With the country focused on the evacuation and compensation of some 1,500 Jewish families from the Gaza Strip, the real population transfer has quietly begun with the Negev Beduin in a NIS 1 billion government plan.

According to government officials, in the past few months great progress has been made with Beduin tribes living in illegal villages. They are starting to sign deals to give up their land claims and have agreed to move to permanent towns where they will receive free plots and huge housing grants.

The government is proposing eight new Beduin townships over a vast area of the Negev. The first is Tarabin near Kibbutz Mishmar Hanegev.

After years of delays, the first Beduin tribe is abandoning illegal villages in the Negev this month for a new town north of Beersheba. Negotiations with at least two other tribes are expected soon, government officials said.

"There is a development process under way in the Negev. The state has decided to give the Negev priority in national infrastructure, super highways, fast trains," said Yehuda Bachar, adviser on Beduin affairs to Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is responsible for Beduin in the government.

Bachar also sketched a map of a new IDF city (a major base) being erected in the Negev. He drew circles around it, saying there would be restaurants and shops and support facilities for the soldiers.

"Presumably there will be work there for the Beduin. This development is an opportunity for them," he told The Jerusalem Post. "The train has left the station and the Beduin need to get on. I believe they sense an opportunity here."

The Israel Lands Administration has also sweetened the atmosphere by approving more compensation for those choosing to move, but it will be gradually reduced until 2009.

Citing the recent decision to bring in an international arbitrator, Bachar said there was an opportunity finally for the government and Beduin of the Negev to reconcile.

"The Beduin today feel the state has a different approach. It´s dawned on them. They understand there is a change and that they need to participate," he said.

After years of neglecting the Beduin, the government also understood that the time was ripe for improving cooperation.

Earlier this year, the government agreed to bring in US conflict resolution expert Prof. Larry Susskind to oversee a mediation process between the state and the Beduin. In July, he is expected to finalize his initial assessments on the points of conflict and begin work on resolving them.

One factor behind the new willingness to make a deal was the tough legal obstacles the courts began employing to counter Beduin claims of land ownership. In recent years, the state started countering claims on disputed plots, forcing the Beduin to prove ownership. They lack proper documentation and have lost every case that has reached court.

The unstated vision of the government is that one day all the shantytowns built illegally along highways will be eradicated as the Beduin are settled into permanent dwellings with modern facilities and services.

Bent on urbanizing the Beduin, the state 20 years ago coerced half their population into seven townships. The rest held out, living in squalor, mostly in an area east of Beersheba known as the "Saig." They are fighting for legal ownership of 800,000 dunams (200,000 acres) and the right to be involved in planning their own future.

Today there are seven towns built exclusively for Beduin – Rahat, Kseifa, Arara Banegev, Segev Shalom, Tel Sheva, Laqia and Hura – in which about half of the 145,000 Negev Beduin live. For years, the Beduin leaders had opposed the building of new towns. They held they were bound to suffer the same fate as the seven existing towns and become instant slums.

The government claimed that because this Beduin population is spread out over nearly a million dunams, it could not provide the same public services as in the planned communities. If their present growth rate, the highest in the world, continue, the Beduin will make up half the Negev population by 2020.

This current process is aimed at solving this.

This month, Tarabin tribal leaders signed an agreement relinquishing claims on land and will move to the town. The tribe has promised to move its 1,500 members from land it has squatted on for years next to Omer, north of Beersheba.

According to the deal, each person will receive a plot for building a house and families will also receive agricultural land. The new town was planned in consultation with the tribe. At the moment, there is a three-story school building and plots ready to be hooked up to electricity, sewage and water systems. It is scheduled to be in place by September.

Others on the verge of a deal are the Hawashla and Abu-Grinat tribes, who will settle on new towns of these names near Dimona, totaling 12,320 dunams. Government officials say progress is under way with Al- Azazma tribe to settle on 6,550 dunams in Bir Hadaj next to Kibbutz Revadim. The twin towns of Marit and Darijat, south of Tel Arad, are slated for four local tribes. The 6,000 dunams of Umm Batin next to the Shoket junction is slated for the Abu Kaf and Abu Asa tribes. Muladah, 9,000 dunams, on the road to Arad is for the Atrash tribe.

Furthermore, the ILA has recently announced it was doubling the size of Rahat and approved the construction of 4,500 of 10,000 planned housing units.

In all the government has budgeted NIS 1.1 billion for Beduin affairs over the next five years. According to the ILA, Beduin agreeing to move to the new towns will receive free plots (about 800 square meters) as well as housing grants averaging NIS 200,000 to NIS 400,000. Transition grants are also being given to the tune of NIS 7,500 per family plus NIS 1,500 per child.

Those giving up land claims will receive more. For example, anyone who gives up a claim on 200 dunams will receive NIS 1.5 million plus 50 dunams of farmland.

IDF veterans and single men over the age of 24 will be given various discounts.

Officials believe the Beduin issues won´t be solved by 2008, but will be well along the way.

"I´m not na ve, but I am cautiously optimistic after one year in this job," said Bachar, a former senior police officer.

Beduin leaders confirmed that there was some progress, such as the case of the Tarabin. But they said the bulk of the Beduin would not likely be quick to make a deal and that negotiations were generally stuck.

"The ILA is offering higher compensation and it appears attractive. But it won´t work," said Sliman Abu-Zaed, coordinator of the Coexistence Forum in the Negev.

He explained that the ones making deals now were Beduin with no serious land claims or whose lands were lost to IDF firing ranges and figured access was lost forever.

Abu-Zaed praised the new mediation efforts, but was skeptical of their success.

The Beduin, particularly those linked with the self-proclaimed Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages, have proposed instead to turn their 45 villages into permanent farming communities complete with all the public services allocated to the Jewish settlements. (© 1995-2005, The Jerusalem Post 05/24/05)