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Abstract
Naqab Bedouin resistance and political activism against the Israeli Prawer plans attracted attention in many local and international contexts and became a symbol of sumud [steadfastness] among Palestinians in Israel. In fact, the Bedouin, led at this time by motivated youth and women activists, showed greater creative, tactical and strategic agency and skills than politicians and scholars acknowledged in the past, and they actively contributed to shaping aspects of their own destiny within the state structure. We argue that creative, nonviolent, everyday and political resistance and activism, led by the young Bedouin [al-hirak al-shababi], succeeded in modifying and mitigating the Israeli Prawer Plan policies and strategies to relocate and expel the Bedouin from their historical villages. This study draws on a number of in-depth interviews in the Naqab with male and female youth, activists, and politicians. Specifically, it shows how Bedouin women and youth were key actors in resisting the Prawer Plan using social media tactics, which later led to Israeli withdrawal and freezing of the plan in 2013. The evolution of Bedouin resistance and the prevailing misrepresentation of the Bedouin is identified and tested through the case study of the anti-Prawer campaign and the Naqab Bedouin villagers’ on-going resistance to being forcibly relocated from their historical land in the Naqab.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their time and constructive feedback on this article, and we also would like to send our warmest thanks to Sophie Richter-Devroe for reading an earlier version and offering her comments and input.
Notes
1 Mandy Turner (ed) (2019) From the River to the Sea: Palestine and Israel in the Shadow of Peace (New York: Lexington Books).
2 Ilan Pappé (Citation2011) The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (London: Yale University Press).
3 Ghalia Abu-Kaf, Amit Schejter & Muhammad Abu Jafar (2019) The Bedouin Divide, Telecommunication Policy, pp. 1-15.
4 The term Naqab/Negev refers to the southern district of Israel. Naqab is the Arab term used by the indigenous. Palestinian community. Historically [pre-1948], it was the Bir al Saba' [Beersheba] district of southern Palestine.
5 Israeli authorities initiated the Prawer/Begin Plan to deal with conflict over the relocation of the Bedouin villages in the Naqab/Negev and the struggle for recognition of Bedouin land claims.
6 The study is based on 20 in-depth interviews conducted in the Naqab and Beersheba area with Bedouin activists, primarily youth and women involved in the resistance campaign to the Prawer Plan. We also conducted a number of interviews with NGO activists who were involved in the resistance campaign, including representatives of advocacy NGOs such as Adalah and lawyers involved in advocacy after the Prawer Campaign. Interviews also were conducted with former and current Arab members of the Israeli Knesset (MKs) and representatives of the Bedouin villages in the Naqab and with Israeli government officials.
7 See, for example, Jacob Landau (Citation2016) The Arabs in Israel: A political study (London: Routledge); Hillel Cohen (Citation2010) Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencis and the Israeli Arabs, 1948-1967 (Berkeley: Univ. California Press); and Havatzelet Yahel & Ruth Kark (2015) Israel Negev Bedouin during the 1948 War: Departure and Return, Israel Affairs, 21(1), pp. 48–97.
8 See Mansour Nasasra, Richard Ratcliffe, Sarab Abu-Radia-Queder & Sophie Richter-Devroe (2015) The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism (London: Routledge).
9 Ahmad Amara, Ismael Abu-Saad & Oren Yiftachel (2012) Indigenous (In)justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 21.
10 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Sasson Bar Zvi, the Israeli military governor, Beersheba, July 2012.
11 There currently are 37 unrecognized villages in the Naqab. Most of these villages existed before the establishment of the state of Israel and are called unrecognized due to the resistance of their inhabitants to be moved forcibly to planned towns and lose their historical land rights. Most of the villages do not enjoy the services of the Israeli government and survive independently without basic state services.
