Green Patrol Vs Bedouin

“If my only other choice is to wash dishes and clean toilets and streets for these people, I’d rather be in their movies. At least I get to be some kind of Bedouin” (Lavie 340). The creation of the state of Israel and the ensuing policies has permanently changed the culture and way of life for Bedouin of the Negev desert. This climate has resulted in the Bedouin losing part of their culture due to Israeli policies and laws. This political reality has also forced them to adapt to form a new way of life that is completely different; it is a forced hybridization of western and Bedouin ideals. They face racism and bias based on historical interactions and western accounts in academia and in the media. While Israel treats them as second-class

citizens they have no problem exploiting their heritage for the tourism industry. The tribes are misunderstood and desperately try and retain their Bedouin heritage in a world that forces them to give up essential parts of their culture. They view their position with a begrudging acceptance and a simmering anger about the fact that they can do very little to improve their situation. The core policy that the Israelis implemented was the forced sedentarization of the Bedouin in Israel, this led to the ensuing change in their culture, and can be linked to their increasingly radical actions in the last 20 years.

Background

The image of a romantic scene from Lawrence of Arabia with a Bedouin clad in robes on a camel is no longer the reality. Yet this idea or fantasy of what a Bedouin should look like prevails in many people’s heads today. This image is not only outdated and ridiculous, it leads to cultural disconnects between the Bedouin and outsiders. In the quote below, a movie set hired Bedouin tribesmen to play “authentic” Bedouin slave traders in their movie. But when the real Bedouin arrived they were not what the movie producers were expecting.

“Just so our kids can eat, we have to play slave traders. But it is we who are the real slaves! When those westerners hired us on our camels, they were so surprised and angry that we didn’t dress like the Bedouin they had in mind, that they decided to ship these Touareg clothes all the way from somewhere called France.…And just because they couldn’t let us be Bedouin in our own clothes, they docked our wages.” (Lavie 340)

These essential cultural disconnects leave negotiating and understanding their different way of life almost impossible. In addition to this cultural misunderstanding, Bedouin are faced with racism that is perpetuated by historical precedents set by social interactions and academia. In his book, Yesterday and Today in the Sinai, Major C. S. Jarvis states, “The Arabs of the Sinai are absolutely ignorant and uneducated, but this does not mean they are brainless. I have always held the view that the average Arab is born into this world with a very good brain, but that it becomes atrophied by disuse…. so that when one first meets him he appears to be half an idiot.” (Jarvis 22). Major Jarvis in the beginning of his book distinguishes that when saying Arab he “solely concerned with the Bedouin Arab of the Sinai” (viii). Major Jarvis makes many other sweeping statements about Bedouin in general, including “his natural repugnance to discipline causes a lack of cohesion”(19), “[A Bedouin] is usually a rather ragged and forlorn looking creature…He is avaricious to a degree and his of honesty and truthfulness is not high..”(20), and “The Arab suffers from the disability of having been for the last ten years or so a popular hero, and the cinema and lady novelist have woven a wonderful halo of romance around the “sheek”…”(17-18). It is important to note that The Zion Research Foundation donated the book about Bedouin culture to Boston University’s’ Library.
These historical notions and misconceptions presented by the media pose a continuing source of discrimination and disconnect for the Bedouin of the Sinai and Negev today. Another interesting observation is that in 1932 Jarvis noticed the romanticized image of the Bedouin the world was forming. After the quote where he recognizes the Arab had become a popular hero in the media, he goes on to analyze how inaccurate this image truly is, even if he does analyze it in all the wrong ways. The stereotyping has gotten to a point where the Israeli laws incorporate systemic discrimination against it’s Bedouin citizens. In 2006, the Bedouin went to the UN to receive recognition and aid for their situation. It has been found that 20 to 50 laws in Israel are discriminatory and the US state department has stated that Israel practices “institutional and societal discrimination”(White 59).

