ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the politics of a program to resettle the Bedouin in Israel's Negev. This experience yields insights on a theme that has recently aroused growing concern: the anthropologist as advocate. The story tells about the sociology of advocacy and about some of the difficulties attending the advocate's work. In the fighting that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, most of the 75,000 Negev Bedouin fled the country or went into hiding. By the 1970s, the Negev Bedouin derived only about 10 percent of their cash income from cultivation. The Bedouin have profited from the situation, although their limited schooling and vocational training have forced many of them to take the less permanent and lower paid jobs. The Bedouin realized that the Air Force was committed to beginning the construction of the airport by a specific date, and they feared that events would overtake them.
