After legal battles in the Beer Sheva District Court in three different cases, the Southern District of the State Attorney's Office and the Israel Land Authority (ILA) succeeded in transferring to state ownership some 4,000 dunams of land in the Negev that Bedouin claimed to own.
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Different judges in the District Court rejected different opinions of Israeli academics who claimed the existence of historical evidence of Bedouin ownership of these lands, while they accepted the opinion of Prof. Ruth Karek, submitted on behalf of the state, which rejected the evidence.
Testimony and Findings
The most recent ruling handed down in August was the "Elhorti ruling," in which Judge Yaakov Danino of the Be'er Sheva District accepted the claims of the state, represented by attorney Eitan Cohen of the State Prosecutor's Office, and transferred to its ownership four different plots of land totaling about 415 dunams in the Negev, north of Be'er Sheva.
The settlement of Tarabin in the Negev, photo: Dudu Greenspan
The case was born out of a dispute between the state and the Elkhorti family, each claiming its own land. The family claimed that both the Ottoman and British Mandate governments treated land held and cultivated by the Bedouin as belonging to the Bedouin, even though they did not register ownership.
Prof. Kark's opinion submitted on behalf of the State Attorney's Office argued that the land was not held by the Bedouin, but was deserted, and that "permanent agricultural cultivation and semi-settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev began only at the beginning of the 20th century, and even that only among tribes in certain areas."
Severe polygamy problem in the Bedouin sector, photo: Dudu Greenspan
The judge ruled that "it has not been proven that the land that is the object of the suit was allocated to any member of the family of the heirs of the deceased," adding that it was not proven that they held them at all or that they cultivated them agriculturally. "I clearly preferred the testimony and opinion of Prof. Kark, submitted by the state, over the opinion and testimony of Dr. Ahmad Amara (historian), submitted on behalf of the heirs of the deceased. Dr. Amara blatantly ignored the findings of various investigators who passed through or near the prosecution grounds and found them deserted."
The judge ordered the petitioners to pay the state NIS 70,<> in court costs.
Strategic portfolio
Two months ago, a ruling was handed down in the Araqib case, which the Justice Ministry considered a "strategic case." As part of the ruling, Bedouin families named Abu Madi'am and Abu Freih claimed ownership of some 1,950 dunums of land south of Rahat and west of Road 40. The State was represented by Adv. Yaari Roache and Nira Cohen of the State Prosecutor's Office.
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Judge Geula Levin rejected the opinion of historians submitted by the Bedouin, which, had they been accepted in court, would have led to a revolution and opened similar demands proceedings for tens of thousands of additional dunams in the Negev.
As far as the Bedouin were concerned, this was also a flagship case, in which a historical study by Prof. Gadi Algazi was submitted, which, as stated, failed to lead to a legal precedent. The judge criticized that "the legal process is not the appropriate platform for historical research that takes place in an academic framework and in the framework of public debate, which gives room to different narratives."
At the beginning of the year, Judge Gad Gideon accepted the arguments of the State Attorney's Office and the Israel Authority, presented by Attorney Tehila Shimshon of the State Prosecutor's Office, and transferred to the state an area of 1,260 dunams north of Be'er Sheva, which the Bedouin al-Buhiri family claimed to own.
Bedouin youths demonstrate, photo: AFP
According to them, the land is held by them and they received it as an inheritance from their father, who held it from the period of Turkish rule in the country. The state claimed that the land was not arable at all and had owned it since the 60s.
While the Bedouin claimed the existence of Kushan proving their ownership of the land, the judge rejected this and ruled that "until the conclusion of the litigation, the alleged Kushan did not submit by the plaintiffs, a copy of it, or any other evidence of the purchase of the land." Aerial photographs from the country showed that there are no buildings on the land and that it is cultivated on only 2.5 percent of its area. The judge ruled that the family would pay the state NIS 35,<> in court costs.
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