A drama in the Negev: the expulsion of the Bedouins.

The Bedouins are a group of Arab tribes that have inhabited the Negev desert, now Israeli territory, since the 7th century.

That was when the Arab Islamic army conquered the region, formerly part of the Byzantine Empire.

Settled in villages built in the desert, their society gradually stabilized, living off work on privately owned farms and communal pastures.

This situation changed in 1948, during the war for the founding of the State of Israel.

Jewish-Israeli troops expelled a large part of the Bedouin population to Jordan and Egypt.

Between 1968 and 1989, half of the remaining people, at the initiative of the Tel Aviv government, moved to specially designed cities where they would receive all the services and benefits that were denied to them in the Negev.

Which didn't happen.

Around 70 people continued living in 35 villages on their ancestral lands, seeking to preserve their traditions and customs.

Justifying this by saying that these villages are not officially recognized, the Israeli government prohibits new construction, the purchase or sale of real estate, and does not provide them with water, electricity, schools, and health services to which they would be entitled as Israeli citizens.

In the case of water, for example, residents need to buy and store it in large metal tanks or plastic containers where fungi, bacteria, and rust develop rapidly in the local conditions of extreme heat, causing numerous cases of infection and skin diseases.

Unhappy with their precarious land tenure, the Bedouins have been trying to register their lands. Faced with the state's refusal to accept their request, they are resorting to the courts.

Their lawsuits claim ownership rights to 60 hectares of land, which the government considers state-owned.

But because the families have lived there for many centuries, few Bedouins have documents to prove the records.

In 1984, Israeli courts ruled that the desert Bedouins had no property rights to the lands they occupied, making their settlements illegal.

Those few who still insist on going to court systematically lose their cases.

Despite denying Bedouins the right to the lands where they live and the registration necessary to legalize them, Israel has a different stance towards Jewish elements.

In the 90s, Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Agriculture, promoted a program to offer each Jewish family that moved to the Negev hundreds of hectares of arable land, water, and electricity.

In 2011, the Netanyahu government approved the Prawer Plan, which aimed to forcibly displace between 40 and 70 Bedouins from the Negev desert, demolishing their 35 villages and confiscating 200 acres of their land.

This area would include new urban centers, industries, Jewish settlements, and military installations.

The Bedouin population would be relocated to 7 specially constructed villages.

Recently, the government authorized the start of planning for 10 new Jewish settlements in the areas to be vacated.

The Jewish National Fund, which owns 13% of the entire Negev territory, is involved in the $4 billion Blue Print Negev project to ensure that the entire Negev desert is predominantly inhabited by a Jewish population.

The rationale behind the Prawer Plan would be to integrate the Bedouin into Israeli society and provide their families with all the benefits granted to Israeli citizens, substantially raising their quality of life.

There are many questions.

Respectable voices, including Jewish-Israeli ones, have risen up against this forced removal of populations.

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Prawer Plan will destroy the social and community fabric of tens of thousands of Bedouins, condemning them to a future of unemployment and poverty.

Thabet Rass, a geography professor at Ben Gurion University, considered the plan "a declaration of war," intended to squeeze the Bedouins into a minimal area, restrict their population growth, deny them equal rights to Israeli Jews, and destroy their way of life.

According to Harvey Lithwick of the Negev Regional Development Center and Katlehen Abu Sad of Ben Gurion University, the "designed villages" will quickly become some of the most impoverished towns in Israel, lacking banking services and public transportation. They will be plagued by endemic unemployment and consequent waves of crime and drug trafficking.

Less pessimistic, the World Zionist Organization Hagshama states that the water allocation for villages planned for Bedouins will be between 25% and 50% less than for Jewish cities.

According to Nils Baruch, head of Binkom, a group of Israeli urban planners and architects, in these villages "the Bedouins will absolutely not have the same opportunities (as Israeli Jews). You'd be blind not to see that."

The Prawer Plan has a lot to do with ethnic cleansing.

That is the opinion of the Israeli writer and academic, Neve Gordon.

For him, his goal would be the Judaization of the Negev desert.

It seems that the Netanyahu government does not allow this region to fall into the hands of another race.

Hence the forced evacuation of the Bedouins from the Negev and their replacement by Jewish settlements and military installations.

With the expelled Bedouins scattered throughout cities planned according to the Israelite way of life, the structure of their society will disappear, forcing the destruction of their customs, culture, and traditions.

Furthermore, despite their forced integration into Israeli society, they will remain second-class citizens, condemned to poverty and unemployment, in villages lacking public services.

For this very reason, a progressive American organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, described the Bedouin drama as a "human disaster."

He sent a letter to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) requesting the rejection of the plan (already approved in its first reading), signed by 30,000 people from abroad, including 775 rabbis.

Difficult to be successful.

In fact, the wheels have already started turning.

And the curtains on the Negev drama must close with a very sad ending.