Meet the new kind of Jewish settlers: Pushing Bedouin communities out of the Negev
Desert landscape
Eden Solomon reports in Haaretz on 30 December 2024:
On the top of an arid hill, white mobile homes stand in a row. Tractors and generator noise are heard in the background. Workers are setting up electricity poles for what might become a new permanent settlement. Israeli flag is fluttering on a roof of one of the structures. This is Mitzpeh Yonatan.
The settlement is named after Col. Yonatan Steinberg, a Nahal infantry brigade commander who was killed last October 7. At the moment, about 20 families are living here. Next to several Bedouin communities, this settlement is like an outpost. But there’s an asterisk: It’s located within Israel’s borders. Two kilometers (a mile and a quarter) as the crow flies from Arad. It’s all out in the open and legal.
But many things are similar to what is happening beyond the Green Line (the demarcation line between Israel and the West Bank before 1967). “We’re here to make the desert bloom and to hold onto the land,” reads the fundraising page started by the settler families. All of them religious Zionists and members of the Garin Negev settler movement. Their aim, carried out by means of the right-wing Hashomer Hachadash organization, is “to ensure a stronger Jewish presence” there.
How? One of the members told Haaretz that the fundraising is meant mainly for agricultural development in the region. “It’s definitely one of the tools for preventing an illegal takeover,” he says. When that’s happening near Bedouin villages, the claim that their goal is to stop “the Bedouin takeover” of the Negev makes their intentions very clear.
Two unrecognized Bedouin villages beside Arad are slated for evacuation – Al Baqi’a, in the city’s jurisdiction, and Umm al-Badun, in the jurisdiction of the Tamar Regional Council. Al Baqi’a covers an area of several kilometers, not far from Mitzpeh Yonatan. “These two communities have been living in the region since the 1950s and are longing for an arrangement that would enable them to be a part of Arad,” says Dafna Saporta, an architect in the Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights NGO.
“They’re an integral part of the region and there’s no planning hindrance to organizing them as a neighborhood of the city. The villagers are even willing to consolidate for that purpose, since Arad is their functional center.” On the ground, it seems that the main effort at present is to prevent this population from becoming part of the city or close to it. Officially, Mitzpeh Yonatan is defined as a temporary student village, a type of community that will become consolidated with one of the four planned Jewish communities in the context of the settlement bloc in Mevo’ot Arad (five are planned, one of them Bedouin).
However, the National Missions Ministry headed by Orit Strock explains that “the four Jewish communities will be populated by garinim to be chosen by a ministerial committee, which hasn’t completed its work, and there are no results as yet.” In other words, the plan is in fact focused on settlement groups. Will Garin Negev be one of them? It’s feasible, but there’s one other possibility.
Mitzpe Yonatan in the Negev.
Based on the facts on the ground and the statements heard recently, there’s a chance that what’s temporary will become permanent. In an interview with the religious Zionist newspaper Makor Rishon, Uri Sapir, the deputy director of Hashomer Hachadash said that the organization doesn’t rule out staying there for the long term. Several of the residents said the same. Arad Mayor Yair Maayan is also in favor of a permanent hold on the site.
“It will take years yet for Mevo’ot Arad to begin to build and populate, but this site is very close,” he tells Haaretz. “There’s an agricultural road there that will connect to the communities of Mevo’ot Arad and create close ties among them. In the summer we’ll double this community: We’ll add another 20 units and later we’ll advance a master plan there that will turn the site into a rural neighborhood with a potential for hundreds of residential units.”
It’s possible that this is just a model village, the first of many. “I’m interested in building other sites outside the city, like Mitzpeh Yonatan,” says Maayan. “At the edges of current zoning plans, so that we’ll be able to issue building permits.”
Whatever the case, staff at the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages are already calculating the losses. “For the purpose of building the new communities, over 2,000 local Bedouin residents have been evicted,” says one member.
