Six members of Knesset made an unprecedented visit to unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev on January 21.
The visiting members included Special Committee for Bridging Social Gaps in the Periphery chairman Avraham Benayahu Bezalel of Shas; Special Committee for Strengthening and Developing the Negev and Galilee chairman Michael Biton of the National Unity Party; Special Committee for the Rights of the Child chairman Eli Dalal of the Likud; MK Youssef Atauna of Hadash; MK Walid al-Hawashla of Ra’am (United Arab List); and Negev resident MK Alon Schuster of the National Unity Party.
They were accompanied by other representatives of government ministries and organizations, including the army’s Home Front Command and local Bedouin councils.
The visit was a long time in coming, noted Ilan Amit, co-CEO of AJEEC-NISPED, an Arab-Jewish organization for social change which arranged for the tour. AJEEC’s co-founder Vivian Silver was murdered on October 7 at her home in Kibbutz Be’eri.
“Members of Knesset know about the issue of the unrecognized Bedouin villages, but they have never been here,” Amit said. “They need to see it with their own eyes so they can understand it and think of practical ways to offer solutions, not [amorphous] solutions. If they want to close the economic gap, they need to build factories, empower women. It needs hands-on actions.”
The tour, which included visits to the Alqura’n family in the Alqura’n (al-Bat) village, which lost four sons who were killed by rocket fire from Gaza on October 7, and Tel Arad village, to highlight the lack of bomb shelters in the villages, was a direct continuation of the special conference organized by AJEEC with members of the above mentioned committees on December 6 on the topic of narrowing social gaps in the periphery in light of the challenges of Bedouin Arab society in the Negev within the existing reality.
The initial conference took six months to arrange, said Amit.
“In the conference, we discussed the challenges of Bedouin Arab society in the Negev within the existing reality,” Amit said in a joint statement with AJEEC codirector Sliman Al-Amour following the tour. “Today we had an opportunity to not only talk about these challenges, but also to show them. We will continue to monitor the situation in order to make certain that these challenges receive a response.”
They said they appreciated the collaborative work being carried out by the government ministries and the social organizations dedicated to this issue, which has long existed and long been ignored.
“We will not let them just say ‘yes, we will help,’” Amit affirmed to The Jerusalem Post. “We will need to know from which budget, for which program, for which population group [funds will be used]. Working together as Arabs and Jews opens doors for us; they see they can’t just wave us away.”
Moving forward on issues and programs with the government has been especially difficult in recent years because of the political instability caused by five elections in four years, he said.
Needs that need to be addressed
The importance now given the topic of the needs of the unrecognized villages by the Knesset members was evident in their cooperation and quick scheduling of the follow-up visit, said Hanadi Sha’er, AJEEC’s manager of government and local authorities relations.
Much of the attention on the issues of bomb shelters, schools, and mental health support currently being given to the Bedouin community in the Negev – particularly in unrecognized villages – which is the most vulnerable socioeconomic group in Israel, can be linked to the war and the sense of a shared trauma caused by the October 7 Hamas massacre, with more of a willingness for collaborative efforts and problem-solving in Bedouin communities.
“This is a chance to build better connections between the communities,” said Amour. “There is more commitment for a relationship and how to build a joint society based on equality, partnership, and justice which will close the [socioeconomic] gaps.
We are all living in the State of Israel, and we have to take care of it. We want to ‘reach the sky,’ and the government should see the good things happening in the Bedouin society. AJEEC’s work in the community is not meant to replace the government, but to show it what is possible.”
He welcomed visits by government ministers, but noted that an earlier visit by members of the Education Ministry to review the lack of bomb shelters in kindergartens had yet to produce any results.
“Our fear is that [after the war] the government will forget us and things will remain as they have been,” he said. “This visit by the committees is important so they hear our voices.”
Following the tour, Bezalel said he recognized that there are more general problems which will not be able to be solved in one day, but the visit had given him some optimism that for short-term issues some solutions could be found based on everyone’s joint desire to reach a resolution.
“I do believe in a joint path with open eyes. I believe we can move forward,” he said. “I hope we can meet soon with solutions, and in fact the radar of the war can focus solutions for the Bedouin community because they deserve it.”
Bedouin citizens on and after Oct 7
At least 26 Bedouin citizens of Israel were killed on that Saturday morning – 19 by Hamas terrorists in the kibbutzim where they were working, and seven by Hamas rockets due to a lack of bomb shelters, sirens, and coverage by the Iron Dome defense system in the unrecognized villages.
Six Bedouin citizens were kidnapped, and two – siblings Bilal, 18, and Aisha, 17, Ziyadne were released in the hostage exchange at the end of November. Their father and brother remain in captivity. Several Bedouin citizens were also lauded as heroes for their daring rescues of young Israelis at the Re’im Supernova music festival.
