Conclusion

I began this book with the story of the state’s attempt to plant trees in the Negev and how this attempt deteriorated into disruptive clashes, which ended once the state drew back and halted further planting. The typical analysis of this event puts it within the Jewish-Arab conflict—that is, the Jewish state taking over Arab lands. Based on an in-depth analysis of thousands of archival documents, this focus on Israel’s Jewishness as the dominant prism to study the Bedouin-Israel relationship while ignoring the fundamental challenge that tribalism poses on all states is too narrow and misleading. The key factor is Israel’s framework as a state versus as a tribe. Indeed, Israel’s identity as a liberal democracy and as Jewish is relevant, but only as an addition to the inherent challenge that exists to all entities that are states and not tribes. Hence, this study is about similarities rather than differences.

In Israel, like other states, Bedouin collective identity and deep commitment to their blood group override their potential attachment, loyalty, and commitment to the state. In addition, the Bedouin tend to follow their own traditions and norms, even if those differ from the written laws formulated in modern states, whether Muslim or Jewish. Tribal societies, shaped by the harsh desert conditions, are robust and resilient against attempts to change them and impose different norms. Hence, those leaders who sought a peaceful and glorious Bedouin transformation failed.

The Bedouin pose a challenge no matter where they live in the Middle East, and the countries they inhabit are divided in their approach to tribalism. While some have chosen a path of cooperation, others act to dismantle their nomadic way of life. Judging by academic publications and media reports, one might suppose that the State of Israel has always been in conflict with the Bedouin of the Negev, but is this entirely true? I wondered, and has there ever been an official government policy on the matter?

The answer I found is that Israel has never been unified or consistent in its approach to tribalism. During the early decades of the state, different authorities promoted different policies, some seeking to uphold Bedouin tribal life, others opposing it. There was, furthermore, a large discrepancy between their stated policy, which usually favored Bedouin integration into Israeli society and the abolition of tribalism, and the policy implemented by the local authorities that acted to preserve it.

Throughout most of the period considered here, the Bedouin of the Negev lived under military rule, the long-term policy of which was to dismantle tribalism and free the Bedouin to live as individuals, entitled to the rights conferred by liberal democratic values and integrated into the Israeli society. This conclusion is based on an analysis of statements by government ministers and representatives regarding their intention to apply Israeli law in a way they believed was necessary and right for the Bedouin, as it was the duty of a modern state to improve their living conditions and bring them economic and social benefits. This approach was shared by members of all parties and reflected the worldview that the Bedouin as individuals would be free to make decisions and would be released from subordination to their tribal framework and the yoke of the sheikhs. Even the left-wing Mapam party did not explicitly reject the vision of Bedouin modernization and transformation. A case in point is the speech delivered by Minister Mordechai Bentov of Mapam at a ceremony marking the inauguration of Tel Sheva, in which he applauded this venture, which offered a modern way of life to all Bedouin, regardless of origin. A point to note is that integration and to some extent even assimilation were perceived as desired not only toward Bedouin but also toward other groups of Jews that came from non-European states, mainly from Arab countries.1

However, the actual policy implemented by the military administration and others who came into contact with the Bedouin on a daily basis was quite the opposite of the one proclaimed. With limited resources and not enough employees, they were required to provide the Bedouin with essential services and maintain stability in the area. The long-term effects of their work were not scrutinized, and the tools at their disposal were inadequate for the job. The Negev Military Administration, the dominant factor for most of the period under consideration here, was a temporary body, challenged and reexamined every few years. Such a temporary situation prompted the focus on short-term accomplishments. In the immediate aftermath of the 1948 war, it formed alliances with the sheikhs and adopted various tactics to achieve its goals, restructuring tribal frameworks and reinforcing tribal leadership. This, it was hoped, would enable the Bedouin to conduct their lives according to their customs insofar as possible, to establish tribal courts in accordance with customary law, and to create alliances. These alliances continued in the de facto absence of Israeli legal framework even after the military administration was abolished. For instance, the Bedouin Tracker Unit was established in 1968 as an unofficial military unit subordinated to Sheikh Abu Muʽammar.

The Negev Military Administration not only promoted alliances but also acted to prevent state initiatives that might lead to confrontation with the sheikhs. Indeed, hostilities did break out from time to time but mostly in cases where the administration failed to deflect pressures from above, as when the state promoted land settlement in the 1960s. Other such confrontations occurred in the period leading up to the Sinai Campaign when certain sheikhs were found to be aiding infiltrators and the administration decided to curtail their powers. However, most of the time, the Negev Military Administration succeeded in keeping the peace among the Negev Bedouin.

During the first decades of the state, Israel sought temporary solutions rather than long-term policies. Shortly after the war of 1948, proposals to establish agricultural villages and turn the Bedouin into fellahin were abandoned. According to Michael Hanegbi, moving the Bedouin to the eastern Negev without running water, as was done, would thwart a long-term solution. Such was also the case regarding land allocation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, when demands for direct allocation of land to individual Bedouin, rather than via their sheikhs, were repeatedly denied. This occurred as well when the state chose not to complete the legal procedure for registering lands in the Negev, as it became clear that Bedouin claimants did not have the required proof of ownership. As evident from the last episode discussed in the book, this was the point at which the state gave up on the hope of promoting modern, open Bedouin localities and established instead a “populating committee,” a platform that enabled the sheikhs to control admittance to the settlements.

