About 300,000 Bedouin currently live in the Negev region, including some 90,000 residing in what is termed “pzurah” – unregulated and unrecognized settlements outside recognized state-sanctioned municipal lines.
This situation creates complex planning and social challenges that require comprehensive solutions.
One of the primary obstacles to regional development in the Negev is the issue of land ownership claims. In the 1970s, the Israeli authorities decided to survey Bedouin land ownership claims throughout the Negev without officially granting a legal status to these claims. Various government committees concluded that some form of legal arrangement must be found to address these ownership issues if the pzurah issue is to be resolved.
The challenge is clear: It is impossible to establish regulated communities within someone else’s ownership claims under current Bedouin-related legislation. Cultural codes also play an immense role in this complex situation.
This legal impasse has prevented meaningful development and created a cycle in which existing recognized settlements remain largely empty despite having designated areas for thousands of residents, while tens of thousands reside outside municipal lines.
Several established Bedouin communities exist in the Negev, including Rahat, Lakiya, Kuseifa, and Segev Shalom. Many of these communities, however, are significantly underpopulated relative to their planned capacity.
For example, some settlements designed to accommodate populations similar to major cities, such as Kfar Saba, have only a few thousand residents. This underutilization occurs because the settlements were established without resolving the underlying land ownership disputes.
Most of these areas lack basic infrastructure development, as the state cannot justify investing billions in sewage systems, roads, and utilities when settlements remain empty and uncertain due to unresolved land disputes.
The last major attempt to comprehensively address this issue was the Prawer-Begin Plan in 2013. The traditional approach has been to offer compensation packages: providing Bedouin claimants with partial land allocation and monetary compensation and bringing them to relinquish broader territorial claims.
This compensation-based doctrine has not proven successful, however, as Bedouin can still theoretically reach settlement status under current arrangements. Yet few do so in practice.
The current government plan takes a different strategic approach. Rather than focusing solely on compensation, it recognizes that the existing unrecognized settlements are simply not viable for development in their current state. The plan proposes updating the legal tools available for reaching agreements with Bedouin claimants.
The strategy involves a clear timeline: offering generous settlement terms that go beyond strict legal requirements but with definitive deadlines. If agreements are not reached within this deadline, the state will proceed to redraw the municipal lines of recognized settlements, leaving unsettled claims outside the new town borders (dubbed “blue lines”) and leading claimants who refuse to reach a settlement to lose valuable land that has the potential to be developed.
The plan acknowledges that even without 100% agreement rates, it can still design viable, developable communities.
The approach is being implemented gradually, starting with pilot programs to understand what works effectively before broader implementation.
Government officials believe this approach, which has been discussed with local representation as well as government authorities, offers a more realistic and feasible path forward than previous attempts. By combining generous settlement offers with clear deadlines and practical development timelines, the plan aims to break the decades-long impasse that has prevented both proper Bedouin community development and broader regional planning in the Negev.
The success of this initiative will depend on effective communication with affected communities and the willingness of stakeholders to engage with the new framework within the proposed timelines.
Jewish-Beduoin NGO: This means more demolitions
As is always the case with these complex issues, which involve a mix of politics, identity, and land, not everyone is celebrating this government decision. According to AJEEC-NISPED, also known as the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development, an Israeli NGO that focuses on Jewish-Bedouin collaboration and coexistence in the Negev, the resolution is not feasible.
The decision “comes at one of the most critical moments of crisis for Bedouin society,” it told The Jerusalem Post, adding that on October 7, 2023, dozens of Bedouin in the Negev were murdered or kidnapped, and more than 10 children were killed by direct rocket fire from Gaza.
“The economic crisis that Bedouin society has faced since the outbreak of war is unprecedented – employment in agriculture, hospitality, and construction halted overnight, striking a severe blow to the poorest population in Israel,” the NGO said.
According to AJEEC-NISPED, the government resolution meets Bedouin society at a moment when it needs assistance and support in employment and education rather than a “confrontation marked by a wave of home demolitions and evictions.”
Leaving communities outside the blue lines means, effectively, putting all homes that have been built there at risk of demolition, it said, warning that the long-term consequence would be a deepening of the gaps between Jews and Bedouin in the Negev.
“Already today, rates of academic education and quality employment in the Bedouin community are the lowest in the country,” the NGO said. “According to the latest Finance Ministry report, released just weeks ago, the only population group in Israel that has seen a decline in youth employment rates is the Bedouin community in the Negev. These young people, already facing tremendous barriers to normative behavior, may become easy prey for criminal organizations and the cycle of violence.”
