Land, Power and Resistance in Israel: The Case of the Bedouins of the Negev

Dr Thabet Abu Rass German Historical Institute London In this lecture the state policies toward tens of thousands of the indigenous inhabitants of the Negev region in Israel who live in ‘unrecognized villages’, will be highlighted. Militarizing space to secure land has always been one of the means tocontrol land. The Prawer Plan is the current attempt of displacing the Bedouins to finalize their land claims and urbanize them against their will. The landowners have tried all means of resistance including the legal and political ones, however, they didn’t succeed. Therefore, they returned to their tribal roots in a last, butincredibly effective attempt to challenge the imminent confiscation of the lands of their ancestors. Abu Rass is a political geographer and an expert in land and planning. He teaches courses at Ben Gurion University. His research interests include minority-majority relations, local governments and land and planning. He has been writing extensively about the Bedouin community in the Negev and he is currently the Executive Director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives (Jerusalem).