Some 400,000 Bedouin live in the Negev in an area ranging from Beersheba to Arad. This includes 100,000 in unrecognized villages which are not connected to Israel’s electric grid or to the Mekorot national water company, sewage, and have no paved roads or school infrastructure, and 300,000 who live in seven established Bedouin towns. A Bedouin soldier from Rahat, Ahmad Abu Latif – who had just recently posted on social media how proud he was to be a soldier in the IDF and his belief in coexistence – was among the 21 soldiers killed in the Gaza blast on January 21.
“The past three months have revealed to Israeli society the distress of the unrecognized villages in the Negev, which have been abandoned without a response from the government, particularly with respect to the issue of bomb shelters. We are asking for a response from the government, but no one is taking responsibility for shelters in educational institutions in the unrecognized villages,” said Atauna at the opening of the meeting.
IDF veteran Saed Alqura’n, who lost four nephews in a Hamas rocket attack on his unrecognized village of al-Bat, hosted the committee meeting in his visitor “tent” – a neat corrugated tin structure. With the photos of the four boys hanging on a wall above an Israeli flag, Alqura’n told the committee members that what happened in the Negev villages on October 7 should never happen again.
“This is a time bomb. In this war the Bedouin have proven that they are proud citizens and want to live... with their Jewish brothers. It is unacceptable for the Bedouin community to live outside the established framework [available to other citizens],” he said.
The issue of the lack of bomb shelters in Bedouin communities is not new, especially in village schools, said Hawashla. And even though there are not enough shelters in the Jewish sector either, the problem is at an especially critical level in the Bedouin sector, he said.
“No one in the government listened to us when we brought up the shelter issue. In the Negev there are 140,000 residents without shelters. We’ve sent numerous letters, but no one has responded. The state must change its policy toward the Bedouin. We want to live here in dignity and bring prosperity to the Negev as well,” he said.
Even as the committee members were sitting drinking coffee with the Alqura’n family, demolition orders against Bedouin structures were already taking place since last week, said attorney Ibraheem Alqura’n, who also took part in the meeting.
“I would not have hosted you in an orderly place such as this,” he told the committee members. “I would have you come to the houses where people are living. I am pessimistic about our future when ministers come to see us while there are demolition orders being given to destroy houses. In the end Bedouin citizens do not have a solution. My soul hurts. This is something that is suffocating the simple citizen.”
Hawashla criticized both the government decision to cut the budget, which will include cuts in funding within the Bedouin community, and the demolition of houses without providing housing alternatives. He called for demolition orders on homes of IDF soldiers to be canceled.
“I hope this message will be relayed to the prime minister, who has yet to visit the Bedouin communities in the Negev, which suffered heavy losses,” he said.
As opposed to Jewish communities in the Negev, which enjoy building permits, residents of unrecognized villages are unable to legally build any structure – including bomb shelters – because they are not given building permits. Even in the 11 recognized villages, building permits are almost never issued, mostly because of a lack of a master plan.
“I talk to children in schools, but how can I teach them about good citizenship if, every day, they have their country stepping on their throat with their shoes. We live in the same country, but it is not willing to look us in the eye,” the attorney said. “But, I hope it will be better.”
The committee also discussed the dearth of enough Bedouin mental health professionals available in the Bedouin community to provide help for the community. In Hura, which is considered a strong municipality, there is only about 36% coverage for the mental health needs of the residents, noted Ibrahim Abu Jafar, a psychologist at the Tamar Center of the Negev. Therapists need to understand the culture and language of the Bedouin in order to be most effective, he said.
Alqura’n noted the importance of the mental health support his family received after the rocket attack.
“We saw the heroes of the Bedouin community, who entered the Gaza perimeter region and saved people [on October 7]. We have a moral debt to those who were killed here, and a desire to promote the shared life,” said Biton, expressing his condolences to Alqura’n for the loss of his nephews.
There are “huge gaps” which need to be bridged, said Schuster. Suddenly, he said, between October 6 and October 7, Israel discovered the value of the Bedouin society and is now trying to find solutions to problems that should have been taken care of two generations ago.
“There is a sea of injustice,” he said. “I take it upon myself to at least pay serious attention to the points raised here.”
Acknowledging the long-term existence of the issues affecting the Bedouin community, Biton said the government does not speak all in one voice on issues, but the key to finding solutions is “not to give up.”
The government did not function on October 7, said Atauna, but now it is time it puts itself into gear, he said.
“Now it is your turn,” he said to his fellow MKs. “Sadly, in all these three months, there have been no solutions other than pretty words which serve no purpose. While there is planning for Jewish [housing] development, there is no planning for Bedouin development. House demolitions have begun as if there was no war. If the government does not look at us in the eye with equality, we all lose.”