Get to know an unknown village

“Get to know: An unknown village.“

The village of Al Zarnug is located about 12 km from Be’er Sheva, a little after Moshav Nevatim. Muhammad Al Koider suggests starting the tour at the cemetery of Nevatim, if only to see how even the dead of the Moshav have a paved asphalt road and a standard water line, unlike the 5,000 residents living in the village of El Zarnug just across the road.

On the hill above there is also a Bedouin cemetery, some of the graves in which were destroyed in the works to build the new water pools. From this vantage point you can see the entire area between Beer Sheva and Arad, where most of the Bedouin society in the Negev lives – about 300,000 people, about half of whom live in ‘unknown’ or unrecognized villages.

The unrecognized villages are not only officially unrecognized by the state of Israel, but also unknown by the public, including people who live and students who study nearby, at Ben Gurion University and the city of Beer Sheva, a few minutes’ drive away.

Yuval Ben Ari, who joined our tour to El Zarnug, wrote – “How many Israelis got to walk around Rahat? In Hura? Or Lakiya? Very few. Rahat is a landscape that changes when driving on Route 40 and the train, Hura and Arara are on the way to Arad, and Segev Shalom passes by on the way to Eilat.

The Israeli public does not Knows and has no idea what is happening and what it looks like, lives with very little knowledge and understanding of how it feels to be a Bedouin. You see a few shanties from the road and that’s it.

Very sad but life in the Bedouin towns is only half the story, and the other half of the unknown villages is even less known. And what is known is completely different from how it feels. What is an unknown village? What does it mean to be born, grow up and live in such a settlement, for several decades, a complete circle of life?”

We were privileged to join the tour organized by our students at Ben Gurion University – a group of Arab and Jewish students who work throughout the year, participating in an intercultural meeting and dialogue group, as well as in joint community initiatives, on campus and in the community. In the first semester, the main community activities were with Arab and Jewish students at the Hagar Bilingual School in Be’er Sheva, and in the second semester they mainly produce tours and meetings with the multicultural environment, the Bedouin society and the city of Be’er Sheva.

A space shuttle and an astronaut in a full space suit are standing at the entrance to the elementary school in Al Zarnug. The ‘Space Class’ operates with the assistance of the Ilan Ramon Foundation, and students from the school participated in a joint expedition to the USA and even visited NASA. The school is beautifully maintained and clean, but the space class also operates in a concrete and asbestos building. Next to the space shuttle there is also a traditional Bedouin tent, palm trees and a model of a camel, a petting zoo, a ‘Sulha room’ for bridging students in an underground igloo-shaped structure, and lots of other local initiatives. 

The school belongs to the Neve Midbar Regional Council, although the village itself is officially unrecognized. The paved road reaches up here, and from here on there are only dirt roads, although they are all mapped in a particularly detailed manner in Waze – it turns out that Muhammad’s brother works in Waze and took care of that as well.

Muhammad Al Koider, one of the community leaders, hosted us in his home and told us about life in the village. No house has the possibility to get a permit, no construction is legal, beyond the school there is almost no public infrastructure in the village, no playground or public space, and any old or new house may receive demolition orders, quite arbitrarily. Walking around the village, you see the remains of the destroyed houses, the density and the improvised infrastructure, such as the water lines that are stretched in exposed plastic pipes from the center of the village to the neighboring houses.

The state’s plan is to move the residents of the village, as mentioned about 5000 people, to a new place in ‘Complex 16’ in the Bedouin city of Rahat. However, this plan is opposed by both the residents of the village, who fear the destruction of the existing community, and the residents of the Rahat municipality, who suffer from their own housing crises and are not prepared to take in another 5,000 new residents from outside.

The feeling is that everything is being conducted without a real dialogue with the residents, who meanwhile live in uncertainty and under threats of demolition and deportation.

Muhammad’s wife works with the kindergarten children, and what she tells is heartbreaking – the children in the kindergarten play building houses and destroy them, children come in the morning and say that their house was destroyed, and their toy was also destroyed…

It’s hard to hear, not a single eye was left dry. And it is much more difficult to deal with such a reality every day.

It seems that before any debate about regulating the settlement of the Bedouins in the Negev, it is important to know the significance of the unfathomable situation on the ground, and to show basic solidarity for the struggle of the residents of the unrecognized villages for their basic rights. The tour in El Zarnug was important, interesting and moving, the participants and students in the leadership group left with many thoughts and insights they will continue to proccess together and promote joint action.

Thanks to Muhammad Abu Koider and his dear family, who opened their home and their hearts to us. Thanks to the activists and organizers, and to our partners who support community action and joint learning, in Ben Gurion University and the Greater Metro West Federatio