ABSTRACT
This part introduces Bedouin land dispossession after the establishment of the State of Israel. It describes land dispossession at administrative, legislature, and judicial levels. Administratively, the State evicted Bedouins from their traditional lands. Then, it concentrated those remaining into small villages in the Siyag area (Siyag is a Hebrew word meaning “fence”) and confiscated their land. At the same time, the State enacted several laws that further enabled the dispossession of Bedouin land through legislative and judicial means. Courts made sure the interpretation of the law maintained the same principles. In addition, this chapter introduces two major elements that constitute the general framework for such policy. The first one is land tenure in Israel, and the second is the State’s land policy toward Arab and Bedouin land. It also introduces the important court precedent of Alhawashelah and explains how the law and the judiciary reject any recognition of Bedouin land rights. This final part describes how the law in Israel expropriates Bedouin land rights through the use of legal doctrines like the Mawat doctrine and other similar techniques that have been used to deny indigenous peoples’ land rights.
