Bedouins under siege in the Negev

Normally happy to be hidden from world view, the Bedouin now decry lack of world attention to their fate in southern Israel

by Chris LaVigne <clavigne@republic-news.org>

"The fate of the Bedouin people in the Negev is a well-kept secret," Lynne Trudeau tells me, her face veiled in sadness. "It's not as sensationalistic as the pyrotechnics going on in Iraq and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza so you don't hear about it. But it's the same thing going on exactly. It's so insidious because nobody knows about it."

As a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, the 53-year-old Langley-resident spent a few months last year living among the Bedouin people of Israel where she witnessed the gradual strangulation of this ancient culture at the hands of that country's colonial policies. "It's racism that I would equate with racism in our own country in the 20th-century," Trudeau says. "Racism comparable to what went on in the south of the States when I was growing up. Racism at its ugliest in South Africa."

Called the Negev in Hebrew and al Naqab in Arabic, the desert of southern Israel comprises 60% of Israel's territory inside the Green Line. It has been the home of semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes for at least 450 years. After Israel's victory in the 1948 war, most of the Bedouin fled the desert or were expelled by the Israeli army. Today, only 130,000 Bedouin remain and they live on less than 1.5% of their former territory; the rest is occupied by Israeli settlements or reserved for future Israeli development. Of the enduring Bedouin, 57,000 have been pushed into what Israel calls "recognized villages"—a settlement policy that Canadians will recognize as a doppelganger of our country's aboriginal reservations system.

Israel maintains strict control over these Bedouin reservations. Inhabitants are not allowed to own property, but must lease land from the Israeli government that they once owned. The Bedouin are also prevented from setting up their own industries, resulting in a 62% unemployment rate. The rest find work as cheap labour in the Israeli settlements that loom over each of their villages, where walls and gates prevent any Bedouin from entering unless on their way to work. The arrangement is a repulsive echo of the deplorable ghettoes that European Jews were forced to endure in the 19th and 20th centuries at the hands of similarly racist governments.

The majority of al Naqab's Bedouin population still attempt to live a traditional lifestyle. Being fastened to a single place is unnatural for the famously nomadic Bedouin, a people whom Trudeau describes as "very proud and very self-sufficient." The Israeli government treats these nomadic Bedouin as squatters, immediately demolishing any structures that they build—including mosques. "Unrecognized villages are taking up more land than the Israeli government would like them to," Trudeau bluntly explains. She says Israeli policy is designed to harass the Bedouin until they retreat to the recognized villages, leaving more land available for Israeli settlers. Some Bedouin have resorted to desperate measures to escape the persecution. "I read where one man chooses to herd his sheep in a mire of garbage," Trudeau tells me. "As he says, 'It's the one place where I'm left in peace.'"

Making the Bedouin's situation worse is their invisibility to both international and local eyes. "They have always been a kind of peripheral people and probably, that was just fine with them when they were being left alone," Trudeau says. "But now they're not being left alone."

Many Israelis are completely oblivious to the Bedouin except when traveling to the Negev, which has become a valuable source of tourism revenue for Israel. Ironically, the major attraction for these vacationers is the chance to experience the remnants of Bedouin culture. Financially-successful camel-ride operations and desert camping expeditions are capitalizing on the legacy of the Bedouin, although they are mostly run by Israelis. Some Bedouin are getting in on the act, too, much like many North American First Nations people joined circuses and rodeos after white settlers slaughtered and dislocated their tribes. "This is the final insult," Trudeau laments.

When not experiencing a long weekend in the wild, wild south, however, Israelis tend to see the Bedouin as little more than a potential Arab threat (though Trudeau is quick to point out that "there are some very good Israeli and other Jewish groups struggling hard and putting their lives on the line to turn this around"). "[Israelis] are extremely fearful of Arabs, which is quite hilarious because the Arabs are terrified of the Israelis," she laughs. Then her eyes drop as though she's holding back a sudden surge of tears, "It's a horrible thing to witness, people being afraid of each other to that extent."

Israel's policy towards the Bedouin as a possible security threat is one of divide and assimilate and is meant to stop the Bedouin from finding a common cause with Palestinians. Trudeau explains how Israel has been trying a tactic to convince the Bedouin that they are not really Arabs, which she finds interesting since in her experience most Bedouin define themselves as being the quintessential Arabs. Whatever their intentions, Israeli policies are actually turning more Bedouin towards identification with Palestinians and also towards Islam. This shift has led to another reactionary and provocative move on Israel's part to physically separate the Bedouin from the West Bank through a series of walls and military zones.

As far as assimilation goes, Israel's results have been impressive on a technical level. Almost half of the Bedouin population have been imprisoned on reservations and forced to abandon their traditional way of life. The rest seem destined to join them. Spiritually, however, the Bedouin are far from broken. The recognized village of Rahat—the only one of the reservations to have a Bedouin mayor—is generally considered the most successful and well-assimilated of the seven villages. However, a recent survey of the village's 140 families found that only five said they would stay if they had the choice. "Everybody else would leave if they had the option to go back to their old way of life," Trudeau explains.

For the Bedouin of the Negev, going back in time seems to be the only way that they'll be able to survive into the future.

For more information, please visit:

Association for the Recognition of the Arab Unrecognized Villages in Israel

Regional Council for the Palestinian Bedouin of the Unrecognized Villages

Israel's Bedouin: The End of Poetry

Photo Gallery of Negev Bedouin

****