Bulletin: Public Health, Hospitals, and Professionals

Articles

Bulletin: Law and Human Rights in Israel

Books

 

Articles

Reviews

Theses

New Article: Kalagy, Separation and Integration of Educated Bedouin Women in the Negev

Kalagy, Tehila. “Between Separation and Integration: The Case of Educated Bedouin Women in the Negev.” Social Identities (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2016.1161505

 

Abstract

In this qualitative paper, I have examined how women from a conservative minority group handle their encounter with the values of the majority group as they acquire academic education. This examination was undertaken in the general context of the research tradition that addresses the sociological and anthropological attributes of conservative societies when in confrontation with the processes of moderation, and is based on the acculturation model formulated by Berry. The source materials for this qualitative study are based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 Bedouin students. The fact that Bedouin women who wish to study strive to maintain traditional values, such as their manner of dress, indicates their understanding that it is necessary to create change and acquire an academic education in order to earn a suitable salary and aid their communities, while at the same time upholding the boundaries and conventions set by the community. Tradition is thus maintained, and traditional and even religious values continue to exist within the boundaries of the minority group, alongside the stretching of those boundaries and the integration of values from ‘outside’ with those ‘inside.’

 

 

 

ToC: International Journal of Educational Research 76 (2016); special section on Arabs in Israel

International Journal of Education Research 76 (2016)

Special section on Higher Education in a Transforming Society: The Case of Arabs in Israel; Guest edited by Hanoch Flum and Avi Kaplan

 

Higher education in a transforming society: The case of Arabs in Israel
Pages 89-95
Hanoch Flum, Avi Kaplan

Access to higher education and its socio-economic impact among Bedouin Arabs in Southern Israel
Pages 96-103
Ismael Abu-Saad

English as a gatekeeper: Inequality between Jews and Arabs in access to higher education in Israel
Pages 104-111
Yariv Feniger, Hanna Ayalon

On the meaning of higher education for transition to modernity youth: Lessons from future orientation research of Muslim girls in Israel
Pages 112-119
Rachel Seginer, Sami Mahajna

The paths of ‘return’: Palestinian Israeli women negotiate family and career after the university
Pages 120-128
Lauren Erdreich

The conception of work and higher education among Israeli Arab women
Pages 129-140
Rachel Gali Cinamon, Halah Habayib, Margalit Ziv

Higher education among minorities: The Arab case
Pages 141-146
Alean Al-Krenawi

New Book: McKee, Dwelling in Conflict

McKee, Emily Dwelling in Conflict. Negev Landscapes and the Boundaries of Belonging. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.

 
Dwelling in Conflict

Land disputes in Israel are most commonly described as stand-offs between distinct groups of Arabs and Jews. In Israel’s southern region, the Negev, Jewish and Bedouin Arab citizens and governmental bodies contest access to land for farming, homes, and industry and struggle over the status of unrecognized Bedouin villages. “Natural,” immutable divisions, both in space and between people, are too frequently assumed within these struggles.

 

Dwelling in Conflict offers the first study of land conflict and environment based on extensive fieldwork within both Arab and Jewish settings. It explores planned towns for Jews and for Bedouin Arabs, unrecognized villages, and single-family farmsteads, as well as Knesset hearings, media coverage, and activist projects. Emily McKee sensitively portrays the impact that dividing lines—both physical and social—have on residents. She investigates the political charge of people’s everyday interactions with their environments and the ways in which basic understandings of people and “their” landscapes drive political developments. While recognizing deep divisions, McKee also takes seriously the social projects that residents engage in to soften and challenge socio-environmental boundaries. Ultimately, Dwelling in Conflict highlights opportunities for boundary crossings, revealing both contemporary segregation and the possible mutability of these dividing lines in the future.

 

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • 1. Narrating Present Pasts
  • 2. Seeking Recognition
  • Bridge: Distant Neighbors
  • 3. Coping with Lost Land
  • 4. Reforming Community
  • 5. Challenging Boundaries
  • Conclusion

 

EMILY McKEE is Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department and the Institute for the Study of Environment, Sustainability, and Energy at Northern Illinois University.

