Introduction: State rule and indigenous resistance among Al Naqab Bedouin Arabs (original) (raw)

Throughout the Middle East, the indigenous desert-dwelling Bedouins have formed an integral component of Arab society. As the Arab world went through the colonial and formally "post-colonial" eras, no community was so dramatically affected as that of the Bedouins. This was particularly true of the Bedouin-Arab community in Al Naqab. In addition to the changes brought about by global processes of "modernization," this community was greatly affected by the European-based Zionist movement to settle Palestine, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent transformation of the indigenous Palestinian-Arab population into a minority in a Western/European-oriented Jewish state. Al Naqab Bedouins are among the indigenous Palestinian Arabs who remained in Israel after 1948 and who are today a part of the Palestinian minority in Israel. They have inhabited Al Naqab Desert from early periods (Maddrell, 1990) and were traditionally organized into nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes that lived by raising sheep and engaging in seasonal agriculture. Historical background Prior to 1948, estimates of the Bedouin-Arab population in Al Naqab ranged from 65,000 to 90,000 (Falah, 1989; Maddrell, 1990). They were engaged in animal husbandry and seasonal agriculture and cultivated over two million dunams (494,200 acres) of land, primarily in the northern Naqab (Falah, 1989; Marx, 1967). Approximately 90 percent of them earned their living from a mixture of agriculture and pastoralism; the rest subsisted solely on raising livestock (Falah, 1985, 1989). 1 During the course and aftermath of the 1948 war, the vast majority of Al Naqab Bedouin Arabs were expelled and became refugees in the surrounding Arab countries/territories (e.g., the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt); thus, by 1952, only about 11,000 remained in Al Naqab (Falah, 1989; Marx, 1967). The Israeli authorities took control of most of the land there, so the Bedouin Arabs lost the freedom to move around with their herds and cultivate their lands. Twelve of the 19 tribes were removed from their lands, and the whole population was confined to a specially designated Restricted Area in the northeastern Naqab, representing only