Fighting for the Community, Tradition, and Culture - The Negev
Bedouin within the Legal and Spatial Conflict with the State of Israel
Magdalena Lacka Supervisor: Dr. Polly Pallister-Wilkins Student number: 10394362 Second reader: Dr. Martijn Dekker
Master: Conflict Resolution and Governance Graduate School of Social Sciences
University of Amsterdam Word count: 17499 June 2017
Abstract
This thesis will study the Israeli land policies with respect to the Negev Bedouin. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Israeli land laws and spatial planning policies impact the Negev Bedouin’s ability to access their human and land rights. The empirical part of this study was conducted in May 2017. Data for this research was collected through the methodological triangulation of document analysis and
semi-structured qualitative interviews with experts and NGOs’ representatives working with the Negev Bedouin. A theoretical framework based on settler colonialism theory and critical legal geography theory, was used. Another objective of this study was to focus on the issue of indigeneity with respect to the Negev Bedouin, as this issue seemed to be an essential factor in the Bedouin land dispute. The whole conflict between the the Negev Bedouin and the State of Israel will be further illustrated in the case study of the village of Umm al-Hiran, in order to better exemplify the issues at stake. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that the Israeli modifications to the Ottoman and British land laws have served as a basis for the Negev Bedouin land dispossession, while the other Israeli land laws provided the means to limit the allocation of land to the Bedouin and to pressure the Bedouin population in the Negev. Furthermore, the results show that the spatial planning instruments and
development plans have been used as another form of dispossession by focusing on forced urbanization of the Bedouin community. At last, with respect to the issue of indigeneity, the results suggest the the Bedouin land dispute should be situated in the broader context of the Palestinian struggle.
Table of Content
Abstract…….……… 1
1. Introduction ….………. 3
1.1. Research aim and objective……….. 3
1.2. Research issue…….……… 4 1.3. Research questions….……… 8 2. Literature Review………..……… 9 3. Theoretical Framework……….. 14 4. Methodology……… 21 3.1. Overall goal……….. 21 3.2. Research strategy………... 21
3.3. Document and discourse analysis……… 21
3.4. Empirical data……….. 22
3.5. Semi-structured interviews……….………… 23
3.6. Ethics statement……….. 24
3.7. Limitations of the research………. 24
5. Presentation and analysis of findings ………. 24
5.1. Israeli legal land system………. 25
5.1.1. Israeli land policies………..………… 26
5.1.2. Governmental bodies involved………..……. 32
5.1.3. Israeli spatial policies and development plans…………. 35
5.2. The case study of the unrecognized village Umm Al-Hiran…….. 45
5.3. The Negev Bedouin and the notion of indigeneity……….. 48
5..4 The involvement of NGOs in the Bedouin issues……..……….…. 51
6. Conclusion……… 54
Bibliography……….. 57
1. Introduction
1.1. Research aim and objective
This thesis will aim to explore the Israeli land policies in the Negev region, which is located in the southern part of Israel, and their impact on the Bedouin communities that have been living there. It will focus on the legal instruments that are used by the Israeli government in order to displace the Bedouin communities and dispossess them from their land. Most of these legal land policies have been introduced after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, however, the Israeli government also uses Ottoman State Laws and British Mandate Laws. According to Sandy Kedar, through the adoption of all of these laws, the Israeli legal system transformed land possession and acquisition standards in order to “undermine the possibilities of Arab landholders to maintain their possession” and make it possible for the State of Israel to absorb these lands into the state lands (Kedar, 2001 in Shmueli and Khamaisi, 2015, p.35).
Alongside legal instruments, spatial planning is another “tactical tool and mean of
dispossession” (Weizman, 2012, p. 5), and it will also be part of the analysis, as in 2013 the Israeli government approved the Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, known as the Prawer Plan that planned displacement of 40% of the Bedouin in the Negev but it was shelved due to massive opposition and protests. However, in January 2017 the new 5-year plan was passed, which “declares it will push legislation based on (...) Prawer Plan” (Haaretz, 2016).
The study is highly significant, as besides the land ownership disputes, the Bedouin communities have been living there since the 7th century and these are the lands they
their “traditional pastoral way of life” (Cook, 2011). In a broader spectrum this thesis will aim at depicting ongoing contemporary Zionist colonization and internal Judaization through the assessment of legal and spatial justifications for the forced displacement of the Negev Bedouin communities, communities that can also be seen as the indigenous people of these lands, but that are legally and spatially obstructed from their indigenous and human rights. Furthermore, as the need for the Bedouin displacement and the issue of land ownership is highly related to the desire of the Israeli government to develop and modernize the Negev region, this thesis will also study the developmental justifications the government officials use for this development.
1.2. Research issue
The Negev Bedouin are traditionally pastoral nomadic tribes that underwent a process of sedentarization during Ottoman rule (Goering, 1979). This process was fully
completed after the creation of the State of Israel and the introduction of military
administration, which limited the areas the Bedouin previously migrated to in search of water and grazing lands. During the fighting in 1948 large parts of the Negev Bedouin population fled to the neighboring countries and some of them were expelled abroad by the Israeli government. Most of the remaining 10 000 Bedouins were forced to
temporarily move from the western to the northeastern part of the Negev, to which they were restricted to, due to “security reasons”. The lands they were removed from later on were classified as abandoned and therefore, expropriated by the State of Israel under the Land Acquisition Law (Goering, 1979), and were later on claimed by the Bedouin.
Even though both Ottoman and British rule tried to enforce the registration of private lands, that was merely an aspiration as in the end only 5% of lands got registered. Ultimately, the British kept the tribal courts that were known for the Bedouin community
and adopted a new administrative and legal system in the Negev, that included the local Bedouin customs (Amara, 2013). However, the Israeli government together with judicial bodies developed legal instruments that were selectively based on Ottoman and British legislation that suited their imperial and colonial interests (Amara, 2013). They also passed 34 laws, including “the Absentees’ Property Law; the Emergency Regulations for the Cultivation of Waste Lands; the Land Acquisition Law; the Abandoned Areas Ordinance; the Emergency Regulations Law, and the Emergency Land Requisition Law”, that together with the British Mandate laws helped them to legally justify the expropriation of Arab lands (Kishk, 1981).
Despite the application of these legal instruments, the Israeli government seems unable to completely resolve the Negev land issue. The negotiations between the Israeli Land Authority and the Bedouin land claimants started in the 1970s, however, they could not reach a solution (Amara, 2013). Since then, many of the Negev land ownership claims have stayed unresolved. The Israeli government has kept on trying to resolve the issue by various development plans such as the 2013 Prawer Plan for the Arrangement of Bedouin-Palestinian Settlement in the Negev that aimed at regulating the Bedouin settlement in the Negev including the unrecognized villages and ultimately “Judaizing the Israeli Negev” (Gordon & Perugini, 2013).
