The Tribal Challenge: Alliances and Confrontations in the Israeli Negev

＂Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic and historical sources, Havatzelet Yahel offers an engaging and sometimes surprising history of Israel’s policy toward Bedouin tribalism in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The study opens with a detailed look at the early years of the 1940s and 1950s that shaped the relationship between Israel and the Bedouin, most notably Israel’s effort to accommodate tribalism in collaboration with the sheikhs. The story then shifts to the next stage in Israel’s policymaking under the Military Administration in the 1960s and early 1970s. Although various forces were at work to break down tribal life, especially the hardship of prolonged droughts, nevertheless the pro-tribal policy won out in the end. Today, Israel’s policy towards the Bedouin focuses more on traditional tribal authority figures than on the role of Bedouin individuals in a democratic society＂--

Havatzelet Yahel is a Senior Faculty Member and the Head of the Woodman-Scheller Israel Studies International Program. Yahel holds the Michael Feige Career Development Chair in Israeli Society, at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel & Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Yahel is a member of the Israeli Bar and often advises the government and others in land policy and legal issues. Yahel has published numerous academic articles on Bedouin issues, governance, land, and settlement policies. Her book Bedouin of the Negev: Tribalism, Criticism and Politics was recently published in Hebrew.