12 Kedar, Amara, Yiftachel, Emptied Lands, p. 11.
13 Nasasra, Ratcliffe, Richter-Devroe, The Naqab Bedouin, p. 49
14 Ghazi Falah (Citation1989) Israeli State Policy toward Bedouin Sedentarization in the Negev, Journal of Palestine Studies, 18(2), p. 88,
15 Ismael Abu-Saad (Citation2008) Spatial Transformation and Indigenous Resistance: The Urbanisation of the Palestinian Bedouin in Southern Israel, American Behavioral Scientist, 51(12), p. 1731.
16 Sophie Richter-Devroe (2016) Biography, Life History and Orality: A Naqab Bedouin Woman’s Narrative of Displacement, Expulsion and Escape in Historic Southern Palestine, 1930-1970, Journal of Women of The Middle East and The Islamic World, 14, p. 336.
17 Oren Yiftachel (Citation2003) Bedouin Arabs and the Israeli Settler State, The Future of Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Survival and Development (Los Angeles: University of California Press), p. 31.
18 Moshe Arens (2013) “A Bedouin Tragedy, an Israeli Tragedy,” Haaretz, 29 May.
19 Kedar, Amara, Yiftachel, Emptied Lands, p. 5.
20 Michel Foucault (Citation1990) The History of Sexuality, An Introduction, (New York: Vintage).
21 Simona Sharoni (Citation1995) Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women’s Resistance (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).
22 Foucault, History of Sexuality, p. 95.
23 Lila Abu-Lughod (Citation1990) The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power Through Bedouin Women, American Ethnologist, 17 (1), p. 42.
24 Govand Kahlid Azeez (Citation2015) The Thingified Subject's Resistance in the Middle East, Middle East Critique, 24(2), p. 120.
25 David Baldwin (Citation1989) Paradoxes of Power (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
26 Ibid, p. 2.
27 Libby Porter & Oren Yiftachel (2019) Urbanizing Settler-colonial Studies, Introduction to the Special Issue, Settler Colonial Studies, 9(2), pp. 177-186; and Nasasra (2012) The Ongoing Judaisation of the Naqab and the Struggle for Recognising the Indigenous Rights of the Arab Bedouin People, Settler Colonial Studies, 2(1), pp. 81-107.
28 Cf, Magdalena Ugartea, Mauro Fontanab & Matthew Caulkinsc (2019) Urbanisation and Indigenous dispossession: rethinking the spatio-legal imaginary in Chile vis-à-vis the Mapuche nation, Settler Colonial Studies, 9(2), pp.187-206.
29 Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State; Cohen, Good Arabs; and Jacob Landau (Citation2016) The Arabs in Israel: A Political Study (London: Routeledge).
30 Foucault, History of Sexuality, p. 96.
31 Sumud, as translated from Arabic means “steadfastness” or resilience.” It encompasses a wide range of tactics and actions used by the Bedouin youth and women to maintain a presence on their land and their historical rights, despite the government’s dispossession plans. The concept of ‘sumud’ has been used in the Palestinian context and also in the Naqab; see further Sophie Richter-Devroe (Citation2018) Women’s Political Activism in Palestine: Peacebuilding, Resistance, and Survival (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
32 Alexandra Rijke & Toine Van Teeffelen (2014) To Exist is to Resist: Sumud, heroism, and the everyday, Jerusalem Quarterly, 59, pp. 86-99; and Michal Rotem & Neve Gordon (2017) Bedouin Sumud and the Struggle for Education, Journal of Palestine Studies, 46 (4), pp. 7-27.
33 Stellan Vinthagen & Anna Johansson (2013) ‘Everyday Resistance’: Exploration of a concept and its theories, Resistance Studies Magazine, available online at: https://rsmag.nfshost.com/wp-content/ uploads/Vinthagen-Johansson-2013-Everyday-resistance-Concept-Theory.pdf, accessed July 18, 2018.
34 Matteo Capasso (Citation2018) Guest Editor’s Introduction: Sketches of the Everyday, Middle East Critique, 27(3), p. 221.
35 CF. Kedar, Amara, Yiftachel, Emptied Lands.
36 Mansour Nasasra (Citation2017) The Naqab Bedouin: A century of politics and resistance (New York: Columbia University Press).
