Summary
The first planned Negev Bedouin town, designated after the formal removal of the Siyaj, whose initial failure Dinero traces to planning that ignored Bedouin social needs (Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, PDF p.38).
Details
- By 1968, 43 buildings had been constructed by the Israeli government, including a community center, shops, a restaurant and a youth club; houses separated the guest room from the rest of the house in an attempt to replicate a traditional tent (PDF p.38).
- The houses were only 70 m2 and the lots only 400 m2, too small for large families and for houses plus livestock outbuildings; many residents housed animals in the houses and lived in tents in their backyards (Gradus & Stern 1985, as cited, PDF p.38).
- By the mid-1970s only 25 of the 46 government-built houses were occupied; opposition rested on mixed tribal living and on modesty and privacy in the town’s layout (Ben-David 1993, as cited, PDF p.38).
- Those who moved in were overwhelmingly fellahi Bedouin in origin; in the late 1980s the town underwent a replanning program to rectify earlier errors and learn from Rahat (PDF p.38-39, 42).
Related pages
Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, Rahat, Siyaj, Naqab