AN ISRAELI BEDOUIN CITY IN CHAOS: LOTS OF SPACE IN RAHAT, BUT NOWHERE TO MOVE TO

An Israeli Bedouin City in Chaos: Lots of Space in Rahat, but Nowhere to Move To

Israel's biggest Arab city consistently ranks at the bottom of the socioeconomic index. Mayor Talal al-Karinawi says government decisions hurt the Bedouin community, and if something isn't done regarding the housing crisis soon, 'there will be a city here that nobody can control'

May 04th, 16PM May 04th, 16PM

It's early April, the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, and the pace of life in Rahat is different than usual. The market in the city center is bustling because the fast-breaking iftar meals increase consumer traffic; the cries of the merchants are louder. Near the market, in the modest city hall, the meeting with the mayor, Talal al-Karinawi, is delayed. In the month when the merciful Allah was revealed to his prophet, schedules become more flexible.

The traditional Ramadan greetings that we exchange at the start of the meeting very quickly make way to a harsh indictment by the mayor – a scion of one of the city's largest clans, which numbers more than 10,000 people. A large part of his family earns their livelihood from the construction and infrastructure industries, and they all call the mayor Talal. He directs his criticism at the government, and it seems that nothing has changed in the Negev since the Ottoman times. Unlike other Israeli citizens, who go to the relevant government ministries to meet their needs, the fate of the Bedouin public lies in the hands of a government body whose official name is the Authority for Development and Settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev.

The word "development" is mainly bombastic, since in the 17 years of the authority's existence there has been no change in the socioeconomic index of a single Bedouin community in the Negev, all of which are at the index's bottom (the first decile out of 10). Rather than dealing with the "settlement" of the Bedouin, the authority is preoccupied with plans to remove the Bedouin from their communities and from land whose rights are disputed, at least as far the Bedouin are concerned.

The authority mediates between the Interior Ministry and other government ministries like the agriculture, finance and environmental protection ministries on all matters related to land rights, planning and construction, building new communities and evicting areas where housing hasn't been legally approved. Responsibility for the authority shifts between various ministries, based on coalition agreements. Currently it rests with the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, run by Amichai Chikli. The last head of the authority, Yair Maayan, resigned from his position about a year ago. In the recent local government elections, Maayan, a Likud candidate, was elected mayor of the town of Arad. No permanent director has been elected to the Bedouin authority as of yet, and it is administered de facto by Yuval Turgeman, who served as Maayan's deputy.

"We're a major Israeli city. I don't need mediators between me and the government. Just as there's no authority for Jewish affairs, or an authority for Druze or Circassian affairs, there shouldn't be an authority for Bedouin affairs," says Karinawi. "The very existence of this thing, the Bedouin authority, demonstrates that the government patronizes us, like we're inferior people who need someone to manage us. I want to work directly with the Israel Land Authority, the Housing Ministry and the Interior Ministry. I don't need them as mediators.

'The very existence of the Bedouin authority demonstrates that the government patronizes us, like we need someone to manage us.'

"I don't need pensioners from the defense establishment or those who were ousted from other government bodies to come and manage me. I developed this city for years without their interference. Wherever they went, they only disturbed us. If it were up to them, the Idan Hanegev industrial park wouldn't have been built."

Idan Hanegev is the industrial area shared by Rahat and the Lehavim and Bnei Shimon regional councils, whose major employers are SodaStream and the Cargal cardboard factory. SodaStream employs about 1,500 people, 400 of them residents of Rahat. Although the factories have improved the city's employment figures, they didn't improve its overall situation. The income from property taxes covers only about 20 percent of the regular budget, which totals half a billion shekels ($133 million) a year. The chronic deficit is covered by government balancing grants and bank loans.

For an outsider, Rahat looks like two different cities. The northern, older part of the city is neglected and looks like any Bedouin community in the area. On the other hand, the new neighborhoods in the south of the city, which were built in recent years and benefit from more advanced infrastructure, feature spacious private homes and prove that even in Rahat, it's possible to live differently. The October 7 attack also led to moments of goodwill in terms of the Jewish population's attitude toward the Bedouin.

The Bedouin, who had previously made appearances in the media mainly in connection with criminal activity or battles for control of land, performed acts of heroism: Thanks to their presence in the open areas of the Negev and their familiarity with the region, they were able to rescue survivors of the massacre. Bedouin society also paid a blood price of 16 dead and five hostages, including a teenager, who with two others were returned as part of the first hostage-prisoner deal, while two hostages remain in Hamas captivity. In recent weeks the public also heard about two terror attacks perpetrated by young men living in Rahat, and about a plan to assassinate National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which resulted in the arrest of 11 suspects, including Rahat residents. These incidents are related to the fact that some in Rahat have family ties with Gazans, and there are fears of growing ideological extremism because of family connections in the Palestinian Authority [West Bank] as well as from working or studying there.