AJEEC-NISPED said the demolitions do not affect only the Bedouin community; rather, “they have a compounding effect of exclusion, detachment, and hopelessness with negative consequences for Israeli society as a whole. The lack of trust between the state and the Bedouin population is a core issue, especially at this time.”
“As an Arab-Jewish community organization based in the Negev, working to reduce socioeconomic disparities in Bedouin society and promote Arab-Jewish partnership, we acutely feel the significance of this mistrust,” it said. “Above all, home demolitions are a state of emergency. Just as we mobilized during previous emergencies like the war and the COVID pandemic, we will now act during the demolitions. Families in need of food aid, families without shelter, children requiring psychological support, and the need to stabilize the situation on the ground – these are just some of the tasks that our volunteers and staff at AJEEC are taking on to support those affected in this crisis.”
“The path forward is one of dialogue, open communication, and transparency,” it added. “In the Negev, where dozens of individual farms, settlements, moshavim, and new communities have been established since the founding of the state, only seven towns have been established for the Bedouin. The Bedouin citizens of Israel deserve equal treatment, just like Jewish citizens in the Negev. This is not a theoretical discussion.
“In Bir Hadaj, for example, a Bedouin locality with more than 10,000 residents, only eight building permits have been issued in recent years. Without the promotion of sustainable planning solutions and without open, transparent dialogue with Bedouin society, we will not be able to resolve this decades-long conflict between the state and the Bedouin community or build a shared and thriving society in the Negev.”
Bedouin Authority chief: ‘The best plan offered so far’
Yuval Turjeman, head of the Authority for Development and Settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev, is not shaken by the criticism.
“Our new comprehensive approach offers a feasible way to reach agreements with title claimants, who do not have any legal title or formal ownership rights, as a means to allow full development of infrastructure and legal housing and receive financial compensation,” he said. “The fixed time window with both positive and negative incentives is in stark contrast to past attempts, where nothing really moved in any direction. The current completely deadlocked situation represents the worst possible scenario, making any change potentially beneficial.”
Rather than starting with easier cases, the authority deliberately chose to begin with the most challenging ones, namely, communities with the most contentious land claims, Turjeman said, adding that this counterintuitive approach stems from the belief that only dramatic action can break the current impasse.
“The implementation recognizes complex social codes within Bedouin society that cannot be crossed,” he said. “A fundamental paradox exists where 20% of the population claims land ownership, meaning that tens of thousands of families are left with no legal housing solutions, meaning they are living under constant threat of home demolitions.
Those who claim ownership often view land not through Western property concepts but through traditional social frameworks involving family and tribal considerations, including traditional perceptions of class when it comes to land ownership.”
Regarding the issue of cultural codes, Turjeman said Bedouin may speak of “donating their land” for schools, kindergartens, or roads. “This becomes both a family and tribal business, creating intricate social dynamics that any solution must navigate carefully.”
“The new approach aims to move land claimants out of their comfort zones by offering substantial economic opportunities alongside relatively decisive action,” he said. “Success in Rahat demonstrates this model’s potential: Land was released by claimants, who then realized significant profits through commercial, industrial, or residential development.”
The strategy recognizes that some individuals may initially have no incentive to reach settlements, Turjeman said.“But once they understand that areas outside the official ‘blue line’ cannot be developed, this may encourage greater cooperation,” he said.
Five pilot areas were selected based on having the highest land-to-population ratios: three rural settlements (Mulada, Abu Talul, and Marzet), and two urban councils (Lakiya and Kuseifa).
Kuseifa exemplifies the problem. It has 24,000 residents allocated across 14,000 dunams, but only 20% of the area is utilized, with the remainder consisting of fields with individual ownership claims in a community facing severe housing shortages.
Since many land ownership claims don’t withstand strict legal scrutiny, the state could theoretically pursue formal expropriation. But this approach would be counterproductive. Turjeman said.
“Instead, the authority seeks consensual processes, even incorporating compensation mechanisms during expropriation phases for cooperative claimants,” he said.
As heated debates over the plan continue, what is clear is that this new comprehensive approach represents a fundamental shift from previous models in an attempt to acknowledge both legal realities and cultural sensitivities, while creating clear timelines and economic incentives for resolution.