Dr. Yaron Ovadia's research, published over the years, has dealt, among other things, with the extensive history of the Jahalin tribe in the Judean Desert, the lifestyle that characterizes them, and the changes that have occurred among them in recent decades. In his article "My Wanderings Have Ended," Ovadia talks about the history of the Bedouin tribes in our region. According to the article, "It appears that Bedouin tribes were already living in the land in the middle of the Second Temple period, with the arrival of the Nabataeans to the area and their extensive engagement in trade deep in the desert... Additional Bedouin tribes continued to arrive in the Land of Israel from the Arabian deserts over the years. One of the first references to the presence of Bedouins in the Land of Israel is the words of Josephus, who describes a battle that took place between the Nabataeans - whom he calls Arabs - and the Hasmoneans."

 

"Since the seventh century, Muslim Bedouins began to penetrate the Land of Israel in waves that continued until the 18th century," the article continued. "Over the years, Bedouin tribes penetrated the vastness of the Land of Israel, fought each other, broke up and united, and slowly created the composition of the tribes in the land as we know it today." Regarding the relations between the Jews and the Nabateans, "Tamo Nedudi" wrote that these included good trade relations, "as evidenced by archaeological finds discovered at various sites in the Judean Desert."

According to Ovadia, the tribes living in the area today were formed as early as the 18th century, when "until the end of the 19th century, the Bedouins in the Judean Desert still lived an intensive nomadic life. Entire tribes migrated in search of pasture for their sheep and camels. In the winter, they reached the depths of the desert and the desert's delights, and in the summer they ascended west to the back of the mountain and sometimes reached the Hebron and Bethlehem areas."

Many pilgrims wrote about this phenomenon and said that the Bedouins live in tents and migrate with them from place to place. "Among these pilgrims, Ovadia tells of the British tourist Charles Leonard Irby, who said that he camped in a tent of the Jahalin tribe. A few years later, the renowned American explorer Edward Robinson also traveled from the southern Hebron Mountains toward the southeast and met Bedouins from the Jahalin tribe who migrated following the seasons and the seasonal agricultural crops."

In another article by Ovadia, entitled "The Bedouins in the Judean Desert, a World That Is Disappearing," the researcher deals with the state's attitude toward the Bedouins who live in the country, and says that "Israeli leaders saw the nomads as a threat to the state's security. Moshe Dayan wrote the following in the Haaretz newspaper in 1963: 'The Bedouins must be turned into urban workers... This will be a revolution, but it can be arranged over two generations. Not by force, but with guidance from the government. This reality called Bedouin will disappear.'"

The article "My Nomadism Has Ended" also states that "the State of Israel - whose executive arm in this area was the security establishment - engaged in the 1970s in changing the lifestyles of the Bedouins in the Judean Desert... The changes imposed from above led not only to the cessation of nomadism but also to a dramatic change in employment, residence, and the relationships that were forged between the Bedouin tribes and their urban and rural neighbors."

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According to the article, "Bedouin society in the Judean Desert is currently a poor marginal society that is trying to survive despite the authorities, not because of them. This is a society that holds Palestinian citizenship in an area where the Palestinian Authority has no possibility of operating."