| HN Mirror

  > My only point of reference for this kind of thing would be
  > like an American landowner in the Southwest allowing a Navajo
  > rancher from the reservation to graze on their property. Is
  > it basically the same thing, or is it somehow "different"?

It is similar and it is different.

One difference is that Arizona was founded as a state earlier than Israel, so people feel that "it's older, so it is OK now".

Another difference is that America decided "all the land is ours", then herded the Navajo into reservations. In Israel we built in specific places and the Bedouins continued to be nomadic around us.

Note also that the Bedouins were until recently very nomadic, but today few Bedouin are nomadic. When the Bedouins were nomadic they would roam huge areas, but "occupy" only a small area at any one time. From what I understand, the idea "this land is OURS" didn't pop into anyone's mind, each family (Hamula) would roam and they pretty much did not need to bother fighting over land. Only when permanent settlements started being built, and thus land was removed from the common pool, did this become an issue.

Another issue is that today, a sort of "land war" is happening between some Bedouins and the state of Israel. I actually believe that the state stared the problem and then it escalated. In a nutshell, the state is forcing Bedouins off some settled land and in response the Bedouins are starting to claim more lands as "permanent settlements". In one particular case that I'm aware of, the Bedouins have been pushed off a parcel of land and then returned over 100 times. We're not talking about grazing land, which there is enough of for everybody to share and build on. We are talking about tents and stables and families. There is a huge difference between the state building a town on a corner of the grazing land, and the state forcefully remove people from these places. The former is the case 99% of the time, but the latter is happening and any decent person will, as I am, oppose it.