Sedentarization
The heart of the issue that the Bedouin face today is the forced sedentarization that Israel mandated in the 1950s. Between 1950 and 1970 the Israeli government displaced the Bedouin of the Negev desert into a section of land that was less than 2 percent of the size of their historical range. They were organized into seven townships and all other settlements were declared illegal. Many Bedouin refused the government’s efforts to relocate them and therefore live in “unrecognized villages”. The majority of Bedouin in the Negev desert today still live in unrecognized villages.
The Bedouins' opposition to the governmental development plans was based on their desire to continue their traditional life within a modern state, as well as their opposition to the plans that ignored the tribal and social frameworks. They also deemed the transition to modern living standards as an infringement on their civic, economic and territorial rights, aggravated by what they considered as insufficient compensation for the land they were asked to vacate. Thus the Bedouin did not cooperate with the plans of moving to permanent settlements, plans which they perceived as intended to dispossess them and transfer them to closed quarters where the government could supervise them and impose taxes. The transfer to "towns" was seen by many Bedouin as giving up their nature and source of pride which distinguished them from other Arabs, and particularly from the Arab fellachin (peasants). (Medzini 42)
The forced sendentarization plans is the largest example of cultural misunderstanding and disconnect. These plans are generally viewed as failures. On top of forcing the Bedouin to give up their nomadic lifestyle, the villages in which they were forced to settle in are little more than shanty towns where a cycle of poverty ensues. Many settlements are “lacking basic municipal services and additional sources of income, most of these settlements became degraded and socio-economically deprived.”(Medzini 37). Historically the Bedouin were nomads and the way they made their living was travelling and grazing their herds on the land. When they are no longer allowed to do this, they not only lose an integral part of their culture, but they are also forced to find other ways to make a living. They must take menial jobs to provide for their families. Like the quote at the beginning of the paper states they often only have the choice of washing dishes or cleaning the streets.
In the period of military rule from 1948-1966 the Bedouin were treated very harshly, they faced massacres and forced expulsions, “more than any other group, the Negev Bedouin suffered the full and unrestrained harshness of military rule”(Falah 41).

The two main branches of the military that carried out these plans were Unit 101 and the Green Patrol. One of the most extreme actions of Unit 101 was the expulsion of the al-Azazmeh sub-tribes in 1953-54 after the massacre of their women and children. Legally the Bedouin were subject to expulsion at any time because they were not given identity cards, ID cards were not issued until 1952, four years after the creation of Israel. The Green Patrol held the tasks of forcing the Bedouin give up their land rights and culling the sheep herds to prevent “overgrazing”. Because of the Absentee Property Law of 1950 if the owners of the land were not there for a day it was considered “abandoned”. The Green Patrol would “clear” the land by terrorizing the Bedouin camps and forcing them to move location, therefore giving up their land rights. One way they would accomplish this was to kill the camp dogs and cause general panic. Moving even a couple hundred meters meant that the camp elder or elders would lose their rights to the land. The 1950 Black Goat law prohibited the grazing of black goats “outside one’s own holdings”, this law also targeted the Bedouin, further crippling their economy. From 1977 to 1980 the Green Patrol

reduced the number of black goats from 220,000 to 80,000. For a pastoral society to lose so many animals the effect is devastating. Herding no longer was an option for many families and they were forced to find other ways to make a living, giving up their historical way of life for good. (Falah 42-44)
The two main reasons the Israelis seem to have forcibly settled the Bedouin was to exploit them for the work force and confiscate their land through the use of discriminatory policies.
“We must turn the Bedouin into urban workers…meaning that the Bedouin will not live on his own land and with his herds; he’ll turn into a townsman…-it will be an upheaval, but in the course of two generations it can be realized. Not forcefully, but under the governments guidance. A community called Bedouin will simply disappear.”(Medzini 41)
The Israeli government wanted to use them as cheap labor but there was a general understanding that the problem was not how to do away with the Bedouin way of life, but how to turn the Bedouin into urban workers (Medzini 42). There is institutionalized discrimination against the Bedouin dating back to the founding of Israel. The Absentee Property Law of 1950 states that land is considered “abandoned” if the owner or owners were absent for one day since November 1947 (White 48). This is problematic for an inherently nomadic people who view their historical rights to the land as seasonal. In 1953 the Land Acquisition Law was passed that confirms the government’s title to land previously classified as “absentee” (White 49).
Zionist institutions hold large roles in the government, and they often use their power to further their own agendas.