According to Shmueli and Khamaisi, the Israeli spatial policy of Judaizing space is applied in the Negev region through “land ownership, spatial planning, and land management and spatial regime-dividing by municipal jurisdiction” (2015, p.35). It is essential to acknowledge that spatial planning is not only a technical operation but it can also be seen as a sociopolitical action, as it has to do with the distribution of resources and therefore, can be used as a political strategy (Alqasis, Azza, and Makhoul, 2014). The recent proposal to solve the issue of the Negev Bedouin’s land ownership and develop the region was passed in the beginning of 2017. It is a 5-year plan that is
can anticipate the continuation of this land conflict impasse. This lack of conflict
resolution has a crucial and destructive impact on the Bedouin community that lives in the constant obstruction of their basic rights.
By the end of the 1990s, the Israeli government built seven townships, to which the Bedouin could resettle. At the moment, half of the Negev Bedouin population lives in these government-built townships, while the other half, that rejected this relocation lives in so-called “unrecognized villages” (Amara, 2013, p.35). The situation in both
townships and unrecognized villages is far from perfect, as townships are unsuitable to the rural character of the Bedouin and lack employment opportunities, and in
unrecognized villages they face a constant threat of house demolition. According to the state, the Bedouin houses in unrecognized villages are illegal, as the Bedouin have not received necessary building permits and the lands they “occupy” have been zoned as “military, industrial or green areas rather than residential” (Amara, 2013, p.35). This “non-recognition” is a mean that the State of Israel employs as a way to displace the Bedouin into the government-built townships. The non-recognition and illegality further mean the erasability of these villages from maps and therefore, the lack of provision of basic public services such as water, electricity or sanitation (Cook, 2003).
Figure 1. The Bedouin population in the Negev in 2016
Source: Rotem, M. (2017). Discrimination in Numbers: Collection of Statistical Data – The Bedouin Community in the Negev/Naqab. Negev Coexistence Forum, p. 9.
Map 1. State-planned Arab towns and unrecognized villages in the Siyag region
Source: Abu Ras, T. (2012). The Arab-Bedouin Population in the Negev:
Transformations in Era of Urbanization. Ben Gurion University of the Negev, p. 78. The Negev is particularly important, as it has been seen by the authorities as the region for the future settlement areas (Falah, 1989). The Negev lands already before the creation of the State of Israel were seen as lands reserved for the Jewish people. The first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion wrote: "Negev land is reserved for Jewish citizens whenever and wherever they want. We must expel the Arabs and take their place” (Cook, 2003). According to Zionist ideals, regaining the land is highly linked to working this land and therefore, farming should be something reserved for the Jewish people, so there has been an urge to direct Bedouin into the urban labor sector instead (Cook, 2003). Therefore, the Negev is not only about land ownership issues. The Negev
though the Negev is part of Israel, it constitutes an ongoing Zionist push for the colonization of lands belonging to the indigenous Bedouin Arabs.
This paper will analyze the Israeli legal system, including the Israeli legal land policies, the governmental bodies that are involved in the land issues, and Israeli spatial and development plans. It will further illustrate the Bedouin ‘problem’ in the case study of the unrecognized village of Umm al-Hiran. The last sections will discuss the notion of
indigeneity with respect to the Negev Bedouin, and the involvement of NGOs working on the Bedouin issues. In order to properly analyze the Bedouin ‘problem’, this paper will be based on theories of settler colonialism, critical legal geography, and structural violence. The analytical approach for this thesis will consist of the methodological triangulation of document analysis of laws and development plans, as well as the semi-structured qualitative interviews with experts and representatives of various NGOs.
1. 3. Research questions
This study will be guided by one main question about the impact of the Israeli land policies on the Bedouin community of the Negev region of Israel and will split into four sub-questions.
Main question:
- How do the Israeli land policies impact the Negev Bedouin’s access to their land and human rights?
Sub-questions:
- How have the Israeli land laws evolved since the establishment of the State of Israel?
- How is the Negev Bedouin land issue framed and articulated in development plans?
- How do land policies and development plans affect the Negev Bedouin?
- How does the notion of the Negev Bedouin’s indigeneity confront the Israeli land law and development plans?
2. Context and literature review
This section will introduce the historical context on the Bedouin land issues in order to properly understand and analyze the conflict between the Negev Bedouin community and the State of Israel. This section will focus mostly on the colonial history of Palestine, as well as on the Zionist movement, its beginnings, the Zionist’s perception of land and of the Bedouin, as well as its relation to the colonialism theory. Furthermore, this section will present the literature review related to the Bedouin land ‘problem’ with a special focus on the Bedouin resistance, the issue of indigeneity with respect to the Negev Bedouin and the use of urbanization as a means of land dispossession.
Zionism has already been situated in the colonial paradigm by Ilan Pappe, who argued that even though the Zionists had nationalist motivations, they acted “as pure
colonialists” (2007, p. 612). The Zionist colonial project started growing in popularity in the 19th century, together with the discourse depicting Palestine as an empty land, and an increase in purchases of the agricultural Palestinian land by the Jewish people
however, they “reduced the indigenous population to the mute object of history, people who merely have done things to them, and never recognized as one of its active
subjects” (Gregory, 1951, p. 79). In the Zionist ideology, this land was supposedly wild and only their return would make the desert bloom again.
According to the cultural conception of political Zionism, the Negev Bedouin were
regarded as “rootless nomads” that were more viewed as a natural element, rather than civilized people, and that their settlements were more “spontaneous” than “planned”, which in the end conceptualized them as trespassers rather than landowners
(Rangwala, 2004, p.434). This concept of “cultural conceptual order” is what the “culture of law” is based on (Shamir, 1996, p. 235). Therefore, it is first necessary to see how law conceptualizes a nomad in order to understand their treatment.
Shamir focused in his work on the role of the British Mandatory State in Palestine in the creation of the State of Israel, which is rarely acknowledged in the Zionist history (2000). In 1917 Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration that expressed their support for the establishment of the Jewish national state in Palestine. In 1920 Great Britain received the mandate to administer over Palestinian territories, through which it repeated the previously given support. The Zionist colonization was represented as a modernization of the “diseased” Palestinian desert and was used in order to legitimize the land
dispossession of Palestinians (Gregory, 1951, p. 81).
One could say that the year of 1947 was a transition year for Palestine from being a colonial state controlled by Great Britain to the colonial state controlled by Jews
(Shamir, 2000). Shamir further suggests that the existence of the British colonial regime in Palestine prepared a ground for- and moved the Zionist colonial project forward, which places the Palestinian context in dual-colonialism (2000). The British colonial legacy shaped all of the Israeli sectors such as the civil service, the legislature, the judiciary and the police. Furthermore, regarding the legislature, in response to the
Zionists’ request in the end of 1920s, Great Britain started a process of land registration in Palestine, that later on provided the legal framework for the expropriation of
Palestinian lands.
