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The November 17th edition explores the plight of the Negev Palestinian Bedouins with commentary by Prof. Oren Yifchatel, who teaches political geography, urban planning and public policy at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba.In a series of books and articles, Yiftachel conceptualizes the Israeli regime as an ethnocracy, promoting a dominant project of ethnicization throughout Israel/Palestine. He documents the various practices of this project, and the manner in which it has constructed ethno-class identities and stratified citizenship through the process of expansion, development and politicization in the different regions of Israel/Palestine. A major focus of his work has been the Zionist-Palestinian dialectic, and the evolution of Zionist 'colonialism,' Palestinian resistance and counter mobilization. His work has also focused on other marginalized ethno-classes such as the Mizrahim (Eastern Jews), âRussianâ Israelis, Orthodox Jews, the Druze and the Bedouins. Regarding the Bedouin communities, the Israeli government classifies approximately 40 villages in the Negev, including al-Araqib, as unrecognized, arguing that the 53,000 Palestinian Bedouins living there cannot prove land ownership. The Bedouin communities say the land is their ancestral home. After the 1948 war, Israel ordered Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev from their villages, and declared them state land. The village of Al-Araqib has been demolished fourty-three times by Israeli forces, and Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev face a continual struggle to preserve their land, culture, and way of life.