One notable Zionist institution is the Jewish National Fund (JNF). They have played a large role the acquisition of Bedouin lands. By the October of 1950 the government sale of land to the JNF had tripled, with 40% of that being “abandoned” land. The JNF not only had become substantial landowners in their own right (owning 13% of all the land in Israel), but they also held enormous sway over the use of the government held lands. The Israeli Land Authority manages 93% of Israeli land; it replaced the Israel Lands Administration in 2011. The JNF has representatives in 6 of the 13 seats on the Land Authority Council, where it has preserved its influential role and helps shape the policy of the Israeli Land Authority. This is an organization that publicly states, “…the loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and to only them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.” (White

51-52).
These policies have had major effects on the Bedouin of the Negev Desert in particular. In 2002, the Jewish Agency announced that it would encourage 350,000 Jews to move to Galilee and the Negev to guarantee and “Zionist Majority” in those areas. This plan is now officially called “Blueprint Negev” and is an attempt to transform the image of the desert, boost it’s desirability, and attract Jews to move there. The slogan is “It’s not a mirage, it’s a dream becoming a reality”(Manksi 3). In 2004 the Housing Ministry announced plans to establish Jewish settlements in the Negev to “block” the “expansion” of Bedouin communities.
Another side of this problem is that in addition to trying to prevent their expansion Israel refuses to recognize them and their villages. Unrecognized villages are communities that the Israeli State has refused to acknowledge officially exist. The Planning and Building law of 1965 categorizes specific land as “nonresidential” thus making the presence of the people who live there illegal. The government simply pretends the people who live there are not there. This results in no official status; no government services, and in their homes getting targeted for demolition. The majority of these villages are concentrated in the south amongst the Bedouin of the Negev. The total number of people affected by this is estimated to be 70-90,000. They are disconnected from water, electricity, sewage, and the telephone network, and they are also “prohibited from developing infrastructure” (White 60).
In the 1990s, the JNF decided to build a tree plantation in the middle of the desert, on top of the village of Al- ‘Araqib. Since Al-‘Araqib was an unrecognized village it was slated for demolition and the 500 people who lived there were forced to find a new home with no say in the decision. (Manski 3) The demolition of unrecognized villages still is a current issue. The Prawer Plan announced in 2011, and is a plan to forcibly relocate 40,000 Bedouin citizens living in unrecognized villages in the Negev desert. They must leave because their homes and towns are slated for demolition. Even though the bill was met with outrage in the international community and within Israel, it still has not been shelved.
On a more positive note, Israel has been making an attempt to work with the Bedouin community. They have been legalizing some of the “unrecognized villages”. By the year 2000, 22 spontaneous settlements were legalized post-factum, with pans to legalize seven more in the Negev by 2002. The majority of the Bedouin who live in the northern part of Israel, in Galilee, live in recognized settlements and very few “unrecognized villages” still exist there. But this is not the case of the Bedouin in the Negev. A study in 2006 revealed that about 1,500 illegal buildings went up every year. (Medzini 45) The Bedouin population is going through a period of demographic growth of 5.5% every year; the population is expected to reach 360,000 in the Negev by 2020. Though Israel is making efforts to plan more established settlements and legalize unrecognized ones, they are implementing their new policies too slowly and cannot keep up with the growing population and need.
It appears that the government's inability to act resolutely in resolving the problems of land ownership and spontaneous settlement, combined with the rapid demographic growth of the Bedouin population, constitute dominant factors in the strengthening of Arab-Palestinian nationalism among the Negev Bedouin population. (Medzini 46)