 

 

 

New Article: Tamari et al, Urban Tribalism: Negotiating Form, Function and Social Milieu in Bedouin Towns

Tamari, Shlomit, Rachel Katoshevski, Yuval Karplus, and Steven C. Dinero. “Urban Tribalism: Negotiating Form, Function and Social Milieu in Bedouin Towns, Israel.” City, Territory and Architecture 3.2 (2016): 14pp.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40410-016-0031-3

 

Abstract

Historically, the tribe was a central pillar of Bedouin society. Recently, the forcibly resettled-Bedouin of Israel’s Negev Desert have experienced profound socio-economic transition and change in addition to spatial relocation. This paper offers a critical examination of the manner in which the tribe has served to inform top-down State-led urban planning, resettlement and housing policies while remaining a vital aspect of Bedouin life. We suggest that in an ironic twist, these policies have generated a new form of urban tribalism that challenges the development of a “modern,” “western” social fabric and practices of citizenship as initially envisioned by State officials.

 
Figure 4
 

 

New Article: McKee, Coping with Cultural Recognition and Its Denial in Southern Israel

McKee, Emily. “Demolitions and Amendments: Coping with Cultural Recognition and Its Denial in Southern Israel.” Nomadic Peoples 19.1 (2015): 95-119.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3197/np.2015.190107

 

Abstract

This article examines how social preferences, in the form of cultural politics, become concretised in land laws. In Israel, Bedouin Arabs in unrecognised villages and Jewish farmers of individual farmsteads each faced governmental eviction orders and responded by seeking recognition of their land-use practices as legal. However, whereas Jewish farmers successfully mobilised place-based identities to gain legalisation, Bedouin Arabs’ dwelling practices were not recognised as the legitimate basis for land claims, and their attempts to assert place-based identities have been denied. Instead, Bedouin Arabs faced pressures of ‘de-cultural accommodation’ and continued evictions. Ethnographic comparison of these two cases of ‘illegal’ settlement demonstrates how cultural identities – as former nomads or pioneer farmers – matter for land claims.

 
 
 
 

New Article: Razon, Jews, Bedouins, and the Making of the Secular Israeli

Razon, Na’amah. “Entangled Bodies: Jews, Bedouins, and the Making of the Secular Israeli.” Medical Anthropology (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2016.1138950

 

Abstract

Taking Israel’s National Health Insurance Law as a point of entry, in this article I probe how notions of equality and citizenship, secularism and religion become entangled in the experience of Negev/Naqab Bedouin, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I show how Jewish citizens have come to represent the secular and modern citizens in the region, while Bedouins, although mandated and claimed by policy and providers to be the ‘same’ and ‘equal’, are always already imagined and characterized as other. Universal healthcare and the daily manner in which biomedicine is practiced in southern Israel provides an avenue for examining the Jewish valences medicine carries in southern Israel, Israel’s boundaries of inclusion, and the connection between biomedicine and secularism.

 

 

 

New Article: Tubi and Feitelson, Bedouin Herders and Jewish Farmers in the Negev, 1957–1963

Tubi, Amit, and Eran Feitelson. “Drought and Cooperation in a Conflict Prone Area: Bedouin Herders and Jewish Farmers in Israel’s Northern Negev, 1957–1963.” Political Geography 51 (2016): 30-42.

ְְ

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.11.009

 

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly considered a security problem by academics and politicians alike. Although research is challenging such neo-Malthusian views, it focuses on conflict, or lack thereof, paying limited attention, if any, to cooperation. This study examines the effect of a severe drought on a spectrum of both conflict and cooperation in a highly incendiary setting, between Muslim Bedouin herders and Jewish agricultural settlements in Israel’s semi-arid northern Negev region. This region, lying between the Mediterranean zone and the Negev Desert, has historically been a battle ground between farmers and pastoralists.

Using archival data, both conflictive and cooperative interactions between the two groups during the 1957–63 drought, the worst in the 20th century, were examined. The results indicate that although the entire range of responses occurred, violence was limited and occurred only when some of the Bedouins migrated to the more northern Mediterranean zone. In the semi-arid northern Negev the Bedouins and two settlements engaged in substantive cooperation and assistance. Grazing on damaged crops in return for payment was also practiced during the drought.

A number of factors that affected both conflict and cooperation are identified. The severity of conflicts increased when farmers and herders lacked previous familiarity, while the need to reduce the drought’s impacts and settlements’ left-wing political affiliation formed main incentives for cooperation. Measures taken by state institutions to directly reduce frictions and to provide relief assistance were central to the overall limited level of conflict, but also reinforced the power disparities between the groups.

