Antiquity inhabited since 4000 BCE Historically, the Bedouin engaged in nomadic herding, agriculture and sometimes fishing. They also earned income by transporting goods and people across the desert. The Bedouin of the
Sinai Peninsula migrated to and from the Negev. The Bedouin established very few permanent settlements; however, some evidence remains of traditional baika buildings, seasonal dwellings for the rainy season when they would stop to engage in farming. Cemeteries known as "nawamis" dating to the late fourth millennium B.C. have been also found. Similarly, open-air mosques (without a roof) dating from the early Islamic period are common and still in use.
Ottoman Empire , 1847 Most of the Negev Bedouin tribes migrated to the Negev from the Arabian Desert, Transjordan, Egypt, and the Sinai from the 18th century onwards. Traditional Bedouin lifestyle began to change after the French
invasion of
Egypt in 1798. The rise of the puritanical
Wahhabi sect forced them to reduce their raiding of
caravans. Instead, the Bedouin acquired a monopoly on guiding pilgrim caravans to
Mecca, as well as selling them provisions. The opening of the
Suez canal reduced the dependence on desert caravans and attracted the Bedouin to newly formed settlements that sprung up along the canal. as the
Ottoman Empire needed to establish law and order in the Negev and viewed the Bedouins as a threat to the state's control. At the end of the 19th century
Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Abdülhamid II) undertook other measures in order to control the Bedouin. As a part of this policy he settled loyal Muslim populations from the
Balkan and
Caucasus (
Circassians) among the areas predominantly populated by the nomads, and also created several permanent Bedouin settlements, although the majority of them did not remain. In 1900 an urban administrative center of
Beersheva was established in order to extend governmental control over the area. Another measure initiated by the Ottoman authorities was the private acquisition of large plots of state land offered by the sultan to the absentee landowners (effendis). Numerous tenants were brought in order to cultivate the newly acquired lands. And the main trend of settling non-Bedouin population in the Palestine remained until the last days of the empire. By the 20th century much of the Bedouin population was settled, semi-nomadic, and engaged in agriculture according to an intricate system of land ownership, grazing rights, and water access. During
World War I, the Negev Bedouin fought with the
Turks against the
British, but later withdrew from the conflict. Sheikh Hamad Pasha al-Sufi (died 1923), Sheikh of the Nijmat sub-tribe of the
Tarabin, led a force of 1,500 men from
Al-Tarabin,
Al-Tayaha,
Al-Azazma tribes which joined the Turkish offensive against the Suez Canal.
British Mandate The
British Mandate in Palestine brought order to the Negev; however, this order was accompanied by losses in sources of income and poverty among the Bedouin. The Bedouin nevertheless retained their lifestyle, and a 1927 report describes them as the "untamed denizens of the Arabian deserts." Recent scholars have challenged the notion of the Bedouin as 'fossilized,' or 'stagnant' reflections of an unchanging desert culture.
Emanuel Marx has shown that Bedouin were engaged in a constantly dynamic reciprocal relation with urban centers and Michael Meeker, a cultural anthropologist, states that "the city was to be found in their midst." The
British Mandate authorities, laws and bureaucracy favored settled groups above pastoral nomads and they found it hard to fit the Negev Bedouin into their system of governance, thus the Mandate's policy regarding the Bedouin tribes of Palestine was often of an
ad hoc nature. Compared to rural Arabs, Bedouins were more willing to accept and sell land to Jews but outbreaks of violence and having different views on land ownership created a complicated relationship. The Bedouins expected payment for land, and labor as well as the development of water sources in the region and to learn science and technology from the Jews. The relations also varied between tribal groups with tense relations between Jews and the Azazma around Bir Asluj and Revivim compared to warm relations with the Tarabin in western Negev. In addition to payments in exchange for the purchase of lands and of salaries to field guards, Bedouin sheikhs were paid protection money, a part of which was paid in water. Initially Jews relied on well water from the Bedouins but later the settlers began drilling for water which impressed Bedouins who offered water to Jewish settlements expecting more water from Jews in the future. In return some Jewish settlements such as
Revivim constructed special taps for travelling Bedouins. In 1932 Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini visited Wadi al-Shariya and was hosted by Sheikh Ibrahim el-Sana who with other sheikhs agreed to counter Negev from the Zionist settlement. They agreed to stop selling land to Jews and to consider those that do as outcasts. However the implementation of the agreement was varied across groups with some ignoring it. By 1947 Jews had begun building pipelines in cooperation with Arabs and Bedouin villages who were promised their own taps. However this also increased conflict between Jews and hostile Bedouin tribes who damaged the pipelines. On 9 December 1947 a platoon of Jewish guards from Palmach encountered a Bedouin camp near kibbutz Mivtachim and violence ensued and was followed by several incidents of violence between Jewish patrols and Bedouins.