Following the war, Israel imposed a national-collectivist land regime, that was based on the process of land nationalization, as by the end of the 1960s Israel nationalized 93 percent of the Israeli territory; centralization of the land control through the creation of the Israel Land Administration (ILA), and selective allocation of land rights; that
altogether resulted in the rise of ethno-class social and spatial inequalities (Kedar, 2016). The nationalization of lands occurred through the imposition of different legal land policies, however, the military regime together with the Emergency Regulations Ordinance No.2 was one of the tools that have enabled to do so. The military regime handed the Israeli authorities powers to prevent the Palestinians from accessing their land, or even vacating some areas out of Palestinians due to security reasons, that played an essential role in the Land Acquisition Law and the Absentees’ Property Law. Many scholars, such as Abu-Saad, emphasize the impact this land dispossession had on the Bedouin community and their standard of life (2008). Kedar in her work further implies that the concept of dignity taking is highly relevant in the case of Israel, as a dispossession of land is interconnected with a denial of human dignity (2016).
Under the military rule, most of the Negev Bedouin were displaced to the enclosure zone in Siyag, while their lands got gradually registered as state lands through the aforementioned legislation process (Rangwala, 2004). According to Rangwala, the Israeli land policies together with the spatial planning policies facilitated the
expropriation of the Bedouin land through their transfer to the government-built townships, which can compare Israel to the apartheid regime against the Bedouin community (2004). This use of legalism can further compare the State of Israel to the colonial state, as previously other colonial powers similarly used this tool in order to
main objective to develop these legal instruments was always rooted in the aim of expropriating Palestinian lands, including the Negev Bedouin lands. Another cause these legal instruments were supposed to serve, was a colonial Judaization of the Negev territory (2013).
Abu-Saad focused on the urbanization process, as a way of dispossessing the Bedouin from their lands and separating them from other Israeli citizens (Abu-Saad, 2008). According to him, resettling the Negev Bedouin into government-build townships was one of the means to reduce the Bedouin’s ability to claim these lands, to continue the Zionist ideology to Judaize the region of the Negev, and to provide for the increasing need of the urban workers in the industrial and economic urban sectors (2008).
However, the Israeli government rationalized this through the discourse of the need to modernize the region, as well as the Negev Bedouin Bedouin community, to which allegedly they could not provide adequate basic services due to their wide dispersion across the Negev.
However, this urbanization process, not only impoverished the Negev Bedouin even more, as the townships lacked proper facilities, development, and employment opportunities but also separated them from the rest of the Israeli citizens. This separation was explained in the broader setting of Israel as a whole by Kedar and Yiftachel, who analyzed Israel as an ethnocratic state aiming at its Judaization, through the creation of special legal institutions, that resulted in the ethno-classes stratification (2006). The refugee dispossessed land and the Bedouin land that was categorized as mawat (dead land) became part of the State of Israel, went under the possession of the Development Authority (DA) and was supposed to be managed by the newly appointed institution called the Israeli Land Authority (ILA), which consisted of the Israeli
government, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and partially the Jewish Agency (JA), which structurally excluded Arabs (Kedar and Yiftachel, 2006).
In 1960 the Israeli government accepted the JNF policy to forbid to sell any land that was owned by the state, however, the lands maintained available for the possession under the category of licensees. These lands were mainly reserved for the allocation of land control by- and housing for the Jewish population, as well as for the settlement activity. Tarazi notes that this ethnic discrimination against Arabs is further seen in the Israeli planning, as already in the first Master Plan for the region it was proposed to move the Negev Bedouin into seven government townships, keep on denying
recognition and building permits to the Bedouin villages, while at the same authorizing hundred new Jewish settlements (2009). The following plans continued this pattern, which further separated the Jewish residents from the Bedouin community, especially as in 1988 the Israeli High Court ruled that Jewish residents cannot lease the land in the Bedouin townships and vice versa. Moreover, in high-quality localities, regional councils were equipped with the power to screen its potential residents. Even though in 2000 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that resident applicants cannot be discriminated based on their ethnicity, there is still no supervision over that, which enables for Arab exclusion and marginalization.
Mansour Nasasra argues that there has been an escalation in the Israeli land policies towards the Negev Bedouin, which is a result of the aim to further Judaize the region and to resolve the Negev Bedouin land dispute (2012). However, the Israeli
government’s struggle to do so has not resulted in any final solution and even though the unrecognized villages keep on being demolished, one of them, Al-Araqib, has become a symbol of the Negev Bedouin non-violent resistance, which attracted the attention of the international community. Other authors, like Abu-Rabia, further focused on the development of this resistance, viewing forced displacement and the Bedouin’s attachment to their original lands as the main causes of the development of their newly created identity of resistance (2008).
Besides the focus on resistance, there is an increase in the scholarly attention to the issue of indigeneity in regard to the Negev Bedouin. For instance Frantzman et al. centered their work on the evolution of indigeneity discourse with regard to the Negev Bedouin and their international recognition (2012). Yiftachel, Roded, and Kedar explored the nature of the notion of indigeneity and indigenous identity among the Negev Bedouin, while at the same time placing it in the setting of the postcolonial
globalization of human rights struggle (2016). On the other hand, Shmueli and Khamaisi are among the scholars that concentrate on the land claims and planning challenges of the Negev Bedouin, while situating them in the context of universal indigeneity and Bedouin uniqueness (2011).
3. Theoretical Framework
This section will cover the theories that are relevant to the Negev Bedouin case and which can help to explain and analyze the attitude of the Israeli government towards the Negev Bedouin and the lands that they claim. This section will focus mainly on the settler colonialism theory, as well as on the critical legal geography theory, as these two explain best the use of legalism and development as the means of land dispossession. It will further detail the theory of structural violence as an analytical approach to analyze the impact such colonialism has on the Negev Bedouin community.
As suggested by Oren Yiftachel, this thesis will re-situate the study of Negev Bedouin “within an internal colonial scholarly paradigm” (2002, p.289). In order to analyze the position of Israel towards the Negev Bedouin, I will mainly use the theoretical
perspective offered by earlier studies of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism can be seen as a subtype of colonialism and imperialism. It is a term that describes people, settlers that seek “to construct communities bounded by ties of ethnicity and faith in
what they persistently define as virgin or empty land” (Elkins & Pedersen, 2005, p.5), or what Barker defines as “a distinct method of colonising involving the creation and consumption of a whole array of spaces by settler collectives that claim and transform places through the exercise of their sovereign capacity” (2012). The power of the settlers is not only material but also very much conceptual.