They are armed
Asher (not his real name) is scheduled to live in one of the 20 houses there. Now he’s busy building a terrace at the entrance to the house. The place is defined as a student village (and the National Council for Higher Education issued a permit for its construction), and Asher is still not a student nor has he registered for studies.
His wife has already completed her degree program, which doesn’t seem to interfere with his plans. Until recently, he lived in a city in the south and about three months ago he moved to Arad temporarily, until everything is ready in Mitzpeh Yonatan.
“We moved to Arad mainly in order to register the children for the educational frameworks in the city,” he says. Most of garin members came together from Dimona, but Asher’s family came alone. “They were looking for families to move here with them so that there would be enough people to guard against break-ins and such,” he explains.
The main reason for the move, as far as he’s concerned, is ideological: strengthening Jewish settlement in the Negev. “It’s not worth it for me,” he says. “I even left my job and there’s no clear advantage to it. We argued a lot, but I set everything aside. After reserve duty, I realized what’s important – we have to settle [the country].”
Asher is still living in Arad, and the entire community is still in its infancy, there’s no internet, there’s no cellular reception, only temporary buildings amid a desert landscape. The hill, a 10-minute drive from the city to the desert, overlooks the training base of the Nahal Brigade on one side and beyond it the South Hebron Hills. On the other side two Bedouin communities are living on borrowed time. The agricultural land that will be added to the Jewish communities is expected to increase the pressure on them even further.
“All our grazing land in the area – the sheep, the camels – overlaps their neighborhood,” says Faiz Abu Guyaad, 42, a member of the local committee in Al Baqi’a. “During this period the entire region is dry, but towards spring when the herds and the camels go out to the graze, I think the real friction will begin. That could lead to great tension, especially if they develop agriculture in this area.”
This is no longer a hypothetical situation, but rather a reality, as a tour of the community on the hill shows. Personal equipment is scattered outside the buildings, evidence of the new move. Improvised swings have already been installed near a mobile home, and several girls are enjoying them. Several men outside their houses are building accessible entrances, which meanwhile look improvised and dangerous for children due to large stones scattered about.
Guns are sticking out of the settlers’ pockets: This community functions as a kind of Civil Guard center. Every night the men, all volunteers in the police, patrol around the community. “We underwent training by the Civil Guard in order to help with enforcement, mainly in our area,” says one of the residents.
“We’re located on the seamline, and, according to what we were told, it’s a smuggling route. If there’s a criminal or security incident – we’re ready for that.” Another explains: “The police also call this route the ‘Thieves’ Route,’ because when they steal from the city they pass by here in order to flee to the territories. Us being here interferes with that.”
Not everyone is filled with confidence by the influex of weapons in the region. “I see what happens in the territories, the ones with a similar ideology, it’s likely to get to the same place,” says Abu Guyad, explaining his fears. “They came here for racist reasons.”
This also coincides with concerns heard in the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages. “Residents of Mitzpeh Yonatan are preparing their alibi for a murder that will take place there,” they warn. “There’s a gang of fully armed supporters of Jewish supremacy acting as though they’re in an outpost in the heart of Gaza.”
The warnings don’t seem to bother Arad’s mayor. “There are several important goals here,” says Maayan. “First, increasing security in the city. Whether it’s by preventing thefts or the entry of illegal residents. The moment we set up settlement points at the edges of the city, with guards and security at night, that makes the city safer. In addition, it also brings young couples back to the city, after 10,000 people left the city in the past decade.”
His words seem to only highlight the positive side effects of the new community . “There’s also safeguarding state land in the Negev,” says Maayan. “Settling the Land of Israel. That’s what we call it.”
Between words and reality
Speaking to the new residents, I understand more clearly that, for them, safeguarding the country and settlement on the land – perhaps mainly, on the land with non-Jewish populations – are one and the same. “Throughout the Negev, you can see all the illegal construction and crime and we came to realize the national value to taking control of the area and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Yosef (not his real name), one of the residents, explains.