It is worth noting that although the military administration of the Negev together with local officials implemented a policy of alliances, they did not glorify it or regard it as an appropriate long-term solution, nor did they call for the preservation of tribalism as an autonomous social framework in Israel. In fact, they too were critical of various elements in tribalism and did not hide their displeasure at the lack of equality in the sheikhs’ treatment of their people, especially in matters of resource allocation. Nevertheless, the administration found it necessary to accommodate tribalism so as not to undermine the prevailing order that had for so many years existed in Bedouin society and, if upset, might lead to conflicts with the sheikhs who controlled most of the material and symbolic capital. The decision to form alliances was thus a practical short-term necessity and not one anchored in ideology.

As noted, there were reasons why the military administration of the Negev and its successors chose to preserve tribalism. But this begs the question as to why the central government, to which the local administration was subordinated, did not enforce a long-term policy of dismantling tribalism. Or, in other words, how did it happen that despite the statements and views of government ministers and officials regarding the importance of implementing the law and the principles of democracy in the Negev, their initiatives were continually shelved?

There is no single answer to that question. Instead, I wish to offer several reasons that, taken together, may provide a possible explanation. First, despite the many declarative statements Israel made in favor of dismantling tribalism and applying democratic principles and law and order in the Negev, the government was not in fact seriously determined to do so. There are several expressions of this ambivalence that do not reflect a consistent policy—for example, Israel’s initial acknowledgment of Bedouin tribalism when, in 1948, it offered to form an alliance with certain tribes and allow them to return to the Negev but rejected the appeals of other tribes, thereby treating them not as individuals but as groups.

Likewise, the government received reports about how things were proceeding in the Negev and was aware that Israeli law was not being applied there, but it closed its eyes to this and chose not to intervene. A notable case in point was the discovery by the state comptroller’s office in its 1967 audit that lands were being allocated to the sheikhs directly rather than to the Bedouin themselves and the comptroller’s consequent decision not to intervene. Moreover, the government’s statements of purpose with regard to the dismantling of tribalism were made haphazardly, in reaction to either extraneous circumstances like drought and war or the nomination of new “players”: institutions or individuals.

Furthermore, the government’s stated policy often appeared to lead in different and even contradictory directions: to turn the Bedouin into fellahin or else urban dwellers, to settle them in the Negev or else in the center of the country, etc. Nor did the government initiatives provide enough resources and measures to secure implementation.

A second explanation is that difficulties arose every time someone came up with an initiative to implement Israeli law as a means of detracting from the power of tribalism, a means that ultimately led to conflict. Conflict management involved a considerable investment of public resources, risk taking, and government attention. According to this explanation, Israel’s difficulty or unwillingness in confronting the Bedouin population in the early decades was due to other acute challenges like a succession of wars, massive immigration and absorption, and economic, political, and social turbulence that the government was forced to address. These challenges did not leave enough room to embark on an elective confrontation that was not existential. Moreover, the physical remoteness and social marginalization of the Bedouin made their difficulties less visible on the agenda. By the end of this period, the Bedouin population had reached a maximum of about forty-five thousand people. Indeed, the Negev was not central to the Israeli agenda and not important enough to fight for or engage in conflict over their internal issues.

Third, Israel’s reluctance to confront tribalism, even at the price of its principles, may be related to its core values as a liberal democratic regime. Democracy is a social system based primarily on individual consent, on the freedom to make decisions.2 Unlike Western societies that are based on an amalgam of individuals all entitled to equal rights, tribal societies are based on an amalgam of groups where the rights of individuals are based on kinship. They lack gender equality, and personal freedom is determined by tradition and group affiliation. It does not alter as a result of formal elections.3 Hence, when a liberal democratic society encounters a group whose basic values clash with its ideals, the principle of consent is absent, and this undermines the state’s ability to fulfill the purpose of applying its laws. Thus, by its very nature, democracy is ill equipped to confront tribal groups.