For instance, Zionism can be seen as a very important component of settler colonialism in the example of the Negev Bedouin, as well as Palestine in general. Zionism can be seen not only as a movement but also as an ideology, as the Zionist movement is composed of four key components (Gorny, 1998). These ideological components consist of the Zionist movement being a movement of Jewish people that seek to re-establish their national home in their historic land, creating a Jewish majority in such established national land, the need for change in the socioeconomic structure of the Jewish people, and to the rebirth Hebrew language and culture. The first two
components of Zionist ideology are especially important in order to understand the conceptual power of the Zionist colonizers and the ethnocentric character of the state, which is pursuing “the expansion of a dominant ethnic-nation in a multi-ethnic territory” (Kedar and Yiftachel, 2006, p. 127).
Settler colonialism and race
According to Wolfe, the main motive of settlers is the land and they are settling and colonizing these lands in order to stay (2006). Colonization process usually starts with war or fighting that eventually imposes occupation on the indigenous population (Sanchez & Pita, 2014). It is followed by either compelling that population into forced labor or relocating them into other areas, and afterwards, it enters the phase of dispossession of the native population. Finally, the colonizers establish “preferential
unfavorable race- or ethnic-based identity (Sanchez & Pita, 2014, p.1043). The
indigenous population is usually viewed as dispensable as it is often seen as an inferior, uncivilized, and inconvenient (Bateman & Pilkington, 2011). They are often treated as second-class citizens who suffer from “economic, social and cultural disadvantage” (Bateman & Pilkington, 2011). Very often at some point, indigenous people regain their independence, however, if these are the settlers that gain independence the problem arises and settlers transform from “invaders” into “peaceful settlers” (Bateman &
Pilkington, 2011, p.209). The issue of indigeneity sometimes gets even more difficult, as some settler-colonizers claim “historical” rights to the land and that way perceive
themselves as indigenous people (Veracini, 2012, p.18).
For settlers-colonizers, the main goal is to eliminate the indigenous population by initially weakening their majoritarian control and afterward focusing on pushing the remaining indigenous population towards the border of settlement. Because the natives are viewed as uncivilized and backward, they are often either eliminated or relocated into inferior land in order to create a space for the civilized settlers (Bateman and Pilkington, 2011). It constitutes itself also in a structure of privilege that results in
inequalities between settlers and indigenous population, which is usually included in the law codified by settlers. Development of the colonizers’ spatial space can be seen as "a process of uneven power inscription that reproduces itself in the creation of oppressive spatial categories” (Banivanua-Mar and Edmonds, 2010 in Barker, 2012). This power inscription has its core in two coexisting systems of land allocation and spatial planning (Kedar and Yiftachel, 2006). Naturally, space and land are not distributed equally and settler society controls most of the land resources while denying them to the indigenous population. These spatial inequalities are further legitimized and protected by the next generations, creating the cycle of “ethnocratic power structure” (Kedar and Yiftachel, 2006, p.130).
According to Barker, the increase in colonizers’ population is also linked to the
dynamics of “modernity, urbanization and globalizing capital” (2012). Colonial urban and rural spaces are strictly for the purposes of settlers, while for indigenous people they constitute “the spaces of urbanization and modernity” (Barker, 2012). Most of the time, this urbanization and modernity are based on the western models and are applied to societies without taking into consideration their spatial and cultural setting (Shmueli and Khamaisi, 2015). According to Greer, these ideologies of progress and development can be seen as a tool to justify the colonialism and dispossession of the indigenous population (Greer, 2013).
This spatial reorganization of rural and urban land and its connection to rights of the indigenous population is most of the time linked to ideology related to race
(Banivanua-Mar & Edmonds, 2010). The race is included in the settler’s policies, laws, and language and clearly seen in the organization of landscapes and therefore,
constitutes the interconnectedness between bodies and spaces. According to
Banivanua-Mar and Edmonds, as well as Greer, the interaction of racial inequalities and the formation of space can be seen in the ownership rights (2010, 2013). The process of the indigenous dispossession of land rights is ongoing, as the presence of the
indigenous people is also ongoing. Therefore, the invasion of settler colonialism can be seen as a structure instead of an event, as “the native repressed continues to structure settler-colonial society”, which results in the highly complicated “social formation” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 390). This thought of settler colonization as a structure is further linked to the humanization of the settler colonization (Veracini, 2012).
Settler colonialism and land
For colonizers, the land, where the indigenous population shows unfamiliar cultural attachment to the territory or don’t possess a legal proof of their land ownership, is the land that they perceive as available (Bateman & Pilkington, 2011). For settlers, the possession of land is the main goal and this goal does not stop on a territorial
sovereignty but it focuses on a possession of land property (Said, 1994 in Greer, 2013). The effects of settler colonialism are clearly seen in the landscape it creates: “ the symmetrically surveyed divisions of land; fences, roads, power lines, dams and mines; the vast mono-cultural expanses of single-crop fields (...) the expansive and gridded cities; and the socially-coded areas of human habituation and trespass that are
bordered, policed and defended” (Banivanua-Mar & Edmonds, 2010). In the twentieth century, settler colonialism is seen as an “ongoing negotiation and struggle” between four main groups: indigenous people, settler community, local administration and settlers themselves (Elkins & Pedersen, 2005).
Settler colonizers use a variety of physical techniques in order to dispossess the indigenous population, such as “rapid zoning, fencing, planting and range of cultural strategies” (Edmonds & Mar, 1010, p. 4). They are also supported by the legal
strategies of settlers to take over the space, that include treaties, legislation or simply - land grabs, that play a significant role in the settler’s regime legitimization, as they “reconstitute settlers’ cultural biases and power relations into formalized rules” (Kedar and Yiftachel, 2006, p.130). In the colonial settings, the legal system has a crucial role in creating and maintaining “socio-spatial power orders” (Forman and Kedar, 2003, p.494). This use of the law for the legitimization of taking over space is part of the technique of asserting domination of the colonizers and can be described as “lawfare” (Forman and Kedar, 2003, p.496). The legally acquired land is further renamed, shaped and defined by the settlers’ distinctive identity and sovereignty.
On the other hand, for the indigenous people, in order to survive and maintain these traditions, it is necessary that they have the land of their own, which is separated from the dominant society, have some degree of autonomy over these lands, and possess internal leadership that will operate in order to maintain this autonomy and preserve their territorial and cultural rights (Susskind and Augelovs, 2008). However, this formalized settler legal system poses impossible legal challenges for the indigenous population and undermines their rights and abilities to protect their land. According to Susskind and Auguelovs, the dispossession of lands or the enforced urbanization of native people can be compared to the destruction of their culture, traditions, and lifestyle (2008).
Settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing
Regarding legal and spatial formations, Neve Gordon argues that ethnic cleansing, often tied to settler colonialism, undoes the aforementioned legal and spatial formations. He emphasizes that the progress of the ethnic cleansing affects “the shape of spatial reproduction and legal governance” (Gordon, 2016, p.20), as well as “influences the ability to normalize the colonial spaces” (Gordon, 2016, p. 21). Definition of ethnic cleansing applied by Gordon describes ethnic cleansing as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas” (2016, p. 21). Ethnic cleansing is not a one-time occurrence, but those colonial structures that invoke ethnic cleansing are to some extent fluid and change over time. Expulsion of the population of a certain ethnicity is not the only aspect of ethnic cleansing, but it is often combined with removing the signs of presence of the aforementioned population through the destruction of their environment, culture, and history, which highly depends on the progress of such ethnic cleansing.