 

 

 

Exchange: Robert Cherry comments on Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s et al, Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Negev

Cherry, Robrt. “Comment on ‘Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev’.” Feminist Economics 21.4 (2015): 197-200.

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/13545701.2015.1074263
 
Extract

This is a response to claims made by Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Antonina Griecci Woodsum, Himmat Zu’bi, and Rachel Busbridge in this journal that patriarchal constraints have little to do with the low employment rates of Bedouin women and that their communities suffer from sustained government neglect.

 

 

 

New Article: Mosco, Noga & Atzaba-Poria, Socialization Goals of Mothers and Fathers From the Bedouin Society of the Negev

Mosco, Noga, and Naama Atzaba-Poria. “In Search of ‘the Bedouin Adaptive Adult’. Socialization Goals of Mothers and Fathers From the Bedouin Society of the Negev.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022115610632

 

Abstract

The Bedouins of the Negev are a unique minority group living in southern Israel. They are known to be a formerly nomadic society characterized by tribal collectivism. The purpose of this study was to improve the understanding of the broad context in which parenting and child development take place in Bedouin society by exploring the images Bedouin parents have of the adults they wish their children to become (the adaptive adult). We explored the images of the adaptive adult as expressed by parents’ ratings of individualistic and collectivistic socialization goals (SGs), while also examining the eco-cultural factors that may be related to these images. Specifically, we examined the relations between SG preferences and parental acculturation attitude, parental education, and child gender. Participants included 65 Bedouin mothers and 30 Bedouin fathers. Parents completed the Acculturation Questionnaire and the Socialization Goals Rating Task. Results indicated that mothers who had higher education and those who had higher levels of contact and participation in Israeli Jewish culture preferred more individualistic SGs over collectivistic SGs for their children. Furthermore, acculturation level was a stronger predictor of maternal SGs than level of education. Contrary to mothers, fathers’ SG preferences were found to be related only to their level of education and not to their acculturation levels. Finally, both mothers and fathers preferred individualistic SGs for their sons and collectivistic SGs for their daughters. The links between SG preferences and the factors of parental acculturation, parental education, and child gender are discussed, and implications are proposed.

 

 

New Article: Waterman, Ideology and Events in Israeli Human Landscape Revisited

Waterman, Stanley. “Ideology and Events in Israeli Human Landscape Revisited.” Jewish Journal of Sociology 57.1-2 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5750/jjsoc.v57i1/2.107

 

Abstract

This paper casts a retrospective gaze at an article written as a beginning academic who had immigrated to Israel just two years prior, some 40 years ago. Not wanting to alter anything I had written, it was subsequently published nearly five years later. In that paper, I observed a deep abyss between the Israel I “understood”—mainly through reading—before I immigrated and which I thought I “knew”, and the Israel I was experiencing following my arrival. This chasm led me to identify Israeli myths contra an Israeli reality and caused me to pose what were for me, at the time of writing, some disturbing questions about Israeli landscape and society. I did this by choosing three iconic landscapes — new towns, kibbutzim and the desert — and picking away at misunderstandings about them and the way in which we perceived Israel. Four decades on, I ask whether I had been impulsive in writing that paper then with so little experience and if a similar paper in a similar vein were to be written, set in 2015 rather than 1974, what questions might be asked about Israel now and what would they say about Israeli society and culture?

 

 

New Article: Bijaoui & Regev, Entrepreneurship and Viral Development in Rural Western Negev in Israel

Bijaoui, Ilan, and David Regev. “Entrepreneurship and Viral Development in Rural Western Negev in Israel.” Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship 17.1 (2015): 54-66.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JRME-09-2014-0023

 

Abstract

Purpose
This paper aims to focus on two main and related issues: evaluating whether the required entrepreneurial capabilities are present according to Gladwell’s law of the few in the Western Negev region of Israel and identifying the economic development model that can generate a viral development.

Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, McClelland’s classification was used to evaluate the level of motivation in the region and Gladwell’s law of the few classification was used to understand the potentially positive effect of each entrepreneur on the others and on economic development in general. To evaluate the personal and business capabilities of each entrepreneur, two groups of parameters, one describing the personal profile and the other describing the business behavior of the entrepreneurs, were used.

Findings
Most entrepreneurs are ready to cooperate with the open incubator and to contribute to generating common business interest, but mavens and connectors have few of the required personal characteristics and business attitudes. Only the salesmen have the required personal profile, but they lack the necessary business attitude. Highly motivated entrepreneurs, at need-for-power level, have both the required personal profile and business attitude. They are the ones who could generate growth, and a portion of them have the characteristics to become mavens, connectors and salesmen.

