Ben-Gurion University of the Negev the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research The Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies

Navigating the path from planning paradigm to plan implementation: The case of a new Bedouin locality in Israel

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of “Master of Arts”

By: Abra Berkowitz

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research The Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies

Navigating the path from planning paradigm to plan implementation: The case of a new Bedouin locality in Israel

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of “Master of Arts”

By: Abra S. Berkowitz

Under the Supervision of Sarab Abu-Rabia-Queder Department of Environmental Studies

And Daniel E. Orenstein Department of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion University

Author's Signature …………….……………………… Date …………….

Approved by the Supervisor…………….…………….. Date …………….

Approved by the Director of the School …………… Date ………….…

Navigating the Path from Planning Paradigm to Plan Implementation: The Case of a New Bedouin Locality in Israel

Abra S. Berkowitz, M.A. Student

In partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Arts, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, 2012

The planning paradigm has been used by adherents of different schools of planning thought to claim dominance over the field. Yet, the only academic consensus that appears to have been reached in planning theory is that there is none. This has led some theorists assert that planning theory has fallen into a “postmodern abyss” (Harper and Stein 1995), as it lacks any agreed-upon principles or foundations. In a postmodern world, is there a need for such an inclusive perspective? This MA thesis addresses the question by applying two planning theories, communicative planning and planning-as- control to the case of urban planning for the Abu-Basma Regional Council, a new municipality being planned for the Arab-Bedouin in Israel’s Negev/Naqab Desert.

These theories reflect the divided opinions regarding the program; while planners have represented Abu-Basma as collaborative planning, advocacy organizations and residents assert that the program is nothing more than an attempt by the government to limit the growth of Bedouin settlements.

Through 90 focused interviews with residents, government representatives, planners, academics and activists, we obtained qualitative data on the formation and implementation of urban plans for Abu-Basma localities. This data allowed us to explore the role of the two planning theories in informing and explaining planning and its outcomes. The findings reveal that planners’ attempts to conduct a democratic planning process have come up against the traditional notions of representation in Arab-

Bedouin society, whilst planners’ abilities to meet many residents’ needs were limited before planning began, by the institutional and ideological constraints set upon them by II the Israeli planning system. The findings are organized in two sections: “During

Planning” (as planning proceeded) and “After Planning” (as plans were implemented).

The findings suggest that no single planning theory can accurately explain how planning has proceeded for the Abu-Basma case; rather, both theories provided valuable insights into different aspects of the planning process and its outcomes. This thesis therefore supports the calls of theorists for a pluralism of planning theories, issued from diverse geographic and political contexts (e.g. Watson 2009, Yiftachel 2006), while cautioning against a deterioration into the “postmodern abyss”, in which relativism and ambiguity leave planners and theorists without any direction in which to advance the discipline or any guidelines to inform their work (Harper and Stein 1995). While no one

“paradigm” may exist in a Kuhnian sense, it is suggested that planning theories, when articulated extensively in conjunction with other emerging theories, can serve as invaluable tools to understanding and enhancing practice.

III

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my advisors, Dr. Daniel Orenstein and Dr. Sarab Abu-Rabia, for making a great team- who knew that an anthropologist could an ecologist could get along so well? Thank you for pushing me to “never be lazy!” Sarab, for teaching me to “go to your findings first!”, and to always comment on the theory. Thanks for the constant reminders, Daniel, that the research is “really good stuff!” as well as for the car rides around Haifa and the constant flow of new perspectives you have brought to the research. And thanks again to both of my advisors for their enduring patience, and their encouragement to keep pushing forward. All of those e-mails and meetings helped me to do what I think is, finally, really excellent research.

Thank you to my parents who have supported me for all twenty-five years of my life. You watched me play soccer outside at February ice tournaments, went to every jazz band concert, and read every draft of this thesis, but never had a negative word to say about it. Thank you. Thank you also to my brothers, Ben and Mose, for the endless silliness which had not even seemed to subside from when we were toddlers. Thank you to my grandmother Sophie who passed away while I was writing this thesis; I know you thought that I was relaxing on the beach while I was actually still hunched over a computer, but I remember how proud you were of me. Now I think you can feel that I have finally finished.

Thank you to Deena Knopkin for using her expert collating and binding skills to prepare the copies of this thesis, and to all of those other troublemaking peacebuilders at the Arava Institute, who are the next generation of researchers, rabble-rousers and do- gooders.