Settler colonialism may constitute itself in a forceful relocation of the indigenous
population, in the movement of settlers, or both. According to Gordon, ethnic cleansing should be viewed as “a form of geopolitics that strives to shape an existing spatial order” and therefore, the completeness or incompleteness of this process “informs the structure of a settler colonial regime since it influences the production of space, the forms of population management and the structures of violence that are imposed” (2016, p. 22). Furthermore, Gordon argues that this (in)completeness of ethnic
cleansing affects and shapes the biopolitics in the region, which consists of institutions managing “medical care, welfare services, the economy etc.” (2016, p. 22).
Critical legal geography
Speaking of the settler colonialism’s usage of the legal doctrine, it is necessary to focus on the theory of critical legal geography, as it provides a better understanding of the interconnectedness between the law and geography or at least the need to recognize this interconnectedness, as well as how law and space are the mere social constructs that are comprised of each other, the relation towards each other which is often
undermined in both critical legal studies and critical geography studies. Legal studies heavily relied upon history, which led to the invisibility of space, but at the same time to the “spatialization of law”, where legal actors are responsible for defining and dividing these “legal geographies”, suggesting that the interpretation of space have a crucial impact on the understanding of the law (Bloomey and Bakan, 1992, p. 663). However, the central issue in critical studies of law and geography is that law and space are demonstrated as fixed and objective, creating a danger of blocking possibilities for change, which is an important theoretical perspective explaining the formation and persistence of the oppressive structures. Space and law have “a direct bearing on the way power is deployed and social life constituted” (Bloomey and Bakan, 1992, p. 669)
and when they are implied into social life, they can become oppressive depending on how these legal and spatial categories are defined and divided by the legal actors, who not only draw upon consciousness in order to do so, but they are also the actors to form such consciousness. Therefore, the construction and support of spatial boundaries and legal categories can sometimes lead to spacing out certain people on the basis of their “geo-legal location” and denying “the protection accorded other to citizens” (Bloomey and Bakan, 1992, p. 670).
Structural violence
The creation and usage of this legal doctrine and spatial instruments that enable
dispossession of indigenous people from their lands can also be seen as an instrument of structural violence. Structural violence is one of the components of settler
colonialism. According to Galtung’s concept of structural violence, this type of violence does not have a concrete subject, but is “built into the structure and shows up as
unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances” (1969, p. 171). Furthermore, this concept assumes that structural violence is located within social structures or institutions that deny some groups of people, depending on their class, gender or nationality, basic needs through the uneven distribution of resources, education and health services.
4. Methodology
Overall goal
The following section will outline my methodological framework. The first part will explain the research strategy and its link to the research question, which will be a qualitative case study of the Negev Bedouin. Then, I will outline the analytical approach for my research, which consists of the methodological triangulation of document
analysis and the semi-structured interviews. The last part of this chapter will cover the empirical data I studied and used for the document analysis.
Research Strategy
In order to answer the research question and analyze the empirical written legal and developmental data in depth, this desk research was carried out qualitatively. This manner of research does not necessarily make it possible to be applied to other cases of settler colonialism, but it allows for discovering and analyzing general argumentation and rhetorics used by the Israeli government and the Israeli judiciary system, when it comes to the land and the Negev Bedouin.
Document analysis
Aside from the available literature and secondary sources, this thesis is also based on the primary sources such as policies, legal and historical documents, as well as
development plans and available resources, which were the subjects of the document analysis. The documents were chosen based on the purposive selection (Flick, 2006). According to Payne and Payne, documents are “naturally occurring objects” that “tell us indirectly about the social world of the people that created them” (2004, p.61).
Document analysis is a qualitative research method, where documents go under interpretative analysis in order to give meaning to the researched topic. It consists of techniques used in order to categorize, interpret, and identify the limitations of
documents (Payne & Payne, 2004). Document analysis was chosen as a method for this thesis because the research question this thesis addresses focuses on the legal and spatial planning aspects. Therefore, in this case, document analysis is a highly useful method of research, as many of these documents contain valuable information on those aspects and most of them are easily accessible.
Empirical data
In order to answer the research question and its sub-questions, my empirical material mainly consisted of documents such as Israeli land laws, court rulings, parliament’s bills related to the Negev Bedouin land issue, and spatial development plans for the Negev region.
In order to answer the first sub-question, I needed to conduct a document analysis based on Ottoman Land Code of 1858, 1921 Mawat Land Ordinance, as well as on most of the land laws that were passed in Israel since 1948, with a special attention to the Absentee Property Law, Land Acquisition Law, National Planning and Building Law, as well as on laws related to the issue of land allocation and housing - Transfer of Property Law and Bill on Admission Committees.
As a basis for the answer to the second sub-question I used the governmental
development plans such as the Summary of the public hearing on the Draft Law for the Regulation of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev (Prawer Plan) and recommendations for policy and for amendments to the Draft, Alternative Master Plan for the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev and the Government Resolution 2397 Socioeconomic Plan for Negev Bedouin for 2017-2021 (“New” Prawer Plan).
Regarding the notion of indigeneity and indigenous rights of the Negev Bedouin, I reviewed documents such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.
To further explore the impact of the Israeli land policies on the Negev Bedouin
community, I complemented the primary data with reports and position papers prepared by various NGOs, as well as the secondary sources and news material on that matter presented by the international and Israeli media, that was available in English.
Since finding out the position of the Israeli government towards the Negev Bedouin land issue was the main aim of this study, the operationalizing of this methodology consisted of checking for the usage of words related to the topic for instance “Negev”, “Bedouin” and “Israel” in every document and news material. Through this process, different issues related to the land in the Negev and the Israeli land policies were identified.
Semi-structured qualitative interviews
In order to complement the desk research and document analysis, this thesis also included semi-structured qualitative interviews, that helped in generating more
information and understanding on the ways the Israeli land policies impact the Negev Bedouin’s access to land and human rights. The interviews were conducted with the
academic experts on that topic, as well as with the representatives of organizations that are involved with the human rights and legal protection of the Negev Bedouin. Eight interviews were conducted via Skype with the following people: Ahmad Amara; Ariel Dloomy, Co-Executive Director at AJEEC-NISPED (the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and
Development); Khalil Alamour, Co-Director and attorney at the Alhuquq Center; Michal Rotem, International Advocacy and Research Coordinator; Yeela Raanan,
representative of the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages; Hanna Swaid,
chairperson at the Arab Center for Alternative Planning; Myssana Morany, an attorney at Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; and Sana Ibn Bari, an attorney at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Ethics statement
The proposed research did not pose any ethical issues and dilemmas. When it comes to the ethical issues in regard to the qualitative interviews, the interviewees were asked for an oral consent in order to participate in the study, as well as for the permission to be recorded during the interview. Participants were informed that their participation is voluntary and will not result in any compensation.