Practical implications
The willingness to cooperate with a neutral organization and generate common economic interest is present in the Western Negev, but the following actions are required to achieve viral development: persuade and support entrepreneurs at the highest level of motivation to be a part of the few, i.e. mavens, connectors and salesmen; improve the business attitude of mavens, connectors and salesmen; and plan the work program of the open incubator in cooperation with entrepreneurs at the need-for-power level: mavens, connectors and salesmen.

Originality/value
Viral economic development can occur if the few mavens, connectors and salesmen in a given sector or region have the required positive personal profile and business attitude, and if most of the entrepreneurs are ready to cooperate with a neutral organization, the open incubator and join efforts with others to generate new common business interests.

 

 

New Article: Jabareen, Co-Production of ‘Creative Destruction’ in Israel

Jabareen, Yosef. “Territoriality of Negation: Co-Production of ‘Creative Destruction’ in Israel.” Geoforum 66 (2015): 11-25.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.09.003

 

Abstract

Based on an examination of Israel’s territorial conceptions, strategies, and achievements since the establishment of the state, this article shows how state territoriality subsumes ideology and political agendas and may, under certain circumstances, lead the state to negate its very self-conceptions and harm its own perceived interests. Its analysis pays special attention to the state’s inadvertently produced territories of negation, which run counter to its own conception of territoriality, and considers the kind of social–spatial entities produced by the state. It also considers Israeli territoriality’s more recently asserted goal of shaping Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, in addition to the goals of controlling Jerusalem and Judaizing the Galilee and the Negev. To illustrate the theoretical assertion that discriminatory and marginalizing state territoriality has the distinct potential to bring about its own negation, the article concludes with two prominent expressions of this phenomenon. The first is manifested in green-line Israel, where the state’s territorial policies and the resulting marginalization of the Palestinian minority has resulted in collective resistance against the state and its policies, basic Jewish-Israeli symbols such as the anthem and the flag, and Israel’s very definition as a Jewish State. The second is manifested in Israel’s inadvertent creation of bi-national spaces both within Israel proper and in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, indirectly promoting the solution of a single bi-national state and posing a serious challenge to the very goals that Israeli territoriality has consistently strived to achieve.

 

 

New Book: Shmueli and Khamaisi, Israel’s Invisible Negev Bedouin

Shmueli, Deborah F., and Rassem Khamaisi. Israel’s Invisible Negev Bedouin. Issues of Land and Spatial Planning New York: Springer, 2015.

9783319168197

 

This Brief provides a contextual framework for exploring the settlement rights of Israel’s Bedouin population of the Negev desert, a traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab population. In 1948, the Israeli government relocated this population from the Negev region to settlements in Siyag. The explicit aim was to control the Negev area for security purposes, sedentarize a nomadic people, and to improve their living conditions and bring them into the modern economy. Since then, many of the Bedouin population have continued to urbanize, moving into smaller towns and cities, while some remain in the settlement. The Israeli government’s has recently proposed a new settlement policy towards the Bedouin population, that would expel many from their current homes, which came into recent controversy with the UN Human Rights commission, causing it to be withdrawn. Israel as a whole has very complex social, cultural, and political fabric with territorial uncertainties. This Brief aims to provide an overview of the current situation, provide a theoretical, historical and legal context, explore barriers to implementation of previously proposed policies, and provide potential solutions to improve individual and collective stability and balance the cultural and territorial needs of the Bedouin population with the larger goals of the Israeli government. This work will be of interest to researchers studying Israel specifically, as well as researchers in urban planning, public policy, and issues related to indigenous populations and human rights.

 

Table of Contents

Front Matter
Pages i-xi

Introduction
Pages 1-4

Bedouin: Evolving Meanings
Pages 5-12

Arab Communities of Israel and Their Urbanization
Pages 13-20

Theoretical Context: Justice, Urbanism, and Indigenous Peoples
Pages 21-29

Negev (in Hebrew) or Naqab (in Arabic) Bedouin
Pages 31-35

Evolution of Local Authorities: A Historical Overview
Pages 37-45

Resettlement Planning 1948–Present
Pages 47-68

Lessons Learned
Pages 69-75

Proposals for Flexible Bedouin Resettlement and Collaborative Planning
Pages 77-90