37 Capasso, ’Sketches of the Everyday’, p. 221.
38 Mark Mattaini (2013) Strategic Nonviolent Power: The Science of Satyagraha (Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press), p. 11.
39 Kurt Schock (Citation2003) Nonviolent Action and its Misconceptions: Insights for social scientists, PS: Political Science & Politics, 36(4), p. 706.
40 Ian Atack (Citation2012) Nonviolence in Political Theory (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press).
41 Nasasra, The Naqab Bedouin.
42 Kedar, Amara, Yiftachel, Emptied Lands, p. 9.
43 Nasasra, Ratcliffe, Abu-Rabia-Queder & Richter-Devroe, The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism, p. 50.
44 Thabet Abu-Ras (Citation2011) The Arab Bedouin in the Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab (Negev) Between the Hammer of Prawer and the Anvil of Goldberg. Adalah Newsletter (81), p. 1.
45 Zafir Rinat & Jonathan Lis (2013) A Guide for the Perplexed: Israel’s Bedouin Resettlement Bill, Haaretz, available online at: https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-bedouin-resettlement-a-primer-1.5241351, accessed August 26, 2016.
46 Abu-Ras, The Arab Bedouin in the Unrecognized Villages, p. 1.
47 For more details about the Goldberg Committee, see the ‘The International Fact Findings Mission, 13. The Goldberg Opportunity: A chance for the Human Rights based statecraft in Israel,’available online at: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CESCR/Shared%20Documents/ISR/INT_CESCR_NGO_ISR_47_9146_E.pdf, accessed, 20 Dec 2017.
48 Author Bellis’ Interview with Abu al Kiy'an, Umm al-Hiran village, 10 June 2016.
49 Jonathan Lis, J. & Jack Khoury (2016) Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu Sign Coalition Deal, Netanyahu Calls on Herzog to Join Unity Government, Haaretz, available online at: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.721201, accessed 26 August 2016.
50 Adalah (Citation2013) The Prawer-Begin Bill and the Forced Displacement of the Bedouin, available online at: http://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/Public/files/English/Publications/Articles/2013/Prawer-Begin-Plan-Background-Adalah.pdf accessed 26 August 2016.
51 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Atiyya al Assam, Head of RCUV, Beershaba, 15 June 2017.
52 Author Nasasra’s Interview with MK Saeed al- Khromi, Shqeb al Salam, 05 April 2017.
53 Nadim Rouhana & As'ad Ghanem (1998) The Crisis of Minorities in Ethnic States: The Case of Palestinian Citizens in Israel, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 30(03), p. 321.
54 Jack Khoury (Citation2013) Israel’s Public Security Minister Warns Against Major Protests Over Bedouin Relocation Plan, Haaretz, available online at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/.premium-1.536421#, accessed 26 August 2016.
55 Israeli Government Official Planner presentation, The Negev Planner, Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, 2018.
56 Sebastián Valenzuela, Arturo Arriagada & Andrés Sherman (2012) The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behavior: The Case of Chile, Journal of Communication, 62), pp. 299-314.
57 John Heathershaw & Edward Schatz (eds) (2017) Paradox of Power: The Logics of State Weakness in Eurasia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press).
58 Author Bellis’ Interview with Al-Amour, al Sira village, 23 July 2016.
59 Author Bellis’ Interview with Farah, Beersheba, 21 July 2016.
60 Vincent Durac (Citation2015) Social Movements, Protest Movements and Cross-ideological Coalitions–the Arab uprisings re-appraised, Democratization, 22(2), pp. 239-258.
61 Makram Khoury-Machool (Citation2007) Palestinian Youth and Political Activism: The emerging Internet culture and new modes of resistance, Policy Future in Education, 5(7), pp. 17-35.
62 Author Nasasra’s Interview in Adalah, Haifa, 12 November 2018.
63 Authors’ Interview with Khalil Al Amour, al-Sira village, 23 July 2016.
64 Nasasra, The Naqab Bedouin.
65 Author Nasasra’s’ Interview with former MK Abed al Wahab Darawsha, Iksal, 15 October 2016.
66 Henriette Chacar (Citation2015) A new activism, a new politics, a new generation of Palestinians in Israel, 972 Magazine, available online at: https://972mag.com/a-new-activism-a-new-politics-a-new-generation-of-palestinians-in-israel/103837/, accessed 9 September 2018.