"There are family ties between inhabitants of Gaza and inhabitants of Rahat, and Israel as a whole. Those who are paying the high price for this war are innocent civilians. Both in Israel and in Gaza, the harming of civilians is infuriating. It's opposed to the views of every one of us," says Karinawi. However, he doesn't pin much hope on a shared fate as a lever for changing the relationship the Bedouin in the south have with the government and with large parts of the Jewish public.

"October 7 and the events of the war caused the Israeli government to identify with the Bedouin population. There was an understanding that they have to think about the Bedouin who paid a price as their partners. The Jewish public also started to embrace the Bedouin population, but the embrace was short-lived. The Israelis have a short memory, like a rooster. Two months passed and everything returned to what it had been – demolition orders, Ben-Gvir's weekly meetings during which he demands a report on the scale of Bedouin home demolitions and a return of the bulldozers to Bedouin land, along with talk about the Bedouin squatters who stole state lands. The attitude toward the Bedouin is back to where it was and it's the same old tune. We were left with a bad feeling."

'Living in a fantasy world'

The Bedouin authority – until 2007 a unit in the Israel Land Authority – is in charge of residential plans in Rahat, which are unable to close the gaps between the city's natural growth and the pace of construction. The intensive construction of residential units in most Israeli cities is earmarked mainly for the absorption of new residents from outside the city. Rahat's main problem is to provide homes for thousands of families that are city residents. The absorption of additional residents in Rahat is the subject of a tough battle between the government and the residents. The Bedouin authority considers the city a destination for housing residents from other Bedouin communities that are unrecognized by the government and which it wants to evict. The residents of Rahat are ready to fight, quite literally, against opening the city to outsiders.

In recent years the government has increased the efforts to solve the housing shortage in the city. The bidding processes were not conducted peacefully. An attempt to build a neighborhood for the Abu Kwider tribe, which is supposed to leave the Dimona area, failed due to residents' opposition. But the Bedouin authority hasn't given up. At present it is advancing – in the face of stubborn resistance by the municipality – an attempt to build another neighborhood for new residents in the north of the city.

In 2023 the government sold no housing in Rahat. Two calls for bids to build 681 units, which were offered at the start of that year, failed, and in spite of the serious housing shortage, there was no demand for them. Residents claim that they were not included in the decision-making process and therefore the calls for bids failed. The Israel Land Authority claims that the local developers, who were supposed to compete in the bidding process, are having difficulty understand the Mehir Matara ("Target Price") program that is supposed to make the apartments cheaper for those eligible according to Housing Ministry critera, while making them more expensive in sales to the free market.

Those familiar with Rahat's housing market say that operating according to Jewish housing market practices attests to the authorities' lack of understanding of Bedouin society.

But those familiar with market conditions in Rahat claim that the attempt to operate in the Bedouin housing market according to Jewish market practices attests to the disconnect of the government authorities and their lack of understanding of Bedouin society. On the eve of local elections, the government conducted negotiations for an umbrella agreement that would enable the continued sale of housing in Rahat.

Among other things, the municipality would be required to increase the collection of the development fees from the developers who build there. But the municipality sees that as increasing the tax burden on local residents and making the land sold by the government more expensive. The municipality demands control of the processes of allocating land to the residents to ensure distribution according to hamulot, or clans. The government sees the offer as a potential source of corruption and control of the land by powerful entities. Often these power struggles continue even after the sale and allotment of land. For example, families in Rahat who own land that was illegally sold by the government, and prevent those who won the bidding process from entering the area and beginning construction.

Kiranawi considers the increasing housing shortage in Rahat a ticking bomb: "7,000 young couples here don't have a piece of land to live on, to build their home and their future. Someone recently told me, 'I'm desperate – I have to stand in line for the bathroom with all my siblings, children and grandchildren. I can't be alone with my wife because everyone is in the house, in the hut or in the tent. There are 7,000 such families, some of them already have grandchildren, and people can't do anything about it. There are no lots here for construction and the prices of land have increased. Lots that were sold in southern Rahat for 80,000 shekels per apartment are now hard to find even for a million shekels."

In the old city, it seems that people aren't waiting for land allotments and are taking the law into their own hands.

"Some are beginning to build on the roof, or to invade public areas and green areas where it's forbidden to build. Today there are 7,000 people without a home, and if the problem isn't solved, in another five years there will be another 5,000 here – 12,000 families without a home. We'll be exactly like the Jabalya neighborhood in Gaza. Crime will develop, social services and education will collapse and there will be a city here that nobody can control. A city of chaos. That's the establishment's problem and it can be solved. There's no problem of land here."