Thank you to my friends at Sde Boker, in Provincetown, MA, New Haven, Everett, MA, Tel Aviv and Providence for keeping my head in the books, but reminding me to never stop having fun. Thank you for all of your love, support, silliness and surprises. And particularly, thank you Ashraf, Manar, Yaara, Itai, Hadas, Waad and Amer for your translation help in the field and during transcribing. None of this would have been possible without your patience and friendship.

Thank you to all of my respondents, who shared their lives with a stranger, and some of whom became friends. Thank you in particular to the Local Committee of Umm Batin, for sitting with me numerous times and shuttling me to and from Beer Sheva, for the families in El-Huwashala who are good friends, to the planners, who never ignored my pesky e-mails and to Arale Zohar and Michal Zaibel at the Abu-Basma Regional Council for allowing me to shadow them during their busy work days.

And thank you to myself, for finally letting this work be “good enough”, and letting it go. I hope it will prove interesting.

1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of tables and figures 2 Abbreviations and terms 3 INTRODUCTION 5 Scientific background 10 History of planning theory 10 Communicative planning 15 Planning-as-control 17 Literature review I: Planning for indigenous peoples 19 Literature review II: Planning for Bedouin settlement in Israel 24 METHODOLOGY 36 RESULTS 54 During planning 56 Abu-Basma as a reflection of communicative planning? 57 Episode 1: Local representation 61 Episode 2: Minimizing distortion 72 Limitations 86 Abu-Basma as a reflection of planning-as-control? 94 Episode 1: The Territorial Dimension 100 Episode 2: The Procedural Dimension 109 Limitations 124 After planning: The “Grey Space” 131 Stage 1: Public service provision 139 Stage 2: Neighborhood development 150 DISCUSSION 167 How do different planning theories explain the process of planning and implementation 168 for the Abu-Basma Regional Council? What do the findings reveal about communicative planning and planning-as-control? 173 What, if at all, does planning theory have to contribute to practice? 183 Suggestions for practice 186 REFERENCES 193 APPENDICES

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure Page#

1. The Abu-Basma Regional Council, and 42 existing towns and councils in the Northern Negev

2. Recognized institutional structure of local governance 63

3. Arena of Abu-Basma local planning committee meetings 65

4. “Public meeting” with the local committee of Abu-Tlul 69

5. Physical challenges to accessing public participation 76

6. Bimkom workshop 80

7. Institutional structure of Israeli planning system 104

8. Municipalities in the Southern District of Israel 108

9. Reproduction of map presented by resident to planner 114

10. The unrecognized settlement of Abu-Asheba, and the first 117 neighborhood plan for Abu-Krenat

11. Celebrating village recognition in Kaser al-Ser with the 140 village representative to the Abu-Basma Regional Council

12. New ORT high school and library in Abu-Krenat 141

13. “Saucer road” in Umm Batin, and construction of an illegal wall bordering claim 147

14. The “gray space” between recognition and development in 152 Abu-Basma localities

15. Damaged road signs and women’s center along the main 154 road in Umm Batin

16. A legally built home in Abu-Krenat, and a view of the new 156 neighborhood from Abu-Krenat center

17. Unpermitted housing in Umm Batin and Kaser al-Ser 161

18. Challenges to communication through Abu-Basma’s approach to 169 resident participation in planning.

19. Map of the power of communication and control on Abu-Basma localities 174

Table Page# 1. Stakeholder groups, their contributions to the study and number participants 39

2. Study sites in the Abu-Basma Regional Council 41

3. The goals of the Abu-Basma Regional Council, and its progress 138 in realizing them at two stages of the plan implementation process

4. New problems and new solutions at the stage of neighborhood development 162

Abbreviations and important terms

Abbreviations

CPT: Communicative planning theory

ILA: Israel Lands Authority

IPA: Israel Planners Association

RCUV: Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages

List of terms

Episode: moments of interaction between individuals and their ideas

Governance: the “manner in which power is exercised in the management of…social and economic resources” [Webster’s Dictionary, as cited in World Bank (1991: 1)]. The World Bank specifies that governance is the management of a country's resources; however, this thesis adjusts the definition to be inclusive of the affairs of “political communities” more generally, as Healey (1997: 59) does.

Institution: the norms, values and practices which have endured, appearing as the orders, rules, positions and discourses which organize human activity (Turner 1997: 6; Giddens 1994: 24).