1948 Palestine war During the
1948 Palestine war, Negev Bedouin supported both Jewish and Arab sides of the conflict. Some Bedouin groups aided Jewish populations against the Palestinian National Movement and Arab armies, particularly after the
United Nation's Partition Plan of 1947. Conversely, other Bedouin groups aligned with the Palestinian National Movement fighting against the Jewish population. This period saw the formation of fighting Bedouin societies that participated in conflicts throughout the country, including the Galilee region, with Bedouin tribes fighting on both sides. In the Galilee, most Bedouins identified with the Arab population, however, there were also Bedouins who had defended Jewish security before the establishment of the State of Israel often risking their lives and property by aligning with the Jewish fighters. The crops were either burned or reaped by Jews. On 16 August 1948, the
Negev Brigade launched a full-scale clearing operation in the
Kaufakha-
Al Muharraqa area displacing villagers and Bedouin for military reasons. At the end of September, the
Yiftach Brigade launched an operation west of
Mishmar Hanegev expelling Arabs and confiscating their livestock. In early 1949 after the war, the Arab population was placed under military rule and Bedouins were concentrated into a specified zone east of Beersheba. In November 1949, 500 families were expelled across the border into Jordan and on 2 September 1950 some 4,000 Bedouin were forced across the border into Egypt. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, Nahum Sarig, the
Palmach commander in the Negev, instructed his officers that "Our job is to appear before the Arabs as a ruling force which functions forcefully but with justice and fairness." The stated provisions included: that they avoid harming women, children and friendly Arabs, that shepherds grazing on Jewish land should be driven off by gun-fire, that searches of Arab settlements be conducted "politely but firmly" and that "you are permitted to execute any man found in possession of a weapon". Prior to 1948, it is estimated that there were between 65,000 and 90,000 Bedouin in the Negev, after the war this number decreased to 11,000. When Beersheba was occupied by the Israeli army in 1948, 90% of the Bedouin population of the Negev were forced to leave, expectating to return to their lands after the war – mainly to Jordan and Sinai peninsula. Of the approximately 110,000 Bedouin who lived in the Negev before the war about 11,000 remained. However, he had most of them uprooted and relocated in the northeastern Negev, to an area referred to as the "
Siyag." The lands of the Negev were nationalized, and the area was declared a military zone. The government saw the Negev as a potential home for the masses of Jewish immigrants, including
Jewish emigrants from Arab lands. In the following years, some 50 Jewish settlements were established in the Negev. The Bedouin who remained in the Negev mostly belonged to the
Al-Tiyaha confederation as well as some smaller remaining groups of the
'Azazme and the
Jahalin tribes. They were relocated by the Israeli government in the 1950s and 1960s to a restricted zone in the northeast corner of the Negev, called the
Siyaj ( , which means "fenced zone" or ”reservation area”) made up of in 10% of the Negev desert in the northeast. In 1951, the
United Nations reported the deportation of about 7,000 Negev Bedouin to Jordan, the
Gaza Strip and Sinai, but many returned undetected. The new government failed to issue the Bedouin identity cards until 1952 and deported thousands of Bedouin who remained within the new borders. Deportation continued into the late 1950s, as reported by the
Haaretz newspaper in 1959: "The army's desert patrols would turn up in the midst of a Bedouin encampment day after day, dispersing it with a sudden burst of machine-gun fire until the sons of the desert were broken and, gathering what little was left of their belongings, led their camels in long silent strings into the heart of the Sinai desert." ==Land ownership issues==