page_title: Negev Bedouin
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Negev Bedouin / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: Goats grazing beneath disused garbage bins in the government township of Tel Sheva.
context_page_description: The Negev Bedouin are traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab tribes living in the Negev region of Israel. The Bedouin tribes adhere to Islam.
  From 1858 during Ottoman rule, the Negev Bedouin underwent a process of sedentarization which accelerated after the founding of Israel. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, most resettled in neighbouring regions. Between 1968 and 1989, Israel built seven townships in the northeast of the Negev for the Bedouin population, with about half of them relocating to these areas. Others remained in unrecognized villages, and while the Israeli government has gradually recognized some of them and taken measures to improve infrastructure and basic services, the majority are slated for destruction with the population facing forced displacement, as laid out in the Prawer Plan. According to human rights organizations opposed to the plan, it discriminated against the Bedouin population of the Negev and violated the community's historic land rights. In December 2013, the plan was rescinded.
  The Bedouin population in the Negev numbers 200,000-210,000.
context_section_description: Negev Bedouin used to be nomadic and later also semi-nomadic Arabs who live by rearing livestock in the deserts of southern Israel. The community is traditional and conservative, with a well-defined value system that directs and monitors behaviour and interpersonal relations.
  The Negev Bedouin tribes have been divided into three classes, according to their origin: descendants of ancient Arabian nomads, descendants of some Sinai Bedouin tribes, and Palestinian peasants (Fellaheen) who came from cultivated areas.Al-Tarabin tribe is the largest tribe in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, Al-Tarabin along with Al-Tayaha, and Al-Azazma are the largest tribes in the Negev.
  Counter to the image of the Bedouin as fierce stateless nomads roving the entire region, by the turn of the 20th century, much of the Bedouin population in Palestine was settled, semi-nomadic, and engaged in agriculture according to an intricate system of land ownership, grazing rights, and water access.
  Today, many Bedouin call themselves 'Negev Arabs' rather than 'Bedouin', explaining that 'Bedouin' identity is intimately tied in with a pastoral nomadic way of life – a way of life they say is over. Although the Bedouin in Israel continue to be perceived as nomads, today all of them are fully sedentarized, and about half are urbanites.
  Nevertheless, Negev Bedouin continue to possess sheep and goats: In 2000 the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that the Negev Bedouin owned 200,000 head of sheep and 5,000 of goats, while Bedouin estimates referred to 230,000 sheep and 20,000 goats.
caption: Goats grazing in the township of Tel Sheva
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