“The previous government made a decision to build rural communities in Mevo’ot Arad, so we made contact with the Settlement Department and understood that the model could be the method in which there’s a settler garin, that answers to our wishes and can take control of the area legally. To establish a strong region.”
Yosef doesn’t mince words. “We understand that the land issue in the Negev is characterized by lawlessness,” he says. “We came with one challenge: take over the land and safeguard national borders.” He saysthat in his opinion, this doesn’t necessarily mean occupation and eviction of residents. He says that this entire region is in need of growth in every aspect. “In the Bedouin arena, too,” he says. “I have no desire to push out the Bedouin. We have to regulate their place.”
This declaration doesn’t entirely match the reality on the ground, since the new communities slated to be built in Mevo’ot Arad are located in areas where Bedouin families have been living for decades – some of them since before the establishment of the state. Now the sword of eviction hangs over their heads.
Abu Guyaad says that the residents of Al Baqi’a have two years to leave the area. Until then their private battle is at its height, and they petitioned the district court over the decision. Abu Guyaad finds it difficult to hide his frustration: “I was born here and my whole life I’ve been connected to Arad. Many of us served in the army, including me. The entire center of our life is in the city – clinics, our work.” He is a bus driver in the city. He claims that he said all off the above in his discussion with Maayan when they met, but in vain.
As far as the mayor is concerned, the village is no ally. “It’s not an official village, just several buildings that spread out in the area throughout the years,” says Maayan, explaining why, in his opinion, the Bedouin community should go elsewhere. Sooner or later. And from everywhere. He says, “The Bedouin Settlement Authority is planning to move them to the area of Tel Arad.” He’s not wrong, but it’s hard to claim that this departure will be voluntary.
The country is planning to evict the Bedouin by force to the community of Makhul – far from their present location and cut off in terms of community and employment. “They want to put us together in a neighborhood with other families whom we don’t know. Without grazing land, in crowded conditions and without taking account the Bedouin way of life,” says Odai Karshan, a 28-year-old construction engineer from Al Baqi’a.
“They’re urging us to move and don’t understand that under those conditions, an entire culture is destroyed. In a decade or two, there won’t be a Bedouin culture anymore. But what will there be? Bedouin camps, with high crime rates, similar to what’s happening in Rahat.”
Dafna Saporta is familiar with these statements and the frustration they reflect. “While the Jews are given an opportunity to live in advanced urban neighborhoods,” she says, “the Bedouin – who have lived here for generations – are required to fight for their right to remain in the area where they’re living. That’s despite their clear desire to become part of the urban fabric of Arad, while preserving their unique lifestyle,” she says. “The institutional government doesn’t offer a proper solution that would enable them to live in dignity and partnership with other communities in the city, which constitutes blatant discrimination in planning opportunities.”
There’s also an economic angle. “Like their friends from Garin Hiran, who received the land of Umm al-Hiran at half price, the members of Garin Negev are also expected to receive the real estate with discounts of 700,000 shekels and more,” they say in the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages. “So the losers will once again be the locals on whose land they’re living.”
Saporta says that for years she and the local committee of Al Baqi’a and Umm al-Badun tried to promote a plan that would regulate these villages so they would be considered a neighborhood inside Arad. The plan was presented to the heads of the municipality in the past, and to Maayan as well. “We tried to promote an alternative that would be logical and fair to everyone,” she says. That didn’t lead to any results at the time and according to what Maayan said, it seems that there’s no point for the Bedouin to hold their breath and expect such an outcome. “I don’t know anything about it,” the mayor told Haaretz.
Meanwhile, in Mitzpeh Yonatan, the old residents are meeting the new ones. A father and son, residents of the nearby Bedouin villages, ride by the new mobile homes on their donkeys. They stop, look with curiosity at the complex that is coming into being and ask the new residents where they came from and what their goal is there. After a moment of silence they say: “We don’t mind if they live alongside us, as long as it isn’t like the West Bank here.”
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