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Segev Shalom

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aliasesShqeb

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Summary

A government-planned Negev Bedouin town (Arabic: Shqeb), one of the seven original planned towns, and the case-study community of Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, researched by its author since the early 1990s (Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, PDF p.15-16, 47).

Details

  • Dinero’s central question for the town is how planning transitioned a formerly pastoral-nomadic community from tents to towns, shepherding to wage labor, and an ascriptive- to an achievement-oriented social order (PDF p.16).
  • The town’s development is addressed in detail in the book’s Chapter 2, following its recognition among the final planned towns in the 1980s; the Masos Regional Council and later the Segev Shalom Local Council supported Dinero’s research, and in 2007 its Rosh Ha’Moatzah was Saeed El-Harumi (PDF p.23, 47).
  • As printed, Segev Shalom had a population of 6,005 residents in 2005 at a density of 915.8 people/km2, in an area printed as 5,500 km2 (Bustan Report 2005:3, as cited, PDF p.52) — the area and density figures do not compute together and are held as printed, not reconciled; see the source page’s Open questions.
  • The town was officially inaugurated in 1979 under a unique agreement between Azazmeh Sheikh Ouda and the state allowing settlement on the tribe’s own traditional lands; it was initially designated over 4,000 dunams for 10,000 people but only became an active resettlement site in 1986, with 40 families in 1985 (PDF p.64-65).
  • It formed the Masos Regional Council with Aroer and K’seifa from 1988 to 1996, was then governed by a Local Council under an appointed head, and elected its first Bedouin Rosh Ha’Moatzah, Amir Abu-Mu’amar, in September 2000; he was succeeded in September 2004 by Saeed El-Harumi (PDF p.64, 73-74, 79).
  • Population grew from 2,354 in 420 households in 1995 to 6,248 residents in 1,124 households in 2007; Figure 2.1 captions the increase as averaging 387 resettlers per year, 1995-2005 (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, as cited) (PDF p.70, 74, 98).
  • By the late 2000s the town had five public schools, two health clinics and three mosques; its 258-dunam Industrial Zone’s eight listed businesses employed no more than 30 men in total in mid-2007, while most commercial activity in the town was unofficial and unregistered (PDF p.82, 84-86).
  • Dinero’s 2007 survey found the town sharply stratified between the Azazmeh majority and the Tarabeen/Abid community centred on Shekhuna Bet, whose corrals, gardens and orchards mark it off physically from the rest of the town; 47 percent of respondents said they had relocated for family reasons, 27 percent by government force and 20 percent for services or quality of life (PDF p.102-103).
  • In 2007, 77 percent of the town’s survey respondents said they were not treated equally with Jewish Israelis, a figure that had dropped steadily through the study period; asked whether life was better than 10-15 years earlier, 74 percent said better and 25 percent said worse (PDF p.110, 117).
  • Healthcare in the town centres on a Tipat Halav mother/child clinic and a Kupat Holim family clinic in a new building opened in January 2007; 99 percent of surveyed households used the town’s services, but about 60 percent of the clinic’s 15,000 enrolled patients came from the Pezurah (PDF p.124-125).
  • As of 2007 the town’s three elementary schools held over 2,350 pupils, its high school 1,800 students and its new middle school over 150; 40-60 percent of the elementary pupils and 60 percent of the secondary pupils were bussed in from the pezurah (PDF p.137-138).
  • Identity in the town shifted sharply over the survey period: “bedouin” was the primary self-label of 75.4 percent in 1996 but 19.0 percent in 2007, while “Muslim” rose from 8.8 percent to 49.6 percent; regular mosque participation rose from 48 percent to 69 percent (Tables 5.1, 5.3) (PDF p.157-158). See Bedouin identity and Islamicization.
  • Women’s position changed on two tracks at once: female literacy rose to nearly equal men’s and women’s employment outside the home skyrocketed by 2007 while male rates were virtually unchanged, yet veiling in full Hijab and niqab increased and Polygyny held at 32 percent of households (PDF p.178-186).
  • Chapter 8 casts the town as a test case for the Negev’s future: Dinero calls it one of the more successful of the first seven planned towns, relays plans to link its Industrial Zone by road to Be’er Sheva’s southern industrial areas and to develop environmental industries near Ramat Hovav, and proposes regional tourism and a camel-dairy economy, while concluding that most bedouin still view settling in the town as a loss — a surrender of lands, pride and identity — and that mistrust between the community and the state is only growing (PDF p.217, 222-232).
  • The Postscript (May 2009) updates the town: Amir Abu-Mu’amar was re-elected Rosh Ha’Moatzah in November 2008; in Kher El-Baz’s opinion the town was showing increasing signs of economic growth, having acquired positions in the labour force for the new Ir HaBahadim base south of Be’er Sheva — virtually all of them low-skilled and lower-paying, with high-security jobs not likely to be available to bedouin — and the poultry processing plant planned earlier was nearly completed, expected to employ perhaps 450 people by early 2010 and possibly double that at full capacity, with female employees likely a significant part of its labour force given the Industrial Zone’s proximity to Shekhuna Bet (PDF p.233-234).

Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, Naqab, Tel Sheva, Rahat, Pezurah

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