Bedouin Culture

“If my only other choice is to wash dishes and clean toilets and streets for these people, I’d rather be in their movies. At least I get to be some kind of Bedouin” (Lavie 340). The creation of the state of Israel and the ensuing wars and conflicts between Israel and other states have had and undeniable and permanent impact on the Bedouin of the Negev desert. This climate has resulted in the Bedouin losing part of their culture due to outside involvement. It has also forced them to adapt to form a new way of life that is both completely different and new; it is a contrived hybridization of western and Bedouin ideals. They face racism and bias based on historical interactions and western accounts in academia and the media. While Israel treats

In addition to this cultural misunderstanding, Bedouin are faced with racism that is perpetuated by historical precedents set by social interactions and academia. In his book Yesterday and Today in the Sinai Major C. S. Jarvis states, “The Arabs of the Sinai are absolutely ignorant and uneducated, but this does not mean they are brainless. I have always held the view that the average Arab is born into this world with a very good brain, but that it becomes atrophied by disuse…. so that when one first meets him he appears to be half an idiot.” (Jarvis 22). Major Jarvis in the beginning of his book distinguishes that when saying Arab he “solely concerned with the Bedouin Arab of the Sinai” (viii). Major Jarvis makes many other sweeping statements about Bedouin in general including “his natural repugnance to discipline causes a lack of cohesion”(19), “[A Bedouin] is usually a rather ragged and forlorn looking creature…He is avaricious to a degree and his of honesty and truthfulness is not high..”(20), and “The Arab suffers form the disability of having been for the last ten years or so a popular hero, and the cinema and lady novelist have woven a wonderful halo of romance around the “sheek”…”(17-18). It is important to note that The Zion Research Foundation donated this book about Bedouin culture to Boston University’s’ Library. Another interesting

In 2002, the Jewish Agency announced that it would encourage 350,000 Jews to move to Galilee and the Negev to guarantee and “Zionist Majority” in those areas. This plan is now officially called “Blueprint Negev” and is an attempt to transform the image of the desert, boost it’s desirability, and attract Jews to move there. The slogan is “It’s not a mirage, it’s a dream becoming a reality”(Manksi 3). In 2004 the Housing Ministry announced plans to establish Jewish settlements in the Negev to “block” the “expansion” of Bedouin