The painful contradiction of the Israeli social contract has crystallised in recent weeks, accentuated by the solemn return of the remains of the Bedouin IDF tracker, Sgt. Maj. Muhammad al-Atarash, along with the heroic tales of the civilians, like that of minibus driver Youssef Ziadna. It was a fleeting moment of national solidarity on the profound sacrifice of the Bedouin citizen on October 7; however, this unity has been immediately placed under siege by the very administrative apparatus their fallen fought to protect. This is not merely a transient lapse in ethical governance; it represents the defining, structural tension of Israel’s spatial governance policy in the Negev. The actions of the state are so contrasting; on one hand, it embraces the Bedouin heroism, and on the other, it systematically rejects their historical claim over the land and curtails their rights to communal existence. It is a modern-day paradox of being Bedouin: you are hailed as a national hero, but, parallel to it, your village is declared “illegal.”
Mahin Siddiqui
From a distance, it might seem just a contemporary “Squatting”. The issue is complex and deepens; the state’s desire for territorial homogeneity further exacerbates the relentless structural dispute over land claims. The core mechanism of control is the continued existence of the roughly 35 unrecognised villages, home to over 100,000 citizens, who inhabit a politically created “Grey Space.” The systemic displacing of Bedouins in the Negev is legalised by perpetually subjecting them to the Legal Artifice, where Israeli law disqualifies the validity of traditional Bedouin land tenure and deems them unrecognised, hence making them stay outside the statutory planning. The designs to exclude the Bedouin population date back to the 1960s master plan to exclude and contain the Bedouin population that was forcibly relocated to the Siyag region after 1948, which is often termed as internal colonialism. It is needless to say, the state is seizing strategic land reserves for Jewish development.
The Grey Space has gained negative attention because of the October 7 attacks and their consequences. The Bedouin communities have faced a significant brunt of the war due to their proximity to the Gaza border, bearing some civilian casualties, yet facing violence without any state protection. Due to the unrecognised status of the Bedouin villages, they were not even provided with public bomb shelters. Compounding this vulnerability, it was widely reported that the Iron Dome air defence system initially identified these towns as “open, unpopulated areas,” leading to a failure to intercept incoming rockets from the Gaza Strip. Some Bedouin citizens were killed in this cruel failure of protection, exposing the political truth that the residents were legally rendered invisible. This crisis has highlighted the betrayal by the state, which continues.
Even in the wake of Bedouin sacrifices for the state, the demolition of the Bedouin homes is accelerating. Political figures like the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have openly advocated for the demolitions of “illegal homes” and to speed up this process. Bedouin activists describe this punitive approach as a deliberate act of spite. In the case of former hostage Farhan al-Qadi, it is only a reprieve for his immediate family. At the same time, his neighbours’ homes remained slated for destruction, furthering the paradox where Bedouin men bid for loyalty serving in the army but only to know that their villages are levelled to the ground.
The state has tried to devise a solution for the seven government-planned townships, including Rahat, the largest Bedouin city; however, they remain neglected, and progress has even stalled. Bedouins are the pastoral people, but these new towns have disregarded the old tradition by making it densely populated, which has eventually resulted in the breakdown of social cohesion along with flawed planning and underinvestment, fuelling the surge in violent, organised crime that now destabilises the entire Negev region. It is a cynical proposition to relocate Bedouins from unrecognised villages into these failing centres desperately.
It is time for self-reflection on the current policy of internal dispossession while simultaneously mourning for heroes like Sgt. Maj. al-Atarash. With the current attitude, Israel could lose its Bedouin loyalty. This cynicism is hollowing out the meaning of Israeli citizenship. The first step to bolster will be the immediate halting of demolitions, and the second would be to recognise the Bedouin claim over the land, the same way as Jews have a claim over their “promised land”.
Mahin Siddiqui is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
