Bedouin Land


  • Photographer
    Silvia Boarini
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    02-26-2010
  • Technical Info
    Digital File

A Bedouin girl gathers clothes from the washing line outside her home in the unrecognized village of El Araqeeb, Negev, Israel.

Story

Bedouin Land is a visual journey exploring the life of a ‘forgotten minority’ and its tie to the land. Settled and made to bloom under the leadership of Ben Gurion, the Negev has always been Israel's new frontier. The Jewish National Fund calls it 'a land reserve waiting to be developed'.
This desert, though, is also home to 175.000 Bedouins. Dispossessed and marginalised, their development has been inversely proportional to the growth of neighbouring Jewish communities.
"We are not invaders”, explains Nuri El Ockbi of El Arakeeb, “we belong here. We have been on this land for generations. I am an Arab and an Israeli citizen. There is space for everybody here."
It was in 1951, after the establishment of the state of Israel, that Bedouins were forcibly moved off their lands. Confined to live in a military-controlled zone known as the Siyag until 1966, they were soon once again being pushed to resettle in seven government-planned townships near Beersheva, with promises of jobs, land and infrastructure.
As the years passed and the promises never materialised, many families took the step of returning ‘illegally’ to their lands in the open spaces of the Negev. Today, there 45 Bedouin villages that are ‘unrecognized’ by the government and don’t exist on maps. They usually consist of shacks with no access to electricity or running water. And despite being home to about 95.000 people, they are under constant threat of demolition by Israel’s Green Patrol. El Araqeeb, is one of these villages.

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