The Negev Land Question: Between Denial and Recognition

This article explores the legal issues and policies surrounding Bedouin land ownership and dispossession in the Negev. By tracing the colonial legal trajectory—from Ottoman to British and finally, to the current Israeli adoption and development of legal doctrines—the author exposes an intricate manipulation of historical legal policies being used to further displace tens of thousands of Bedouin Arabs living in the Negev today. This displacement is further contextualized as not only legally steeped in colonial heritage, but also as part and parcel of an active, larger colonial Judaization scheme by the Israeli state towards its Palestinian citizens.

AHMAD AMARA is a human rights advocate and PhD candidate in history and Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University. He holds an LLB and LLM from Tel Aviv University. The author thanks Oren Yiftachel, Alex Winder, Zinaida Miller, Shay Hazkani, and Samuel Dolbee for their comments and assistance with edits