Questions of Land Ownership Remain in New Israeli Investment Plan

The city of Rahat, one of the recognized “townships,” is the largest Bedouin settlement in Israel (Wikimedia).

The Israeli coalition government approved a 5 billion shekel, five-year development plan for Bedouin villages in the Negev desert on March 14, according to Haaretz. The development of this new plan was fraught with long debates before the parties could agree on a final version.

The debates highlighted the influence of different interest groups in Israeli society. As Al-Monitor reported, the Islamist Ra’am party sought to satisfy the Arab Israeli and Bedouin communities in the Negev by advocating for the nullification of an enforcement clause directed at Bedouins settling on publicly owned lands. In turn, the coalition’s right-wing hopes to appease critics from the right by establishing a new ultra-orthodox city in the Negev.

The investment is sorely needed as Israel’s Bedouin communities often live in appalling residential, sanitary, and medical conditions, per Abraham Initiatives. In recent times, these conditions have, among other consequences, led to a significantly heightened impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bedouin villages. Expanding on its predecessor’s progress, the new five-year plan includes funding for agriculture, housing, education, local governments, culture, and tourism. 

However, the plan fails to address one of the most pressing hardships facing Bedouins in Israel: the lacking recognition of many of their communities. Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, the Israeli government’s efforts to regulate and limit the settlement of Bedouins in the Negev by establishing recognized “townships” have caused the establishment of many unrecognized villages throughout southern Israel. 

While the official townships are poorly supplied themselves, these unrecognized villages, 36 of which exist throughout the Negev, are completely cut off from any state services. In fact, a 2008 report by Human Rights Watch determined that the Israeli government, which regards unrecognized villages as illegal settlements on state-owned land, has systematically denied these villages services. Although the state occasionally recognizes some villages, the vast majority remain in this status.

The new development plan does not allocate any funds to these unrecognized communities. Instead, all funding is focused solely on the townships. Protests erupted in January over the planting of trees around Bedouin villages by Israeli authorities. Meanwhile, the government and those on the right of the Israeli political spectrum maintain that the settlements are illegal and should be dissolved. It is unclear how the situation can be resolved in the long term. The five-year plan, it seems, will not provide a solution.