For decades, the state has adopted the narrative of "the 46 historic villages" and whitewashed illegal construction. But in most cases, a new report reveals, these were empty hills, on which someone decided to fabricate tales.
For decades, a group with political interests has succeeded in fooling an entire country with its government, its authorities and its committees, and selling to all of them a Bedouin folktale that never existed. As of 2022, according to Regavim's report, on 292,180 Bedouins in the Negev, only 23,11 live in the seven towns established in the distant past.