In spite of the housing shortage that you're talking about, there have been calls for bids to build, and there were no takers.

"The Israel Land Authority and the officials in Jerusalem are living in a fantasy world. What suits Netivot [a city near Be'er Sheva] doesn't suit Rahat. The city has unique characteristics and managing Rahat is like managing 10 cities like Tel Aviv. During my previous term I developed Rahat's new areas – 2, 3 and 5. I did it with Ariel Sharon and the method was different. It's impossible to build an apartment here and to sell it to whoever comes along.

"The Bedouin first of all looks for his neighbor and afterward his house. We have a proverb like that: 'The neighbor is more important than the house.' If there's no neighbor with whom I have some family ties and familiarity, I'm not willing to live there. Here there won't be a system of construction companies and sales to anyone who's eligible. It would be a disaster if they try to do that."

What has to change?

"We have to go to the traditional sales method that we built in Rahat and which is the secret of our success: Populating on a basis of hamulot. The planning in the previous areas wasn't based on large lots of one dunam [around .25 acres] or half a dunam, but lots with four to six housing units that are sold to a family acquisition group and it's known in advance who lives in which apartment and who the neighbor is. There can be complexes of people who barely know one another, but they belong to the same extended family and they have some kind of family connection. When we're talking about a hamula of 10,000 people – the complexes and the community can be populated like that. The chances of success will be good."

'There can be housing complexes of people who barely know one another, but they belong to the same extended family and they have some kind of family connection.'

The traditional form of housing and your demands don't allow for dense construction. The Bedouin authority claims that sooner or later the land will run out and you'll have to be more crowded.

"There's enough land. Only now they approved the planning for 15 new Jewish communities, while all the new Bedouin communities are still unregulated. What Israel wants is to push all the Bedouin into seven towns and to crowd as many people as possible into them. These are people who don't understand and can't anticipate what will be here in another 20 years. The more you crowd and expand the Bedouin communities, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences: an increase in poverty and unemployment and the problems they'll have. One day it will blow up in the government's face and nobody will be able to change it."

Rahat is designed to be one of the largest cities in Israel, with 160,000 residents. They'll have to build apartment houses here.

"We understand the problem of density and the need to increase the density and we're also adapting ourselves. In Rahat the density was one family per dunam, and we increased the density to four housing units per dunam. In future we can also get to five or six units per dunam, but that takes time and it can't be done all at once. We have to work in stages. When we went up to four housing units, there were demonstrations and protests here. Afterward wonderful houses were built here."

Three years ago they approved the construction of a new neighborhood in the northern part of the city. Could that be part of the solution for the housing shortage?

"What is the Bedouin authority doing? It's planning the new area for a tribe that they want to transfer here from the Hura region, the Al-Ziadna tribe. What are they planning for us here? Instead of solving the problem of my residents here in Rahat, they're bringing me a family of 4,000 people from Hura? It's another burden for Rahat, which has to take care of education and municipal services and employment for these residents. This is a poor tribe. These people don't have any money, and I have to pay for it and leave our residents without a roof over their heads. It won't work.

"You'll hear only tough words from me about that, and maybe they'll say that I'm an extremist, but I'm not. First of all, I have to take care of the residents of my city. You can't just bring in 4,000 people. I can hardly breathe as it is. South of the city they planned Neighborhood 11 for Rahat, to settle the members of the Abu Kwider tribe from the unrecognized village of Al-Zarnug near Dimona. They planned and wanted to force us to accept them. The government isn't offering to take care of an education budget for them, it's only offering us a deficit of billions, and then they came to me with complaints that I don't know how to manage."

'Young couples can't get a mortgage'

One of the problems with purchasing an apartment in Rahat is financing. The banks aren't happy to grant loans and mortgages here. As a former banker, you probably understand that the banks are afraid of problems with repaying collateral.

"To my great regret, it's not only the government that is shortchanging us, but the banks are too. It's a problem that young couples in Rahat can't get a mortgage. Our borrowerers mortgage their property, bring collateral and guarantors. The bank has to examine the person to whom it gives the mortgage. A bank doesn't give the mortgage to a criminal, or to someone without any income. The mortgage is given to a civil servant, a salaried contractor or a self-employed person who has an income. He brings good guarantors. If they're members of his family – that's good collateral for the bank.

"And in the worst case, if nobody repays the debt, the bank can still realize the asset. The house can be put up for sale, and then the person's family will come and buy it, because for us it's not a family of 10 people, it's a family of thousands of people. There have already been such cases of confiscation by the Tax Authority or the National Insurance Institute, when the family came and bought the confiscated assets.

