Bedouin society in northern Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria and its social, cultural and leadership systems

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the nature of the life of the Bedouin community in northern Israel and some of their customs and social behaviors, the Bedouin leadership systems, and the professions they undertake to secure their living requirements, most notably herding and agriculture. The Arab Bedouin of Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have been subject to a series of human rights violations, including forced displacement, since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. They have been classified as a ‘security threat’ and branded as ‘squatters’ on state lands. Successive Israeli governments have sought to expropriate their land and concentrate them into townships. The Israeli authorities refuse to recognize them as an indigenous group and thereby withhold from them the full range of rights provided to indigenous people under international laws. Though forced displacements are not necessarily illegal, they are if they are arbitrary or discriminatory. Bedouin in Israel’s Negev desert live in some of the poorest conditions in Israel, deprived of basic rights, including the right to water, shelter and education. They live with the constant threat of eviction and home demolitions, under enormously stressful conditions that have a serious effect on their health and well-being.