Back Matter
Pages 91-102

New Article: Abu-Saad, Access to Higher Education among Bedouin Arabs

Abu-Saad, Ismael. “Access to Higher Education and Its Socio-Economic Impact among Bedouin Arabs in Southern Israel.” International Journal of Educational Research (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2015.06.001

 

Abstract

This paper explores minority access to higher education in Israel in general, and among the Negev Bedouin Arabs, in particular. The Negev Bedouin community has undergone major changes during the past 60 years, and has the lowest socio-economic level of any population group in Israel. Higher education plays a prominent role in determining a community’s competitiveness in the world marketplace. In most societies, it is also recognized as a major avenue to greater economic rewards and social mobility, making it of vital importance to those groups on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder of society. The provision of public educational services to the Negev Bedouin, admissions procedures and standardized testing, financial assistance policies, and the socio-economic and political impact of higher education in Israel are examined in-depth. The paper concludes that the following structural and policy changes are needed to improve the access of the Negev Bedouin community to higher education: better quality elementary and secondary education, financial aid, removal of minimum age requirements, and culturally unbiased measures for admissions screening.

 

New Article and Response: Elsana and Hwang, Application of the Customary Land Rights Model on the Arab-Bedouin Case in Israel

Elsana, Morad. “The Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Land: Application of the Customary Land Rights Model on the Arab-Bedouin Case in Israel.” Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives 7.1 (2015): 45-67.

Hwang, Julie H. “Reaction to: The Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Land: Application of the Customary Land Rights Model on the Arab-Bedouin Case in Israel.” Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives 7.1 (2015): 69-70.

 

URL: https://articleworks.cadmus.com/geolaw/mcr00116.html

 

Excerpt

Based on the Australian experience, this paper introduced the idea of recognizing Bedouin land rights based on the recognition of their customary law. To illustrate this idea, this paper introduced the recognition of Aboriginal land in Australia and then applied the Australian model on the Bedouin case in Israeli. The recognition of Aboriginal land rights in Australia relies mainly on the existence of three elements. The first is the existence of a system of law, such as Aboriginal customary law; the second is the existence of a connection to land, which means the existence of a traditional land rights system; the third element is the existence of a legal recognition option for these elements in the state legal system. One such option is the native title doctrine in Australia. This last element is a bridge that connects the indigenous peoples’ customary law with the state law and enables the state to recognize indigenous peoples’ customary law and their rights under their customary system.

The second part of this paper addressed Bedouin land recognition. This part applied the Australian model of land recognition on the Bedouin case. It mainly showed the existence of the three elements for recognition in the Bedouin land case in Israel. First, it demonstrated the existence of the Bedouin traditional system of law; second, the existence of Bedouin connection to the land; and then it introduced the third element, which is the recognition option or the “bridge” that demonstrates how the Israeli legal system includes two options that could work as a connection to Bedouin customary law. The first bridge option is through Tribal Courts Regulations and the second is the principle of custom as a source of law.

In conclusion, similar to Australia and other countries that have recognized indigenous land rights, the legal system in Israel includes sufficient legal elements that can lead to the recognition of Bedouin traditional law that would bring recognition of their traditional land rights.

Excerpt from Hwang’s response: Perhaps judicial resolution is not the most promising course of action in asserting land rights for the Bedouins. Sarah Matari suggests that the power imbalance and historical mistreatment of Arab Bedouins in Israel make a courtroom battle a highly unsuccessful option for the Bedouins.9 Instead, she suggests a series of mediation as a possible way for the Negev Bedouins to discuss with the Israeli government to negotiate their rights to the land. 1O Although there is serious doubt as to the efficacy of any mediation due to the historical hostility between the Negev Bedouins and Israelis, I think mediation may be a more hopeful option for the Bedouins because the native title doctrine approach has its limitation when applied to the Negev Bedouins in Israel.

 

Workshop: 1. Bedouin History 2. Brot on Jewish Collaborators with the Nazis (Taub NYU, April 9, 2015)

4/9/15 – Taub Center Graduate Workshop

10am – 2pm

The Taub Center organizes regular workshops for graduate students and faculty in the field of Israel Studies at NYU and other universities in the tri-state area. The regional workshops are an opportunity for students and faculty to present and discuss their respective areas of research.  The workshops also serve as an important forum for networking and strengthening the field of Israel Studies.

