"Emptied Lands: A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev," authored by Alexandre Kedar, Ahmad Amara, and Oren Yiftachel, presents a comprehensive examination of the political and legal arguments surrounding the Israeli doctrine aimed at Judaizing the Negev region. The doctrine seeks to disavow the historical connections and rights of the indigenous population in the area while forcibly displacing and depriving Palestinians of their rightful space for natural growth.
Kedar, Amara, and Yiftachel base their study on previously undisclosed Ottoman, British, and Israeli archival materials while constructing a geographic narrative rooted in Bedouin documents, memoirs, and oral history..
The authors meticulously scrutinize Ottoman, British, and Israeli legislation, judicial decisions, and law enforcement pertaining to the Negev, with a particular focus on Bedouin land, settlement, and cultural autonomy. This extensive legal analysis spans three distinct ruling regimes and draws upon newly unearthed legal and archival sources from Jerusalem, Istanbul, Ankara, London, Amman, and Washington, DC, as well as private Bedouin archives.
The book also conducts a comprehensive survey and analysis of recent developments in international law concerning the rights of Bedouin communities as indigenous groups. This enriches the discourse on indigenous peoples on a global scale.
Kedar, Amara, and Yiftachel closely examine the Israeli concept known as the "Dead Negev Doctrine" (DND) and its endeavor to reinterpret Ottoman and British legal frameworks. Through rigorous legal-historical research, they conclusively demonstrate that the state's claims of legal continuity from the Ottoman and Mandatory periods leading up to the establishment of Israel lack substantive support. Furthermore, they convincingly challenge Israel's contention that the Bedouins had no legitimate land rights.
About the author:
Prof. Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar is a faculty member at the Law School of the University of Haifa. He obtained his Doctorate in Law (S.J.D) from Harvard Law School. His research primarily revolves around the fields of legal geography, legal history, law and society, and land regimes in Israel and other settler societies. He is also the co-founder and director of the Association for Distributive Justice, an Israeli NGO dedicated to addressing these issues.
Dr. Ahmed Amara is an expert in the geography and legal history of Palestine, with a particular focus on the Ottoman land law and endowments. He is also a human rights lawyer who holds a doctoral degree in history and Israeli studies from New York University. Ahmed has published several articles and books on these topics.
Prof. Oren Yiftachel is a professor at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, specializing in political geography, urban planning, and public policy. He is the author of several books, including "Planning a Mixed Region: Political Geography in Galilee," published by Ashgate in 1991, and "Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine,” published by Penn Press in 2006. His latest book, "Land and Power: Israel/Palestine from Ethnocracy to Creeping Apartheid" was published by Resling in 2021.
