Tension is growing between the Israel and the Bedouin population as implementation of the Prawer Plan for the regulation of Bedouin settlement in the southern region of the Negev draws near. The proposed bill, promoted by former Minister Benny Begin already in the previous Knesset, will soon be approved by the legislature and become law. It is based on the plan prepared by a team headed by Ehud Prawer, the former deputy director of the Israeli National Security Council.
Prawer’s team was tasked with implementing the findings of a committee headed by retired Judge Eliezer Goldberg, which examined the state of the Bedouin settlement in the Negev. The Prawer Plan, approved by the government in September 2011, is intended to resolve the land ownership claims by Bedouin living outside recognized localities and to provide a solution to the 35 Bedouin villages scattered throughout the Negev which the Israel refuses to recognize as permanent habitations.