Planning: an “intervention with an intention to alter the existing course of events” (Campbell and Fainstein 1987: 6)

Planning theory: the “telescope” through which students and practitioners understand and interpret the professional and intellectual field of planning. Planning theory is the accumulation of the norms, the goals, the values, the practices and the evaluative criteria which have been developed, tested and adjusted throughout the progression of planning history (Campbell and Fainstein 1996; Forester 2004; Hillier and Healey 2010). Within planning theory, there exist schools of theory, or “systematic, self- contained, analytical and prescriptive sets of ideas on the purpose and practice of planning” (Allmendiger 2002b: 13)

INTRODUCTION

This study examines two planning theories, planning-as-control and communicative planning, within the context of a government planning program for an indigenous group. The researcher asks how both theories may have guided the thinking of planners and administrators. In doing so, the abilities of each theory to explain how planning has proceeded, and the program’s present outcomes, come into question.

Suggestions are then made on how the field of planning theory could be enhanced to provide planners and academics with more realistic understandings of the political terrain of planning, and therein to create projects which better meet planners’ goals. .

The research takes as a case the Abu-Basma Regional Council, a new municipality which has been planned for Israel’s indigenous Arab-Bedouin minority living in the Northern Negev (Naqab, Arabic) Desert. Qualitative methods, including interviews and participant-observation with planners, local residents, representatives of the district and regional government, and representatives of civil society groups have been used to examine the process of how plans are being developed for the localities, how they are implemented, and what changes have been made on-the-ground. It is hoped that the findings will provide deeper insight into the realities of planning for an indigenous minority, including the various social, political and professional challenges planners may face in going about their work. Additionally, the findings reflected by each theory may generate insights into the theories themselves, as their limitations and abilities in explaining the case may suggest their relevance to other government planning projects, within related political contexts.

Planning theory remains in a “paradigm breakdown”1. Prior to the mid-20th century, the professional field of planning had been guided by a rational/procedural

1 The end of the academic consensus and the emergence of gaps between plans government and practice generate a "paradigm breakdown" (Schon 1982: 353). At this point, planning academics, many 6 paradigm, which assumed planning to be a purely technical enterprise, free of political motivations or values. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and ‘70s exposed the problems with these assumptions, as government projects were found to be imbued with political motivations and personal goals. These challenged the ability for urban planning to meet the diverse needs of minority groups (Friedmann 1971; Galloway and

Mahayni 1977). Since then, planning theorists have lamented that planning is “in the doldrums”, as the discipline lacks any agreed-upon approach, and is therefore of “little guidance” to students and practitioners (De Neufville 1983: 35). Planners continue to be accused of succumbing to the “pressures of power” cemented into the a competitive landscape guided by the interests of privilege and politics. Thus over forty years after the Civil Rights Era, planning has still been accused of serving the interests of the most powerful stakeholders (Dyckman 1983: 10).

Planning theory: Planning-as-control and communicative planning

Since the paradigm breakdown, a diversity of planning theories has emerged to bring theory closer to practice. One debate that has generated particular interest in academic circles is the debate between communicative planning and planning-as- oppression/control. The debate provides an example of recent attempts to meet the challenge posed to planning theory since the breakdown of rational/procedural planning. The communicative paradigm suggests norms for participatory planning practice, while planning-as-control emphasizes the role of the state in determining planning outcomes. Interestingly (and of particular relevance to this research), both theories may function contemporaneously. This has been suggested by the father of planning-as-control, Oren Yiftachel: “the two approaches do not stand in opposition, and cannot even be neatly separated” (Yiftachel 2002: 6).

with protest organizations, search for theory which is more suitable to current realities. As new theory accumulates, the earlier paradigm is less and less able to accommodate it, and a new paradigm or paradigms begin to form (Alexander 1984). 7

With only few exceptions, however, recent scholarship on communicative and control theory has worked to promote one theory, or criticize the other. Literature has been polarized by practice stories of good-mannered collaborative planners (Healey

1992a; Forester 1993a, 1999), or passive planners and their power-hungry administrators (Kamete 2007; Flyvbjerg 1998, 2002), or, similarly, by rosy assessments of emancipatory public participation work (Throgmartin 1992, 1996; Albrechts 1997) and bleak evaluations of regressive planning outcomes (Kamete 2009; Yiftachel 2000;

Huxley 1994). Thus other theorists have criticized the discussion as “less an engagement of ideas and more of another example of academics talking past one another” (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger 2002: 216) As Mark Oranje has suggested, in planning theory, “there is nothing but text” (2002: 181); the dialogue between these theories lacks foundations in real planning practice. This denies the contributions emerging scholarship could have to enhancing practice, particularly in the places which need planning most, and similarly denies planning theory the opportunity to restore its legitimacy following the paradigm breakdown.