67 Author Nasasra’s’ Interview with ʿAbd al-Wahab Darawsha, Iksal, 15 October 2016.
68 Ibid.
69 Nasasra, Ratcliffe & Richter-Devroe, The Naqab Bedouins and Colonialism.
70 Fadi Quran (Citation2018) Upending the Palestinian Leadership: The Role of Youth, Al-shabaka, available online at: https://al-shabaka.org/circles/upending-the-palestinian-leadership-the-role-of-youth/, accessed 30 July 2018.
71 Author Bellis’ Interview with Huda, Beersheba, 19 July 2016.
72 Nasasra, The Naqab Bedouin.
73 Author Bellis’ Interview with Farah, Beersheba, 21 July 2016.
74 Author Bellis’ Interview with Huda, Beersheba, 19 July 2016.
75 Author Nasasra’s’ Interview with Marwan, Rahat, 15 December 2017.
76 Author Bellis’ Interview with Abu Obeid, Lakiya, 10 June 2016.
77 Author Nasasra’s’ Interview with MK al Zabarqa, Beersheba, 20 June 2018.
78 Rami G. Khouri, Nasser Yassin, Charles Harb, Azfar Shahida & Moussa Shteiwi (2011) A Generation on the Move: Insights into the Conditions, Aspirations, and Activism of Arab Youth, Youth in the Arab World, available online at: https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Summary_Report_A_GENERATION_ON_THE_MOVE_AUB_IFI_UNICEF_MENARO_.pdf, accessed 12 August 2017.
79 Ibid.
80 Clay Shirky (Citation2001) The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change, Foreign Affairs, 90(1), pp. 28-41.
81 Ariadne Vromen, Michael A. Xenos & Brian Loader (2015) Young People, Social Media and Connective Action: From organizational maintenance to everyday political talk, Journal of Youth Studies, 18(1), pp. 80-100.
82 Ibid, p. 21.
83 Albana S. Dwonch (Citation2017) Networks of Great Expectations: Palestinian Youth Activism in the Internet Age, Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle, p. 34.
84 Author Bellis’ Interview with Farah, 21 July 2016, Beersheba.
85 Valenzuela, Arriagada & Sherman, The Social Media Basis, p. 302.
86 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Ahmad, a university student, Beersheba, 15 April 2017.
87 Amit M. Schejter & Noam Tirosh (2012) Social Media New and Old in the Al-’Arakeeb Conflict: A Case Study, The Information Society, 28, pp. 304–315.
88 Michal Rotem (Citation2015) The Bedouin children trying to stop bulldozers with their cameras, 972 Magazine, available online at: https://972mag.com/the-bedouin-children-trying-to-stop-bulldozers-with-their-cameras/111434/, accessed 25 June 2017.
89 Daniel Tepper & Samuel Gilbert (2013) 'Day of rage' over Bedouin displacement plan, Al Jazeera, available online at: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2013/08/20138216944374202.html, accessed 25 September 2016.
90 Guy Burton (Citation2017) Building Ties Across the Green Line: The Palestinian 15 March youth movement in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory in 2011, Third World Quarterly, 38(1) pp. 169-184.
91 Dwonch, Networks of Great Expectations, p. 163.
92 Ibid.
93 Facebook.com. (Citation2013) Together Stopping Prawer ايدك بايدي بنوقف برافر, available online at: https://www.facebook.com/antiprawerplan, accessed 25 September 2016.
94 Author Bellis’ Interview with Huda, 19 July 2016, Beersheba.
95 Durac, Social Movements, Protest Movements.
96 Shirky, The political power of social media, pp. 28-41.
97 Christian Fuchs (Citation2012) Social Media, Riots, and Revolutions, Capital & Class, 36(3), pp. 383-391.
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99 Marc Owen Jones (Citation2012) Social Media, Surveillance and Social Control in the Bahrain Uprising, Westminster Papers, 9(2), p. 71.
