the israeli incorporation regime97
under a tenure system that continues to deny Palestinians access in the
form of leasing and cultivation.
The effects of Israel’s racialized land laws are most acutely embodied in
the realities faced by multiple hundreds of villages inside Israel deemed
‘unrecognized’ or ‘illegally constructed’ villages. The existence of these villages and their tens of thousands of Bedouin inhabitants is not witnessed
by any official map. Rather, they are systematically subjected to state policies aimed at solidifying their absence. Despite their Israeli citizenship,
Palestinian Bedouin residents of unrecognized villages constitute the
most disadvantaged segment of the indigenous population remaining
within the 1948–1949 borders of Israel.113 The Palestinian Bedouin of the
Naqab have inhabited this land since the fifth century and were traditionally organized according semi-nomadic social systems and self-sufficient
tribes that lived by grazing cattle and through seasonal agriculture.114
These inhabitants of unrecognized villages are citizens of Israel, numbering approximately 75,000 to 90,000 Arab Bedouin in the Naqab alone.115
Mainly in the southern Naqab region, Palestinian Bedouin communities
residing in unrecognized villages have no local council or government representation, are not recognized by any official state-affiliated institutions,
receive no government services and are ignored by all government planning projects. The denial of government services to the unrecognized villages affects nearly every area of daily life. Some of the challenges faced by
residents include a lack of running water, connection to a sewage network,
health services, garbage collection services, connection to the electricity
network, postal services, connection to the telephone network, protection
or emergency services and kindergartens and welfare services (Abu-Saad
2011, 125). Instead, the Palestinian Bedouin are subjected to an exclusionary land and planning regime making it almost impossible for them to
legally build where they live. Consecutive Israeli governments have disproportionately imposed forced evictions, repeated home demolitions,
and numerous other punitive initiatives against these communities.
113 Human Rights Watch, Off the Map: Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s
Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, March 31, 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/node/62284/
section/; Also see Masalha (2005).
114 I characterize the Bedouin Arab population as ‘semi-nomadic’ because while their
pastoral lifestyle requires seasonal travel, their movement is mainly concentrated around
major historic villages with land that is privately owned and collectively held. See Adalah:
The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, The Arab Bedouin of the Naqab: Myths
and Misconceptions.
115 Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, The Inequality Report, 10.
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