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Editorial

Israel Must Solve Plight
Of The Desert Bedouin

T

he Negev is Israel's last
frontier. Its develop-
ment, if purposeful and
strategic, will benefit the entire
country. But how the govern-
ment resettles the desert-dwell-
ing Bedouin Arabs into perma-
nent communities in southern
Israel will acutely influence the
future course of that develop-
ment.
Thousands of protestors
took part in a Day of Rage in
November to register their
disfavor with the resettle-
ment plan, which has prompted
a struggle that's more over
Bedouin identity than Israeli
land reform. At least 28 protes-
tors were arrested and 15 police
officers sustained injury, hardly
a demonstration of consensus
building. The New York Times
reported that police deployed
water cannons, tear gas and
sound grenades to disperse the
demonstrators.
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu had little
choice but to condemn the rock
throwing and road blockades
imposed by the protestors. Still,
the government seemed ill-pre-
pared to deal with what it surely
knew would be a testy response
to the Bill on the Arrangement
of Bedouin Settlement in the
Negev.
The desert has been the
major stomping ground for
the Bedouin. A tribal ethnic
group, they number 200,000
nationwide. In past years, most
have been supportive of Israel;
some have served in the army.
Uprooting those who live in the
Negev won't be easy despite
the importance of their resettle-
ment to Israel's future.
The Prawer Plan, now stalled
for rewriting, would partially
compensate the Bedouin for
land claims and resettle 30,000
people to recognized urban
communities in the Negev.
Certain unrecognized Beduoin
villages would be allowed to
operate for farming and herd-
ing, and protect some of what
gives the Bedouin their identity;
others would be razed. The plan
doesn't identify which villages

And an even greater outcome for
Israel, science and education.

would be saved, giving individual
families little comfort.
The plan frames Negev devel-
opment as "a national task of
the highest order." It rightly
suggests that resettling the
Bedouin in their desert sur-
rounding is a top priority.
Contested perceptions have
clouded any sense of reality.
The Bedouin did themselves
no favors when they aligned
in protest with Palestinian
agitators. The alliance thrusts
the Beduoin crusade into the
Palestinians' own fight with
Israel over land. But the alli-
ance is real. Younger Bedouin,
more politically active than their
elders, share the Palestinian
feeling of alienation from Israel.
To make the plan palpable
in the wake of Israeli Arab
lawmakers branding it "ethnic
cleansing," the Israeli govern-
ment must demonstrate it cares
about the welfare of histori-
cally underserved Bedouin as
Israeli citizens. Jerusalem also
must address the need for the
Bedouin in saved unrecognized
villages to receive basic gov-
ernment services as well as
the need for those resettled in
urban townships to specifically
have infrastructure, jobs and
schools.
Is Israel committed to the
rights of its non-Jewish minor-
ity? It continues to wrestle with
issues of Israeli Arab rights.
How it resolves the matter of
the Bedouin, a subgroup of
Arabs as are the Druze, will go
a long way toward opening the
window on the extent of oppor-
tunity that non-Jews have of
succeeding in the Jewish state.
Israel can advance this fragile
process along by committing to
engaging in earnest conversation
with the Bedouin at all leader-
ship levels. Transparent dialogue
could make up for the fact that
not one Bedouin has won a land
claim against Israel since state-
hood, opting for homes in gov-
ernment-sanctioned urban areas
in the Negev and modest cash
grants rather than relying on a
protracted legal battle with vir-
tually no chance of success.

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December 19 • 2013

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