One of the sharpest criticisms facing Israel’s high-tech industry is that it is not inclusive enough. Its professional success, and even more so its economic success, remains limited to a very small sector of the population, mostly from the privileged classes. In this particular sector, salaries are often high, benefits are good, and when there is a successful “exit” — selling of a startup to a much larger high-tech company — many employees who received options or stock, suddenly find themselves rich.

Galit Hemi, editor of Calcalist, wrote about this phenomenon: “The fast, big money is shaking up the real estate market and leading to rising prices in other sectors of the economy. Gaps between the haves and have-nots are expanding, with most workers — the vast majority of workers, in fact, including the most talented, experienced, veteran and educated workers — getting left behind. They are unable to keep up with the rising prices.’’

The sector that benefits least from the growth of Israeli high-tech is the Bedouin community in the south. This is a population that is already facing the stress of low incomes, a high birthrate and an absence of even the most basic services and infrastructure.

A new study commissioned by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation found that among the 350,000 Israelis employed in high-tech, only 50 are from the Bedouin sector. According to the foundation’s study, Bedouin society in southern Israel is the victim of enormous socio-economic gaps. These can be attributed to the poor education offered by Bedouin schools and to faulty infrastructure. As a result of all that, young Bedouins lag behind their peers in terms of basic knowledge and skills from a very young age.