Israel’s Arab Bedouin citizens are Indigenous to the Negev (Naqab, in Arabic) desert, where they have lived for centuries as a semi-nomadic people, long before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Members of the Bedouin community are an integral part of the Arab Palestinian minority, as well as citizens of the State of Israel. Combining herding with agriculture, they are settled in villages linked by kinship (tribes) systems, and this has largely determined land ownership.

During the early 1950s and until 1966, Israel concentrated the Bedouin in a restricted area, known by the name of “al-Siyāj”, under military administration, representing only around 10% of their original ancestral land. Today, some 300,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel live in the Naqab, in three types of location: government-planned townships, recognized villages, and unrecognized villages.^[i]

There are 35 unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab, which Israel refers to either as the “dispersion” or as “illegal villages”, calling their inhabitants “trespassers” on State land and “criminals”.^[ii] Most of the Bedouin population lost their lands when Israel declared it as Mawat (“dead”, uncultivated agricultural lands) and reclaimed it as State land.^[iii]

Since the beginning of the 1970s, Israel has been conducting an ongoing non-consensual and non-participatory urbanization process. The State documents that 72.9% of the Naqab’s Bedouin residents live below the poverty line.^[iv] However, Bedouin residents from unrecognized villages are not included in these national poverty indicators.^[v]

In addition to the seven townships, the State recognized 11 Bedouin villages from 1999 onwards.^[vi] In June 2021, the coalition agreement included recognition of the unrecognized Bedouin villages of Khašim Zannih, Rakhamah, and ̕Abdih within the first 90 days of the government. However, the condition that at least 70% of the Bedouin residents give their consent to leave their lands before the recognition process is finalized poses significant challenges.^[vii]

Two decades later, there is no significant difference between recognized and unrecognized villages. The remaining 28% of the Bedouin population (around 100,000 people) live in unrecognized villages^[viii] that do not appear on any official map and most of which contain no health or educational facilities or basic infrastructure. Their residents have no formal local government bodies and are represented only in the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV).

^[i] “Online Database – Life Characteristics of the Bedouin Population in the Negev – Demographics.” Accessed 15 February 2024, https://in.bgu.ac.il/humsos/negevSus/SYBSN/Pages/demographics.aspx

^[ii] For an interactive map of the Arab Bedouin villages in the Negev-Naqab, including background and information on services and infrastructure, see https://www.dukium.org/map/

^[iii] Forman, G. and Kedar, A. “Colonialism, Colonialization, and Land Lae in Mandate Palestine: The Zor al-Zarqa and Barrat Qisarya Land Disputes in Historical Perspective.” Tel Aviv University, Theoretical Inquiries in Law 4 (2003): 491-539. https://law.haifa.ac.il/images/documents/ColonialismColonizationLand.pdf

^[iv] State of Israel National Insurance Institute. “Dimensions of Poverty and Social Disparities - Annual Report, 2019.” p. 28. https://www.btl.gov.il/Publications/oni_report/Documents/oni2018.pdf

^[v] Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality (NCF). “Indigenous Bedouin citizens neglected by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.” August 2021. https://www.dukium.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indigenous-Bedouin-citizens-neglected-by-the-Israeli-CBS.pdf.

^[vi] Udasin, S. “Gov’t must bring basic needs to Beduins.” The Jerusalem Post, 21 December 2011. https://www.jpost.com/Enviro-Tech/Govt-must-bring-basic-needs-to-Beduins; Golan, P. “Built on sand.” The Jerusalem Pose, 26 June 2012. https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/israel/built-on-sand; Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. “How have the residents of the 13 ‘Abu Basma’ villages benefitted from ten years of recognition?” 30 September 2013. https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8207

^[vii] Boxerman, A. “Government legalizes 3 unrecognized Bedouin towns, fulfilling Ra’am’s pledge.” The Times of Israel, 3 November 2021. https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-legalizes-3-unrecognized-bedouin-towns-fulfilling-raams-pledge/

^[viii] Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Total population estimations in localities, their population and other information, 2018, https://www.cbs.gov.il/en/mediarelease/pages/2019/localities-in-israel-2018.aspx