special police unit combatting crime in Bedouin communities in 2012 came in alongside a 500% increase in Bedouin prisoner numbers. Some villages are experiencing nightly gunfire incidents, and as is the case with the wider Arab community [see comment below], the number of murders is increasing while law enforcement is waning. In 2023 the police reported that they were short 234 officers in the Negev region, with staffing levels at around 84% of target. At Segev Shalom [one of the recognised Bedouin towns] station staffing is only 77%.

The socio-economic weakness of Bedouin society is exploited by the government to present its eviction plans as a way of bringing progress to the Negev. For example, last month a ministerial committee on Bedouin affairs was presented with a 400% increase in the use of demolition orders against buildings defined as ‘illegal’ in the Negev [Note: this refers to demolition of individual homes and structures, not villages]. The committee met to approve the ‘focusing programme’ proposed by Minister Amichai Chikli, who is [Jewish] Diaspora Affairs Minister [see comment below] but is also responsible for the Bedouin affairs authority. The programme is based on forcibly evicting Bedouin from unrecognised communities and ‘focusing’ [i.e. forcibly moving] them to the recognised towns and building Jewish communities in their places. The committee approved expanding the programme to new areas of the Negev, under the pretext of strengthening Sovereignty in the Negev. The Prime Minister, in a written statement, praised the programme and credited it with aiding the “fight against polygamy” [see comment below]: “I want to emphasise the extreme importance of the fight against polygamy and I am instructing government and law enforcement to co-ordinate their efforts to oppose this phenomenon”, said Netanyahu. Orit Strook, Minister of Settlement and National Missions [see comment below] said: “Building [Jewish] settlements in the Arad corridor is one of the flagship programmes of the Ministry of Settlement … and under my leadership, we have really accelerated its progress”.

Shikli, Netanyahu, Strook and the other right-wing government ministers compete for credit for demolishing Bedouin villages, but the catastrophic impacts are felt throughout the Negev. Marwan Abu Frieh, a lawyer who heads the Negev branch of Adalah [a legal centre for the Arab society in Israel], has been dealing with the issue of the unrecognised villages for a decade. “The State of Israel’s agenda has always been to evict Bedouin from unrecognised villages and concentrate them in towns. But for the first time here in the Negev, the government is demolishing without offering any [housing] solution. Over 1,000 people whose homes were destroyed this year are still without a roof over their heads. In May, 75 houses were destroyed in Umm Butin, Wadi Al-Khalil, where Highway 6 expansion is planned [Highway 6 is a national project for a highway that crosses Israel from north to south]. They were left homeless. In Al-Ghoul, next to Ar’ara, they destroyed houses and left people homeless. And in Ramat Beka, they left 250 people homeless. They don’t care. The approach is one-sided. The government – the Bedouin Affairs Authority and the Israel Lands Authority – arrives in an area, does a survey of how many people and how many houses are there and gives an offer: you have to move to some particular place. Without any prior discussions, without those people having any part in the decision of where they move to. If a resident refuses they come with a demolition order or eviction notice … [they tell any resident:] if you disagree it’s not an issue for us because we’ll demolish [your home] anyway, and maybe you’ll be left with nothing because you’ll be liable for the cost of demolition which can be 2 million [shekels] or more. Every policeman and truck has a cost [which the evicted resident can be liable for]. It just expands and expands; there’s a delight in demolition and enforcement. The courts deny there this as a legal matter and claim it is a policy matter. This means the court decision [for any possible claim against the eviction] is known in advance – there will be an eviction, it’s only a matter of when, at best [the courts] will delay [the eviction]”.