Limitations of the research
The main limitations of this study were the researchers’ inability to travel to the Negev region in order to perform ethnographic field research, as well as researcher’s lack of Arabic and Hebrew language comprehension that would allow for more empirical data for the document analysis.
5. Presentation and analysis of findings
This section will present and analyze the findings focusing mainly on the Israeli legal land system, including the land laws adopted and modified from the times Palestine was ruled by Ottoman Empire and Great Britain, as these laws were found to be the most relevant in the case of the Negev Bedouin land issue. This chapter will further introduce the Israeli governmental bodies involved in land issues, as well as development plans that were found to be the means of Negev Bedouin land dispossession. The Bedouin land issue together with the interrelatedness of the use of legalism and spatial planning will be illustrated in the case of Umm al-Hiran, where according to many interviewees the injustice is the most salient. The last part of this section will detail the notion of indigeneity with respect to the Negev Bedouin and how it is used to divide the Negev Bedouin from the rest of the Palestinians, and therefore, the importance of situating the Negev Bedouin land issue in the broader Palestinian context.
5.1 Israeli legal land system
The denial of the recognition of the Bedouin property rights is based on the Israeli legal doctrine that served as a tool to legitimize dispossession and “reconstitute settlers’ cultural biases and power relations into formalized rules” (Kedar and Yiftachel, 2006, p.130). It is mainly rooted in the view of the State of Israel that the Negev Bedouin do not possess proper legal proof of land ownership, as well as in the fact “the whole land regime is made in such a way that by definition the land of the Naqab as a whole is considered to be a state land”, which is mainly based on the Israeli interpretation of the Ottoman and British laws (Myssana Morany, interview, Amsterdam, 7 May 2017).
The Absentees’ Property Law and the Land Acquisition Law are the laws that further legalized this interpretation and transfer of the Negev Bedouin lands to state lands. According to Michal Rotem, in Israel, “there is a very firm system which utilizes different laws in order to make sure the Bedouin won't be able to prove ownership of the land”, the system that can be also defined as a lawfare (Michal Rotem, interview, Amsterdam, 26 April 2017).
Besides the laws that define the property land ownership, the Israeli land regime also includes laws that limit Arab access to lands, limit and violate their citizens’ right to housing, as well as other that together with spatial planning serve as tools to pressure and force the Negev Bedouin into the overpopulated government-built townships, under the common colonizers’ narrative of progress and development, in order to further expropriate and legitimize this expropriation of lands. As one can see, in Israel, there is also a firm relationship between the legal and spatial planning land policies, which can be explained by the critical legal geography studies, that put an emphasis on the interconnectedness of law and space, which has an impact on the exercise of power and social life. In the next sections this paper will aim to describe the components of the Israeli land regime, focusing on the specific laws, such the Ottoman and British laws and how they were modified, and on the other Israeli laws and spatial planning policies and how they were introduced in order to dispossess the Negev Bedouin of their land rights.
5.1.1. Israeli land policies
The Ottoman and British laws
The most crucial parts of the 1858 Ottoman Land Code with regard to the Negev are included in the Article 6 and Article 103. According to the Ottoman Land Code, the land was divided into five categories: mulk land, which was a private land in urban areas; waqf land, which was intended for the religious purposes; metruka land, which was a land used for the benefit of a public; miri land, which was a private land used for
agricultural purposes; and mawat land, that was precisely defined in Article 6 as “a land which is not in the possession of anybody, and, not having been left or assigned to the inhabitants, is distant from town or village so that the loud voice of a person from the extreme inhabited spot cannot be heard, that is about a mile and a half to the extreme inhabited spot, or a distance of about half an hour” (Ongley, 1892). However, according to the Article 103, it was possible to get a land ownership to mawat lands. The person seeking to cultivate mawat land could get a title to it through the permission from the government official. If the person already cultivated the land without previously obtaining the permission, and made such land arable, he could receive the title to the land in exchange for a full payment for such land, that in effect, would become a miri land (Shalev, 2012). The absolute ownership would remain in the government, however, the government’s permit would be valid for an unlimited period of time, unless the owners don’t cultivate the land for over three years or do not meet other conditions. In the case of lack of cultivation for over 3 years the land would become classified as mahlul (state land), however, the state couldn’t hold it without allocating it to another agricultural owner.
As the Ottoman Empire did not have settlers in the Negev, they governed the area through the appointment of tribal chiefs that were responsible for the collection of taxes and whose archival documentation states that Bedouin have been cultivating the lands already since 1596, which suggests the beginning of their sedentarization process (Amara, 2013). The taxation and other processes related to property were handled mainly through the customary system that was developed by the Negev Bedouin. Furthermore, the Ottoman Empire tried to pursue the land registration process in order
to bring some type of civilization to the local society, however, it was unsuccessful, as by the end of their rule only 5% of lands were registered.
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire rule, the British took over Palestine and they
adopted the Ottoman Land Law while enforcing additional amendments drawing on their colonial experience in other countries. As most of the lands stayed unregistered and it became unclear for the successor of the Ottoman Empire which lands belong to the state, the British introduced in 1921 the Mawat Land Ordinance in order to regain control over state lands (Stein, 1984). The 1921 Mawat Land Ordinance restarted the process of registration of land through identification of owners by the cadastral land survey. The new law required a government permit in order to cultivate mawat lands and anyone who did not possess one was considered a trespasser (Amara, 2013). Therefore, it revived the rule from the Ottoman law, Article 103, stating that a person that makes mawat land arable, can receive rights to such land (Shalev, 2012). According to the Ordinance, the owners claiming a right to the mawat lands were obliged to register such lands within two months (Amara, 2017).
All in all, despite the Ordinance, in the end, the land title registration was not imposed in the Negev itself as the registration process began in the north of the Palestine and did not reach the Negev region before the end of the British rule (Kram, 2010).
Furthermore, the records of taxation and registration of lands show that the British accommodated the Bedouin tribal customs into their administrative and legal system (Amara, 2017). They not only recognized their customs but also viewed them as “an attractive and a picturesque element in the life of the country” (Simpson, 1930). The British realized the difficulties with respect to the Bedouin in regard to development and perceived the Bedouin as “anachronism” to such development, but at the same time saw the necessity to carefully consider the Bedouin rights before any developmental changes (Simpson, 1930). In order to protect the indigenous rights of Palestinians, they
passed the Cultivators Protection Ordinances 1929 and 1933, and the Land Transfers Regulations 1940 (Home, 2003).