Could it be that the banks are afraid of crime organizations?

"No. The advantage in the Bedouin community compared to other [Arab] communities in the north of the country is that there are no crime organizations here. There are conflicts of hamulot, but not organized crime. I'm also planning to deal with the subject of violence and personal security of the city residents. I'm not willing to have an unsafe city here, with conflicts and quarrels."

Almost every large city on the country's periphery has institutions of higher learning, at least on the level of a branch of a college. Why doesn't that exist in Rahat?

"The academic college is one of the main projects we planned in the Idan Hanegev industrial park. We allotted 73 dunams for a college of 5,000 students. It was supposed to be built in partnership with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and we had already establish a board of trustees headed by Shimon Peres and a board of directors, but we didn't receive support from the Council for Higher Education – in my opinion, due to irrelevant considerations.

"Maybe after the war they'll get some sense. There could be 3,000 students from Bedouin society studying there, in addition to students from the Jewish community, and the Arab community in the north of the country. The factories in the Idan Hanegev industrial park can also offer employment to the students who study there."

Where do Rahat's students study now?

"Some study at Sapir Academic College, but most study in the Palestinian Authority, at the College of Islamic Law in Hebron, in Al-Najah National University and in Birzeit University. They pay a lower tuition there and study in a track that suits them. There's greater accessibility there because of the language. Here tuition is three times as high and the acceptance conditions are tougher. In the Palestinian Authority they're offered a special track of studies over the weekends – on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays – so the student can work on the other days. Medical studies are at a high level and it's easy to pass the exams to work in Israel."

And isn't there a fear that those returning from studies in West Bank will foment extremism in Bedouin society in Israel?

"Who cares about that? Do you think that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is interested in that? He's very well aware of it. In the [Palestinian] territories there are between 2,000 and 2,500 students from Arab and Bedouin society."

'People have understood polygamy is a burden'

Before the war there were hopes for development here, from tourism initiatives and others. But no sources were presented for budgets to pay for the ambitious plans.

"We've already stopped crying to the local governments. I don't need anyone to put a hand into his pocket and offer me money. That era is over. I come with my own plans and stretch out a hand for partnership, not gifts. That's what we did with the Idan Hanegev industrial park. We fought until we succeeded in planning it at our expense. Shimon Peres was the minister for development of the Negev and Galilee and he transferred the first funds for development, and today it's one of the successful projects. The unemployment rate in Rahat, which was 45 percent in 2013, fell to 10 percent as of now as a result of employment in Idan Hanegev. We're now talking about continuing the development of the employment areas in southern and northern Rahat and about connecting to Highway 6."

There were also plans to develop a large public park in the Nahal Gerar valley [in the Negev]. Meanwhile, in all of Rahat there are only three or four playgrounds.

"There was a government decision to build a huge project that would advance the quality of life in the city. But the government decision wasn't budgeted. There's an initiative of several government ministries, including the Environmental Protection Ministry, to allocate about 170 million shekels for this project. But we still haven't seen any money, except for small allocations. There are no budgets here for developing public parks. That requires a municipal planning budget, and then [money] for development of the parks and for maintaining them."

Rahat is the largest Arab city in Israel. Cities are supposed to offer their residents economic and social opportunities. Do you see it being extricated from the lowest socioeconomic bracket?

"The present situation is the result of years of deprivation and discrimination. We didn't receive budgets here for years. We lived from hand to mouth, from agricultural work and shepherding. When they built the Bedouin communities here they didn't prepare sources of employment for the population. People worked at simple jobs and didn't earn money. The families were large. But we're changing too. We had an average of 5.5 children per family – now we have 3.25. We'll soon be [like the] Ashkenazim [Jews of European origin, who stereotypically have fewer children].

"The phenomenon of polygamy is also declining. People are beginning to understand that it's not acceptable and that it's a financial burden. And still the Bedouin have remained on the margins all these years. The government didn't invest resources in advancing the Bedouin and that's the result. My main goal is to solve the city's housing problem. That's the first goal I've set for myself. If I succeed in solving this problem, I've done my part."

At least the Bedouin authority and the government ministers can also agree on that goal.

"Unfortunately, there's no responsible adult in the government. Someone says [talk to] the Bedouin authority, someone says Minister Chikli. And others say the Housing and Construction Ministry or the Israel Land Authority. I don't know who I'm supposed to work with. I met with the Bedouin authority. I told them that apartments need to be marketed through family acquisition groups only. The government has to reach the right arrangement in order to advance construction, and that includes regulating ownership of the land on which the government wants to build. There's a lot of state land that people claim ownership over, and clearly they'll prevent construction if their ownership isn't formalized."

2024-05-04T13:17:43Z dg43tfdfdgfd