Negev Bedouin women Negev Bedouin women The Bedouin are a primarily desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group. As a pastoral, nomadic society, they live in numerous nation-states in the Middle East. The Negev Bedouin live in the Negev region of Israel. After Israel's independence in 1948, many of the Bedouin who remained in the area were relocated to towns. Israel has built seven official Bedouin townships, and approximately half of all Negev Bedouin live in these towns. The remainder live in unrecognized, unplanned townships which are officially illegal. The Israeli government does not provide infrastructure assistance or other services to those Bedouin who live in
Negev of the Negev are Jews, while 160,000 or 25% are Bedouin. Of the Bedouin population (a demographic with a semi-nomadic tradition), half live in unrecognized villages, and half live in towns built for them by the Israeli government between the 1960s and 1980s; the largest of these is Rahat. The population of the Negev is expected to reach 1.2 million by 2025. It has been projected that the Beersheba metropolitan area will reach a population of 1 million by 2020, and Arad, Yeruham, and Dimona will triple in size by 2025. Blueprint Negev is a Jewish National Fund project introduced