Absentees’ Property Law and Land Acquisition Law
The colonization process started with the Arab-Israeli war and the establishment of the State of Israel, as many of the Palestinians fled or were expelled to the neighboring countries. The Absentees’ Property Law aimed at defining such internally or externally displaced people in order to confiscate their lands and initially it was imposed as part of the emergency regulations during the Israeli military rule and later on it became part of the Israeli land laws. The Absentees’ Property Law considered the land rights of the Palestinians who were absent from their lands in 1950 to be transferred to the
Custodian (Appendix 1, 1950). The Article 1 of the law defines absentee as anyone who was “a legal owner of any property situated in the area of Israel or enjoyed or held it, whether by himself or another” during the period between 29th November, 1947 and 19th May, 1948, and who was a citizen of the one of the neighboring Arab countries; or was in one of these countries at the time; or “was a Palestinian citizen and left his ordinary place of residence in Palestine” (p. 1).
The Absentees’ Property Law was eventually legalized through the Land Acquisition Law in 1953. The lands that were not in the possession of their owners on 1st April 1952, or the lands that were “used or assigned for purposes of essential development, settlement or security” or “were still required for any of these purposes” were transferred to the Development Authority (Appendix 2, 1953, p.1). In line with the settler
colonialism’s component, the Negev Bedouin were displaced internally by being
forcefully moved to the enclosed areas in the Siyag, which means that they were not in possession of their lands in 1952. The Development Authority was obliged to pay monetary compensation to the owners who claimed and proved the ownership of their
lands. According to this law, in the case of the owners, who used these lands for agriculture, the Development Authority could additionally offer the owners another land either in terms of ownership or lease. The owners had a period of a one year to fill in their land claims, however, as the Negev Bedouin were displaced into an enclosure zone in 1950, allegedly due to security reasons, they were unable to do so.
Israeli interpretation of- and modification to the Ottoman and British Laws
After the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel adopted Ottoman and British laws, however, with a different interpretation and some modifications. The Israeli Supreme Court interpreted the conditions for mawat in a very broad sense, while narrowing the ones that classify land as a miri land (Negev Coexistence Forum, 2012). The judges chose the 1.5-mile distance from a settlement as an official condition while defining such settlement as a recognized city or village that had to exist before 1858, excluding Bedouin settlements in unrecognized villages from this definition. Furthermore, in regard to the parcels consisting of both arable and rocky part, Israel modified the law as it aimed to distinguish these two and declared the rocky part as a state land. If this was unable to be distinguished, the cultivator had to prove that he cultivated at least 50% of the area and if he was unable to do so, the whole area was transferred to the state lands (Shalev, 2012). The State of Israel also used different interpretation in the case of the miri land. If the owner of such land has not previously obtained the permission from the government, Israel also declared such areas as state lands if they were not
cultivated for over ten years. In the case of the Negev Bedouin, many of such lands were cultivated without the previous permission from the Ottoman Empire and the British, however, according to their rules, these cultivators still had the rights to the land. When the Negev Bedouin were concentrated in the Siyag region, they were unable to cultivate the land for over ten years and according to the Israeli modification and new
interpretation of the Ottoman Land Law, their lands after this time were declared as state lands.
According to the critical legal geography theory, it is a responsibility of legal actors to define legal geographies and therefore, their interpretation of space has a deciding impact on the understanding of law, which can result in the creation of oppressive structures, which is exactly the case in the example of the Negev Bedouin land issue (Bloomey and Bakan, 1992). Michal Rotem further emphasizes this point by saying that “law doesn't come from God, it comes from people with different interests” (Michal Rotem, interview, Amsterdam, 26 April 2017). The modifications to and different interpretations of the Ottoman and British laws were not coincidental but they were applied by the Israeli legal and judicial system on purpose, so the Bedouin have no way of winning the land ownership claims. Even though the documents from the Ottoman and British periods together with their recognition of the Bedouin tribal law suggest the possibilities for different interpretations and attitude towards the Bedouin land ownership and Bedouin alone, the Israeli law got constructed the way “the Bedouin ownership is not accepted by the Court. So you can't say it's yours because according to the Israeli law, your way of saying it's mine, doesn't exist in our system” (Yeela Raanan, interview, Amsterdam, 27 April 2017).
Furthermore, with respect to proving the land ownership, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the ownership documents that were in accordance with the Bedouin customary law or tax documents from the Ottoman and British period and made the 1921 land registry as “the sole guarantee for establishing land rights” (Negev Coexistence Forum, 2012, p. 10). Aside from the documents from the Bedouin customary law or tax
documents from the Ottoman and British period, “the Bedouin community does not have deeds, do not have papers, that testify and recognize their ownership over the land, so the State challenges this fact that they own the land, and you know, formally speaking, they don't really have papers but they inherited their land from their ancestors, so they
have historical rights. They have what is called a native title on these lands” so “according to the Israeli law it is true - the community does not own the land by the Israeli definitions and details” (Hanna Swaid, interview, Amsterdam, 2 May 2017). With this perception of the Bedouin, who doesn’t possess the legal proof of land ownership, the colonizers perceive such lands as available.
Even though most of the land was expropriated by 1953, there was another law enforced, that was related to the registration process, and that affected the Negev
Bedouin. According to “Prescription Law of 1958”, the landowners had to show the proof that they cultivated their land for a period of fifteen years, with no interruptions, which was very difficult to prove. As during the British Mandate, settlement of titles was handled first with lands that were disputed between Arabs and Jews, this law was mainly directed against the Arabs (Bisharat, 1994).
Israel’s counterclaiming strategy
In 1969 due to the confusion with respect to the mawat lands, the State of Israel passed the Land Rights Settlement Ordinance, which abolished the mawat category of land and registered all of these lands as state lands unless there were some claims to these lands (Shamir, 1996). The claimants could register their claims with the Land Settlement Officer at the Ministry of Justice starting from the early 1970s (Human Rights Watch, 2008). The Negev Bedouin filed 3,200 ownership claims for 991,000 dunams in sum. In a response to that, the Israeli government filed counter-claims arguing that the Bedouin could not prove their land ownership due to the lack of registration. In 1975 the
government formed a special committee headed by Plia Albeck of the State Attorney’s Office. The committee suggested freezing all of the claims and state’s counterclaims to
try to solve this dispute through negotiation and monetary compensation if the Bedouin were willing to move into government-build urban centers for the Bedouin.
Naturally, most of the Bedouin did not agree with this solution and after a 30-year stalemate, the government restarted the counterclaiming process in 2003. None of the Bedouin ever won the ownership claim in the Court, which is not surprising as “when the entire system is so focused on taking over lands, then just going through the regular options that this system allows you… I'm not sure it will help much” (Michal Rotem, interview, Amsterdam, 26 April 2017). In the end, it is the State that makes a decision, as the Court is just a part of this regime. The misrepresentation of Arabs among the legal actors that define and divide the legal geographies and understanding of the law is one of the means that makes this formation of the oppressive structures highly
persistent.
