Zin Valley, Negev Desert, courtesy, Wikipedia |
A small
population of Arabian leopards,
an endangered animal in the Arabian peninsula, survives in the southern
Negev. Other carnivora found in
the area are the caracal, the Arabian wolf,
the golden jackal and the marbled polecat. The Aravah mountain
gazelle, a subspecies of the mountain gazelle, manages
to survive but the dorcas gazelle is more numerous with some 1,000–1,500. Some
350 to 500 Nubian ibex live in the Negev Highlands and in the Eilat Mountains. The Negev shrew is
a rare species of mammal found only in Israel. The Negev tortoise is
a critically endangered species that currently lives only in the sands of the
western and central Negev Desert. Animals that were reintroduced after extinction in the wild or local extinction respectively
are the Asiatic wild ass, the Persian fallow deer, and the Arabian oryx. The
Negev is the only place where the Arabian oryx can flourish because nowhere
else in the Middle East can poaching be
controlled.
According to
the Book of Genesis chapter
13, Abraham lived
for a while in the Negev after being banished from Egypt (Genesis 13:1,3).
During the Exodus journey to the Promised Land, Moses sent twelve scouts into
the Negev to assess the land and population (Numbers 13:17). During
the time of Joshua, the northern part of the Negev became the southern extent
of Israelite settlement in Canaan and the area was allotted to the tribes of
Judah and Shimon which was an enclave of Judah in the southwest. Kings Saul
and David fended off the Amalekites in the area. The
entirety of the Negev was later part of the Kingdom of Solomon,
who, as with his successors as kings of Judah,
set up fortresses to guard the routes to Elath and Egypt. In the 9th century BCE, development and expansion of
mining in both the Negev and Edom coincided with the rise of the Assyrian Empire. In
the 8th century BCE, Beersheba became
the region's capital and center for trade. Uzziah made the greatest
effort to develop the Negev, maintaining the communications with Elath through
this region, and, apart from extending agriculture (ii Chron. 26:10), built large
fortresses at Kadesh (see posting on
Kadesh Barnea), Arad, Ḥorvat 'Uza,
and other sites. After the return from Babylonian exile, Jewish connections
with the Negev in the post-biblical period were tenuous. The region’s northern
part was held by King Alexander Yannai (Jannaeus), a Maccabee of the House of
Hasmon.
Since the Arab conquest in
the 7th century and especially since the Crusader conquests in the
12th and 13th centuries, the region was almost abandoned and
became a desert wasteland save for the major coastal cities and major Jewish
centers of Gaza and Rafiah (see posting on Gaza) and a few
scattered Bedouin tribes. In later centuries, other Bedouin tribes migrated to
the Negev area, some were of Jewish ancestry such as the el Huzayel clan. At
the earliest stages of the modern Jewish return to the land, the Negev was
visualized as a possible area of settlement by men like Z.D. Levontin, who aimed at founding a settlement
south of Gaza (1881–2). Like other Jews at the beginning of the 20th century,
however, they had to abandon attempts at purchasing holdings, mainly because
Bedouin vendors could not produce title deeds entered in the land registry for
the tracts they offered. Attention was again directed to the Negev when
Theodor Herzl took up Davis Trietsch's proposal of the El-Arish Project (1903), and a daring plan
for a Jewish-Bedouin alliance was also put forward. After World War i, veterans
of the Jewish Legion tried to settle on state land
offered by the British authorities near the
tell of Arad, but they despaired when no water was found.
Although
historically, the Negev area south of Beersheba, was part of a separate region,
it was added to the proposed area of Mandatory Palestine, on July 10, 1922, having been conceded by British
representative St John Philby, British representative of Eastern Palestine (aka Trans-Jordan). After
the end of the 1930s, the Jewish National Fund took over, securing and
enlarging scattered holdings in the Negev which had been acquired beforehand by
Jewish individuals. Thus the three "observation villages"–Gevulot, Beit Eshel, and Revivim–were set up in 1943. In 1946, in response to the British-created Morrison–Grady Plan which would have allotted the area to an Arab
state, the Jewish Agency enacted the 11 points in the
Negev plan to begin local Jewish
settlement. Four more communities were established preceding the outbreak
of the War of Independence in December 1947. All these outposts were
modestly supplied with water from two pipelines drawn from the Nir Am and
Gevar'am wells in the southern Coastal Plain. As a result, the United
Nations Partition Plan for Palestine allotted
a majority of the area to the Jewish State which later became Israel. During the
War of Independence, Israel secured its Negev allotment and then some. The one
exception was the area in and around Gaza City, which became known as the Gaza
Strip. Since the end of the war in 1949, the region’s population has
grown exponentially. In the early years of the state, it absorbed many of
the Jewish
refugees from Arab countries, with the Israeli government setting up
many development towns,
such as Arad, Sderot and Netivot. Whereas the Negev Bedouin
population, of which about 15,000 remained in the Negev after 1948, and increased
to about 27,000 in 1969, Jewish settlement was the principal factor causing the
population density especially in the Beersheba subdistrict to increase. Deep
well drillings in the 1960s yielded water in previously unsuspected quantities.
In the late
60s, a group of African-Americans from Chicago who claimed to be descended from
the ancient Israelites, settled in Dimona. Today, the Hebrew Israelites are a
vibrant community, living mainly in Dimona, who contribute greatly to Israeli
society in spite of the many obstacles the Israeli government puts in their
way. In the past two decades, the Negev has also become home to many of
the Israel Defense Forces' major bases. Blueprint Negev is
a Jewish National Fund project introduced in 2005. The $600 million
project hopes to attract 500,000 new Jewish residents to the Negev by improving
transportation infrastructure, establishing businesses, developing water
resources and introducing programs to protect the environment. A
planned artificial desert river, swimming pools and golf courses raised
concerns among environmentalists. As of 2010, the Negev was home to some
630,000 people (or 8.2% of Israel's
population).
In October
2012, global travel guide publisher Lonely Planet rated
the Negev second on a list of the world's top ten regional travel destinations
for 2013, noting its current transformation through development.
Today, the
Negev is home to such institutions as Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose faculties include the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert
Research and the Albert Katz
International School for Desert Studies,
both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus
adjacent to Sde Boker.
Other sites include: Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, Ashalim and the Ashalim Power Station, the Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, the Negev Nuclear Research Center and reactor, Yatir Forest and Winery, Carmel’s boutique winery at Ramat Arad, the Tishbi Vineyards at Sde Boker, the Barkan Vineyard at Tel Arad, Carmey Avdat - Israel's first solar-powered winery, the Ḥaluẓah, Shunrah, and Agur dunes, Ne'ot Hovav, Ḥaẓevah, Avronah, Yotvatah, Sa'īdiyin, Wadi el-Na'am, Naḥal Besor, Naḥal Be'er Sheva, Naḥal Ḥevron, Naḥal Gerar, Naḥal Paran, the Dead Sea (see posting on the Dead Sea), Mt. Ramon, Mt. Sagi, Mt. Loẓ, Mt. Arif, the Sheluḥat Noẓah ridge, the Edom Mountains, Zin Canyon, and the Sedom salt flats.
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