2nd Floor Library,
53 Washington Square South

Coffee is served from 10 – 10:30am, and a kosher lunch served at noon.

http://hebrewjudaic.as.nyu.edu/object/taub.graduateworkshops

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SESSION WILL BE HELD ON THURSDAY 4/9/15

10:30am
Ahmad Amara
New York University

The Husseini’s Bribe and the Pre-Beersheba Bedouin History: Re-Reading Bedoiun Fighting

Ahmad Amara, is a Palestinian Human rights lawyer. Amara received his BA and Master’s degrees in Law from Tel Aviv University, and earned a second Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law from Essex University in the United Kingdom. His research focused on International humanitarian law and the law of occupation, in addition to land and housing rights. In 2005, Amara co-founded Karama (Arabic for “Dignity”), a human rights organization located in Nazareth, where he served as a Senior Staff Attorney. Before beginning his doctoral work, Amara served for three years as a global advocacy fellow and clinical instructor in the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. His research and advocacy projects in Harvard focused, among other areas, on historical land rights for the Bedouin Arabs of the Negev; land confiscation in East Jerusalem, Housing rights in Israel and Jordan and the rights of domestic migrant workers rights in Jordan. Amara’s current research focuses is on the legal history of late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine with regard to property rights and legal advocacy.

12:30pm
Rivka Brot
Tel Aviv University

The Law is Jewish Law and the Accounting is Jewish Accounting: Trying Jewish Collaborators in the State of Israel

Rivka Brot is currently a doctoral candidate at the Zvi Meitar, Center for Advanced Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University. Her dissertation titled: “Between Community and the State: Trials against Jewish Collaborators with the Nazis,” combines law and history, seeks to explore the law as an arena for constructing or re-constructing community during a time of transition. The research involves two different social and legal settings: the Jewish Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Germany in the wake of World War II, which had their own communal legal system, and the State of Israel in its first decades of independence, which constituted a state-based legal system. Rivka has published several articles in Hebrew and English, relating to socio-legal aspects of the phenomenon of Jewish collaboration with the Nazis, both in Jewish Displaced Persons camps in Germany and in Israel.

RSVP here.

New Article: Suwaed, Bedouin-Jewish Relations in the Negev 1943–1948

Suwaed, Muhammad Youssef. “Bedouin-Jewish Relations in the Negev 1943–1948.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.5 (2015): 767-88.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2014.985663

 

Abstract

On the foundation of the first Jewish settlements in the Negev, at the start of the 1940s, the Bedouins welcomed the Jewish settlers. The local personal connections and mutual acquaintance between them created a feeling of closeness. The symbiosis of daily life and mutual help in the fields of personal needs, from medicine to transport, replaced their mutual fears.

However, two factors quickly changed this attitude. The first was a severe drought, which struck the Negev in the winter of 1947, and brought with it a difficult economic situation, followed by several robberies and disputes, and damage to property. The second factor was the incessant encouragement given by the leaders of the Palestinian National Movement to the Bedouins to join the struggle against the Jewish population, especially after the UN decision in November 1947, that is, after the partition of Palestine and the inclusion of the Negev within the borders of the Jewish state.

Most of the Bedouins joined the Palestinian National Struggle. Friends of yesterday became today’s enemies. The years 1947–1949 were a period of anarchy, which continued well into the 1950s. In this period the State of Israel was established. Consequently, the Jewish population in the Negev was no longer the party responsible for the relationship with the Bedouins, as the Israeli government took its place. Also contact between neighbors was reduced after the Bedouins were evacuated toward the ‘fence’ region, in the Beer-Sheva Valley. The freedom the Bedouins enjoyed before the war did not exist anymore.

New Article: Nasasra, Ottoman and British Policies towards the Bedouin of the Naqab

Nasasra, Mansour. “Ruling the Desert: Ottoman and British Policies towards the Bedouin of the Naqab and Transjordan Region, 1900–1948.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 42.3 (2015): 261-83.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13530194.2015.1011452

 

Abstract

The various policies developed by the Ottomans and British for governing the indigenous Bedouin tribes of the Negev/Naqab and Beersheba (southern Palestine) region between 1900 and 1948 are examined using primary sources. Whereas Ottoman attempts to pacify the tribes in southern Palestine and Transjordan were somewhat ineffective, the British Mandate achieved a degree of control and stability by incorporating tribesmen into the Palestine Police, strengthening the frontier areas and enhancing inter-territorial tribunal arrangements between Beersheba, Sinai and Transjordan.