100 Author Bellis’ Interview with Huda, Beersheba, 19 July 2016.
101 Author Bellis’ Interview with Amal, Lakiya, 19 June 2017.
102 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Rasha, Kseifa, 21 July 2016.
103 Author Bellis’ Interview with Rotem, Beersheba, 25 July 2015.
104 Lazar Berman (Citation2013) Both sides dig in after violence against Bedouin relocation plan. Times of Israel, available online at: http://www.timesofisrael.com/day-after-anti-prawer-plan-violence-both-sides-vow-to-push-on, accessed 14 October 2017.
105 Gadi Wolfsfeld, Elad Segev & Tamir Sheafer (2013) Social Media and the Arab Spring: Politics comes first, The International Journal of Press/Politics, 18(2), pp. 115-137.
106 Author Nasasra’s Interview with MK Talab Abu ʿArar, Jerusalem, February 20, 2016.
107 According to The Times of Israel, most of the arrested were Bedouin youth. See report https://www.timesofisrael.com/police-charge-8-in-negev-violence-over-bedouin-prawer-plan/
108 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Adalah lawyer, Haifa, November 20 2018
109 Vromen, Xenos & Loader, Young People, Social Media, p. 83.
110 Nadera Shalhoub-Koverkian (Citation2009) Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle: A Palestinian case study (Cambridge Studies in Law and Society, Cambridge University Press).
111 Victoria A. Newsom (Citation2012) Arab Women, Social Media, and the Arab Spring: Applying the framework of digital reflexivity to analyse gender and online activism, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 13(5), pp. 30-45.
112 Henriette Dahan-Kalev, Emilie Le Febvre & Amal El‘Sana-Alh’jooj (2012) Palestinian Activism in Israel: A Bedouin woman leader in a changing Middle East (London: Palgrave Macmillan).
113 Ibid, p. 2.
114 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Hanan, Beersheba, 20 May 2018.
115 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Bayan, a Bedouin activist, Beersheba, 15 April 2018.
116 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Sana, Hura town, 15 May 2018.
117 Author Bellis’ Interview with Huda, Beersheba, 19 July 2016.
118 Sarab Abu-Rabia-Queder (Citation2007) The Activism of Bedouin Women: Social and political resistance, Social Politics, 20(1), p. 73.
119 Ibid.
120 Nasasra, The Naqab Bedouin.
121 Author Bellis’ Interview with Farah, 21 July 2016.!
122 Author Nasasra’s Interview with Hanan, Hura, 20 July 2018.
123 Nasasra, Ratcliffe, Abu-Rabia-Queder & Richter-Devroe , The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism.
124 Nasasra, The Naqab Bedouin.
125 Ibid.
126 Safa Abu Rabia (Citation2014) Land, Identity and History: New discourse on the Nakba of Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab, in Nasasra, Ratcliffe, Abu-Rabia-Queder & Richter-Devroe, The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism; and Sophie Richter-Devroe (2016) Oral Traditions of Naqab Bedouin: Challenging Settler Colonial Representation Through Embodied Performance, in Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, 15(1), pp. 31-57.
127 Sophie Richter-Devroe (Citation2018) Women’s Political Activism in Palestine: Peacebuilding, Resistance, and Survival (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
128 Ruba Salih & Sophie Richter-Devroe (2014) Cultures of Resistance in Palestine and Beyond: On Politics of Art, Aesthetics, and Affect, The Arab Studies Journal, 22(1), pp. 8-27.
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130 Vinthagen & Johansson, ‘Everyday Resistance.’
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140 Schock, Civil Resistance Today, p. 144.
141 Chenoweth & Stephan Why Civil Resistance Works, p. 58
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143 Author Bellis’ Interview with Rotem, 20 July 2016, Beersheba.
144 Kedar, Amara, & Yiftachel, Emptied Lands, p. 240.
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