The Negeb Graziela Tanaka and Tim Sonbuchner

The Geography  Part of the Great Rift extending from the Dead Sea to Elath on the Red Sea coast.  South - the Judean Mountains, the Dead Sea and the ‘Arabah.  West - the boarder runs along the international boundaries between Egypt and Israel.  Area - It forms a large triangle area of 12,500 square kilometers.  Regions – coastal plain in the NW, a central plateau, a mountainous area in the South central part, and a Valley in the East.  It comprises more than one half of Israel's land area. Major cities – Beersheba, Dimona, Arad, and Elat.

Israel

Climate  Rainfall - varies from 300 to 100 mm of rainfall per year.  Temperature - from 23* F (winter) to 100* F (summer)  As moving from South east to north and west, the ground becomes more even, the soil more fertile and the rainfall increases.

Subsistance  North in the Beersheba plain is fertile loess; irrigation is necessary for agriculture.  Agricultural goods - barley, wheat, and citrus fruit.  Mineral extraction - phosphates, copper, clay, bromine, and natural gas  The Bedouins depend on herds of camels and sheeps.

Population  The Negev is a very sparsely populated area  Most of the population is concentrated in the northern part and mainly on the relatively fertile Beersheba plain, which because of its ecological conditions is a center of turbulence.  Continuo settlements occur along the great riverbeds in the northern Negeb.  On the other parts of the Negeb a great part of the populations is of Bedouins.

Bedouins of the Desert

Historic Background  pre-Christian - Semitic tribes.  100BC – 100 AD – Nabatean period  4 th and 5 th century AD Byzantine rule  7th century AD – Arab conquest of the region  After 7 th century - occupied basically by the Bedouins, the nomadic inhabitants of the desert  20 th century - development of the desert began with the establishment of several kibbutzim in the mid-1940s and accelerated after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948

Kibbutz