The present government is using unchecked force to evict the Bedouin – a native population that has lived in the Negev for hundreds of years – following a court judgement that their land doesn’t belong to them. This has grave consequences for the whole of Bedouin society, particularly women, even while the government trumpets its fight against polygamy – supposedly for the good of Bedouin women. According to the legal NGO Itach-Ma’aki [איתך-معك] Women Lawyers for Social Justice, evidence from recent years shows the serious harm to women done by demolitions and living under threat of eviction. Bedouin women find it harder than men to find alternative accommodation if their home is destroyed, due to social norms around staying outside the home. Demolition is particularly hard on pregnant women or new mothers. Home demolition worsens women’s economic situation, which is likely to increase their dependence on men in their families. As primary caregivers, women have the greater burden of dealing with their children’s trauma from house demolition. This burden is even higher as there is no institutional support for children who have been evicted in these circumstances. The threat of demolition (not just actual demolition) causes physical and mental damage to women – women whose homes are slated for demolition are subject to stress and anxiety and often experience depression.

Adv. Debbie Gilad-Hayo, leader in policy and legislation for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), concludes “Government policy in the Negev constructs entire systems on an ethnic basis, in every aspect of civil life. These [systems] use sanctions and mechanisms which are not beneficial but draconian, including punishment and infringement of rights”. In the current political climate, where the public is apathetic towards ethnic cleansing in Gaza, feeling vengeful for October 7th and facing a strong pushback against anti-government demonstrations, is the fate of the unrecognised villages in the Negev already sealed? In the next article, we will survey the main bases of resistance by the Bedouin against their displacement, and note certain limited successes.

Translation notes:

1. The term ‘tribe,’ or Shevet (שבט) in Hebrew, is commonly used to describe communities of extended families within the Bedouin population. While it is the standard term (and therefore used in the text), it carries a derogatory undertone that portrays the Bedouin as primitive. A more nuanced alternative could be the ‘Bedouin clan,’ which also conveys the idea of extended family relations but avoids the primitive connotation.

2. Ottoman land ownership rules required the land to be used for specific purposes, such as housing or agriculture. Thus, abandoned land became publicly owned.

3. Israel has established one city, Rahat, and six towns for the Bedouin population in the Negev. The state compelled many Bedouin communities to relocate to these towns; however, only half of the Bedouin population in the Negev resides there today. While there have been efforts to recognise a few additional Bedouin communities, these represent only a small minority and are not reflective of most communities.

4. In Israel, terms such as Arab society or community, Arab Israeli, Palestinian Israeli, and Palestinian with Israeli citizenship (as distinct from Palestinians living in Gaza or the West Bank) are sometimes used interchangeably. Their use can indicate political affiliation but also a specific context for the text and intended audience. Individuals may use different terms to self-identify. The Bedouin community is generally included within this group, except in specific contexts, such as military service.

5. In Hebrew, the Jewish diaspora refers to Jews living outside Israel and is called Tfutzot (תפוצות), meaning "those who moved away." The term for the Bedouin diaspora, which generally encompasses all communities in the Negev unrecognised by the state, as well as the few Bedouin practising nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyles within Israel, is Pzura (פזורה), meaning "those who are spread out." Amichai Chikli’s ministerial office is in charge of the Jewish Diaspora which also oversees Bedouin affairs.

6. The term “fight against polygamy” is a well-known slur and dog whistle used to demonise the Bedouin community. While polygamy does exist within the Bedouin community, the practices and policies promoted by advocates of the “fight against polygamy” often have little to do with addressing the practice itself. It is important to note that there are civil groups within Bedouin society and the wider Israeli Arab society that genuinely work to combat polygamy within the Bedouin communities, but these groups are rarely included in policy discussions.

7. In Hebrew, the term Hitnachalut (התנחלות) refers to controversial Jewish settlements in occupied territories, whereas Hityashvut (התיישבות) refers to the legitimate settlement of communities of any ethnicity. The Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank has been promoting a PR campaign aimed at changing public perception of their communities from Hitnachalut to Hityashvut—a strategy similar to what was previously employed for communities in the Golan Heights and annexed parts of Jerusalem. As part of this campaign, the ministry headed by Orit Strook is called the Ministry of Hityashvut. However, this ministry primarily promotes the interests of the West Bank settlement movement (Hitnachalut) and rarely addresses issues related to legitimate settlement (Hityashvut).