At the same period of time, in 1980, Israel introduced the Peace Law that facilitated the forced evacuation of 5000 Bedouin from the Siyag area that was destined for the
construction of the military air force base Nevatim (Swirski, 2006). The Peace Law recognized the ownership of the Bedouin located in the designated area under the condition that they will give up such ownership in exchange for compensation.
5.1.2. Governmental bodies involved
DA, JNF, and ILA
Israel controls 93% of its lands either directly by the state or through
quasi-governmental bodies, such as the Development Authority (DA), the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and the Israeli Land Administration (ILA) (Human Rights Watch, 2008). The JNF was included in the state’s land sector in 1953, when through the JNF
Law it received a status of the local authority and therefore, an exempt from any tax related to the purchase of land (Appendix 3, 1953). JNF’s goal is to purchase land for the sole benefit of Jews but this land will also become in a way part of the state land. Therefore, JNF has a crucial impact on the allocation of land, as the JNF-owned lands cannot be allocated to non-Jews. In 1960 Israel established the Israeli Land
Administration for the purpose of administering all Israeli lands, including the lands of DA and JNF. ILA is responsible for protecting the state land, administering whether it is used lawfully, for planning and development, allocation of land, as well as for
management of the land registry (Coller, 2009).
According to the Basic Law of 1960, the lands of the state, the JNF, and the
Development Authority cannot be sold, securing this way Israel’s ownership of the lands (Appendix 4, 1960). However, the lands can be transferred between those
governmental bodies and the state (Human Rights Watch, 2008). Furthermore, 2009 7th Amendment to the Israel Land Administration Law instituted the privatization of the land expropriated from internally and externally displaced Arabs. It allowed for these and other lands to be exchanged between the State of Israel and the JNF, where the State of Israel was responsible to “administer the lands in a manner that will preserve the principles of the JNF relating to its lands”, expanding this way the lands available and allocated to Jews only (Adalah, 2009, p. 9). The ILA Law also emphasized the crucial role of the JNF in the Israel Lands Council. The Israeli government is in charge of appointing the director, as well as the Israel Lands Council, however, the Israel Lands Council must consist of 11 members representing the JNF and 12 members
representing the government.
In regard to the Negev Bedouin, the special authority within the Ministry of Agriculture became the governmental body directly dealing with settling the Bedouin issues (Swirski, 2006). However, with the evolution of the Bedouin land dispute, the responsibility was granted to ILA, that actually operated out of the Ministry of
Agriculture. In 1986 the Israeli government formed the Bedouin Administration, that was under ILA, and which was initially responsible for managing the Bedouin land issues, however, with time its responsibilities widened to other issues concerning the Negev Bedouin.
Since its establishment, the roles and responsibilities were not clearly formulated, however, due to the fact that the body operates under the ILA, these roles are far reaching including the final say on developmental issues of the community, water
allocation, as well as on services provided to unrecognized villages. This often proves to be counterproductive as this body should be representing the interests of the Bedouin community (Shmueli and Khamaisi, 2015). Additionally, in 2007 the government formed The Authority for Regulation of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, which was supposed to handle “occupational assistance, improvement of infrastructures, education and welfare services, and more”, its main task is to reach a solution in regard to the Bedouin land claims (Rotem, Noach, and Al-Ukbi; 2010, p. 17).
Bedouin local and regional authorities
The Negev Bedouin had to wait for their first local municipal elections until 1993, in some villages, even until 2000, which was only a result of the High Court petitions (Swirski, 2006). Before and in some localities even until today, the local municipalities were managed externally. Until 1996 the Bedouin towns and villages had two regional councils that were run by the Jewish Israelis. Again, in a response to petitions, the Ministry of Interior established three new local councils for the Segev Shalom, Kuseife
and Ar’ara, as well as a new regional council with five government representatives and four local representatives.
In 2000, after the recognition of ten Bedouin villages, the government opened a new Abu Basma regional council, which split in 2012 into two regional councils: Neve Midbar Regional Council and al-Kasom Regional Council, which have been operating since then. These two regional councils also serve the jurisdiction over unrecognized villages, however, in 1997 the activists from the Negev region also formed the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV), as the Bedouin representation in the municipal council is low due to the fact that until recently councils were “always nominated by the government and they were always Jewish” (Khalil Alamour, interview, Amsterdam, 26 April 2017). RCUV has better represented the interests of the Bedouin community, especially the part of the community that is living in unrecognized localities, as it
consists of the local representatives of 35 local committees from unrecognized villages (Abu Ras, 2012).
5.1.3. Israeli spatial policies and development plans
As history shows, the Israeli planning framework for the Bedouin community has always been based on territorial concerns, which is naturally - the main focus of the colonizers (Shmueli and Khamaisi, 2015). First, there was a forced displacement of the Negev Bedouin into Siyag and in the 1960s the Israeli government has started a second phase of the Bedouin relocation, aiming at the concentration of the Negev Bedouin in the government-built urban centers (Amara, 2008). Until the 1990s the government accomplished to build seven of such centers and tried to use these spaces for the relocation of the Bedouin from unrecognized villages. This urbanization process was justified by the government with arguments of modernization and benefits for the
which is in line with the ideology of progress and development, and that can be seen as the colonizers’ instrument to justify the dispossession of indigenous population from their lands.
However, many of the Bedouin did not agree to move into such centers, as they wanted to stay with the rest of the community, on their indigenous land, where they would be able to keep on making a living out of agriculture. For the Bedouin community, this urbanization process means “a destruction of the community, the social fabric of the community. Most of the residents of unrecognized villages make a living through agriculture, so there is also a destruction of the economic resources of the community” (Yeela Raanan, interview, Amsterdam, 27 April 2017). According to Yeela Raanan, the Bedouin issue is not entirely about the land. According to her, “they believe that's what they are fighting for, but in fact what they are fighting for is the community, tradition, culture and the ability to make a living” (Yeela Raanan, interview, Amsterdam, 27 April 2017). Even though it is not entirely about the land, the land for the indigenous people is necessary to maintain these traditions, community, and culture (Susskind and Augelovs, 2008). In the case of their refusal to move, they keep on living in unrecognized villages, however, the Israeli government uses a variety of means in order to force them out into the Bedouin ghettos, many of which are part of this legal land regime, that makes their life incredibly hard.
Methods of pressuring the Bedouin community to move into urban centers
One of the most widely used method to pressure the Bedouin out of the unrecognized villages is house demolition. The 1965 Planning and Building Law classifies all of the land that the unrecognized villages are situated on as an agricultural land and therefore inappropriate for residential housing. Furthermore, according to the Article 204 and 205 of the law, anyone who has a building construction without a permit will pay a fine and
