CHAPTER 1 Ismael Abu-Saad and Cosette Creamer 18 Abstract This chapter describes the socio-political changes that the Naqab (Negev) Bedouin Arabs have experienced over the past half century, the means through which they have displayed their resistance to governmental efforts to simultaneously marginalize and assimilate them, and their current living conditions. It argues that state efforts to “modernize” indigenous peoples and integrate them within state structures are often carried out through displacement, land expropriation, and forced urbanization, resulting in severe disruptions of traditional cultural lifestyles. In the context of the Naqab, this dynamic of forced urbanization has been further complicated by the backdrop of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Similar to other indigenous communities in modern states, however, the Naqab Bedouin Arabs have developed local forms of resistance to the methods of control and assimilation employed by the Israeli state. 19 Socio-Political Upheaval and Current Conditions of the Naqab Bedouin Arabs Ismael Abu-Saad and Cosette Creamer Introduction The state of Israel discriminates against me negatively, it deprives and neglects me, consigns me to the economic, social and political margins. . . . The state doesn’t show an interest in what I think or feel, or in what I am willing or able to contribute. . . . To my great regret, the Israeli Jews still have not internalized the significance of the far-reaching consequences of the brutal fact that the Palestinian Arabs within the borders of the state, and beyond, are the indigenous inhabitants of this land, and as such, their rights in this place are not subject to denial or appeal. The indigenous Palestin- ians of this land were not engaged as the temporary custodians of the land for hundreds of years until the Jews would return to it and push them aside. (Zeidani, 2005:89–90) Over the past half century, with the formation of nation-states and the encroachment of modernization, Bedouin life throughout the Mid- dle East has changed to varying degrees. This change has been par- ticularly dramatic for the Bedouin Arabs living in the Naqab (Negev) Desert in southern Israel. They are among the indigenous Palestinian Arabs who remained on their lands after the 1948 conflict (Al-Nakba) 1 and who today form a part of the Arab minority in Israel. They have inhabited the Naqab Desert for many generations and were subject at various times to Ottoman rule, the British Mandate government, and in 1948 the State of Israel. Traditionally, the Naqab Bedouins were organized into nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes whose livelihood