Fourth, as we have learned from the experience of neighboring countries, it is anything but easy to apply the law of the state to the Bedouin. Implementing state regulations requires dedication, consistency, and a willingness to tackle long, drawn-out conflicts. None of the attempts to eradicate tribalism and integrate the Bedouin fully into society have succeeded. Arab states that chose to confront tribalism found themselves in a state of persistent struggle while those who sought peace and calm had to accommodate tribalism.4

While dealing with the Bedouin was found difficult for Arab Muslim regimes, in Israel it was even more complicated. The different language, religion, democratic regime, and liberal norms, as well as its relatively small size, made it harder to accommodate Bedouin tribalism. Due to Israel’s Jewish identity, any initiative that involved a change in the Bedouin way of life by settling them, dismantling tribalism, or interfering with their social hierarchy was perceived as part of the broader Jewish-Arab conflict. Israeli land and settlement initiatives were marked as Jewish attempts to grab Arab lands and suppress their human rights. Different from Arab states, the freedom of speech in Israel also aided in promoting an open public debate in the Knesset and the media. One notable example is in a meeting in 1964 to discuss Bedouin issues. Layish, the deputy to the PM Adviser for Arab Affairs, referred to a promotion of a settlement law for the Bedouin and expressed frustration while asking why similar actions toward Bedouin settlement, when done by neighboring Arab countries, were appreciated.5

The combined identity of Israel as both a Jewish state and a liberal Western democracy contributed to the challenge. Being the only Jewish nation-state surrounded by Arab countries that showed fundamental hostility against it made the idea of giving formal accommodation to Arab and Bedouin narratives within its declared ethos unrealistic.

Israel was willing to grant its Arab population only minor cultural recognition in their language and jurisdiction over their domestic and religious issues. Formal accommodations of tribal collective nonliberal norms, let alone acceptance of their internal hierarchies, were impossible to adopt as they contradicted democratic ideology. However, at the same time, Israel’s combined identity exposed it to internal and external scrutiny. Unlike other Arab states in the region, with its free speech, Israel’s actions constantly faced public criticism, which had a chilling effect on the motivations of those involved.

Another challenge for Israel during the period under discussion was that as a nascent state consisting largely of immigrants from nondemocratic countries, Israel lacked a consistent theory to deal with such a challenge, particularly in a region where it had no democratic neighbors with a Bedouin population to lead the way.

With these conclusions in mind, further research is needed on the link between the military administration, tribalism, and human rights. Previous studies of the military administration have focused on it mainly as a system that withheld civil rights endowed by liberal democracies. This is true, but it is also misleading. There is a significant difference between the military administration’s operations in the Negev and the rest of the state. Although it withheld individual human rights from the Negev Bedouin, the Bedouin enjoyed many collective rights denied under individually focused human rights regimes. Regardless of the morality in question, introducing modern democratic values means breaking up long-standing Bedouin traditions. Bedouin tribalism was never similar to Western democracy, nor was it a liberal system in which individuals were considered equal in rights. Women were neither equal to men nor free to move about and make decisions. According to the tribal system, fellahin-Bedouin and Afro-Bedouin were equal neither to one another nor to the genuine Bedouin, and it was acceptable for sheikhs to get a bigger share of the pie (or the land). Individuals were not autonomous decision-making units but functioned as part of a collective group. As this study shows, they were able to live according to their customs and tradition in a designated territory, with limited intervention in their daily life. This is not to say that Bedouin life was ever easy—quite the contrary. The Bedouin endured enormous challenges, many of them inflicted by the state. Distinguished from other Arabs, they afford us a perspective to see beyond the oversimplified one that characterizes much academic writing on the military administration.

Another insight is the role of Bedouin land rights in Israeli policy. When I started writing this book, I gave it a working title that included the word lands. In this, I followed previous studies, including my own, that focused on lands. However, the more archival documentation I came across and analyzed, the more it became apparent to me that during the first decades of the state, the question of landownership was important, but not to the exclusion of other issues. Indeed, decisions were made to move the Bedouin to the eastern Negev and later from one part of the Sayig to another, yet this was only part of the other changes proposed for the region. Furthermore, the documentation in my analysis does not support the argument that such decisions were made out of fear that the Bedouin would be legally awarded ownership of the land, as some scholars have suggested. Quite the opposite. Most established authorities in both the central and Negev regions held that the Bedouin would lose their claims in courts. Hence, they were satisfied with the alternative of allocating state lands to them. If taking over Bedouin lands had been Israel’s main intention at the time, it could have accomplished this quite easily, at least from a legal point of view. The legislation was in place, and so was the legal system for registering lands, as was done elsewhere in Israel. And during Israel’s early decades, as I have demonstrated, Israel refrained from using its powers to register lands and repeatedly shelved such initiatives in the wake of Bedouin pressure.

Landownership became a critical issue only in the 1970s, when the state promoted its initiative to establish Bedouin settlements. But this was part of a broader change in Israel’s focus.

The experience of Middle Eastern states showed that relative peace and calm with Bedouin tribes were mainly achieved when states maintained the balance of power between tribal families, allowed measures of political independence to apply tribal norms, and incorporated tribal values in national ethos.6 The current study shows that this is also true in the case of Israel. Time and again, calm was temporarily retrieved only upon Israel’s willingness to accommodate tribal norms and allow the intertribal balance.

The complete history of the establishment of new Bedouin towns, the development of Bedouin landownership claims in courts, and the promotion of land policy compromises deserve a separate study, as do other developments that have occurred since in the Negev, Bedouin society, and state-Bedouin relations. Despite many changes, the policies that evolved during the first decades of the state shaped the lives of the Bedouin of the Negev and remain critical for understanding what ensued.