The case: The Abu-Basma Regional Council

The Abu-Basma Regional Council is a particularly ideal case with which to begin this dialogue. Abu-Basma is a regional government founded in 2003 by the

Interior Ministry of the State of Israel to plan and provide services to twelve Arab-

Bedouin villages. The majority of these localities have been planned over land containing unrecognized Bedouin settlements, meaning that, prior to the inauguration of the new settlements, localities in the area did not appear on government maps, and that the residents of these localities did not receive basic services (Abu-Basma Regional

Council 2010a, b; Shmueli and Khamaisi 2011; Abu-Saad 2008: 1743).

The establishment of Abu-Basma comes at a particularly delicate point in the relationship between the State of Israel and the Negev Bedouin. The Green Patrol, the 8 enforcement arm of Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and the ILA, has continued its policy of demolishing buildings in unrecognized Bedouin villages to encourage the

Bedouin to relocate to planned localities (Human Rights Watch 2008: 33). The unrecognized village of Al-Arakib is a case which in recent years has generated the most significant media attention. Between July 2010 and May 2012, the non-profit organization the Negev Coexistence Forum (NCF) documented thirty-four demolitions in Al-Arakib (Negev Coexistence Forum 2011, 2012b). Bedouin residents and advocates have also joined the global struggle for indigenous land rights, demanding recognition for their land ownership claims and informal settlements in front of the

Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and the United Nations (Meir 2005; Yiftachel 2009a;

Negev Coexistence Forum 2012a). The results of the Abu Basma are therefore viewed by Bedouin residents and advocates as evidence of how the state might proceed in the future, and how residents may respond2.

Abu-Basma is an excellent case for examination through planning-as-control and communicative theory. During the period of study plans continued to be formed for the localities, while implementation had begun in some localities. During this time, an assessment of Abu-Basma had been conducted by a team from Haifa University; therefore, the findings of this study could add to the pool of knowledge generated by the team’s work (Shmueli and Khamaisi 2011)3. Existing literature on the program evokes communicative theory and control theory in its description of the program, classifying planning as participatory (Yahel 2006: 4; Abu-Basma Regional Council 2010a, b), or as a component of the State’s discriminatory planning apparatus (Abu-Saad 2008: 1746;

Berman-Kishony 2010; Negev Coexistence Forum 2010). Nonetheless, like theory, the

2 The former director of the New Israel Fund ’s Abu-Basma Project, a nongovernmental initiative which has given monetary and programmatic support to Abu-Basma, has called Abu-Basma “the acid test of the Government’s sincerity and intentions… a failure [of] Abu Basma would lead to a deterioration in the situation and perhaps to total chaos in the Negev” (Abu-Basma Project 2005). 3 For the final report presented to the Abu-Basma Regional Council, see Khamaisi, Rassem and Shmueli, Deborah. 2009. Abu Basma Regional Council: Preparing for Municipal Reorganization (Final Report for the Abu Basma Regional Council). Haifa, Israel: University of Haifa [in Hebrew]. 9 literature on Abu-Basma can generally be separated along these lines. Present research therefore denies the potentially complementary nature of the theories, and misses the contributions an analysis could serve to enhancing practice. Therefore, this thesis aims to enhance the field of planning knowledge available on the Abu-Basma Regional

Council, and provide closer insights into planning-as-control and communicative theory. In doing so, it examines the aims of planners and administrators against findings on the planning process for the localities and its available outcomes, eight years after the establishment of Abu-Basma.

The study investigates the following research questions:

1. How do different scholars, practitioners and activists apply planning theories to

explain the process of planning and implementation for the Abu-Basma

Regional Council?

2. How do the reflections of both theories in the case explain how planning has

proceeded and been implemented?

3. What do these findings indicate about the applicability of planning-as-control

and communicative planning theory?

4. What, if at all, does planning theory have to contribute to practice?

SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND

Overview

The section begins with an overview of the history of planning theory, starting with Modernist-era planning, and moving towards the “breakdown” of the rational- procedural approach. Planning theories which have been developed following the

“breakdown” are then described, and introduced to a particularly complex planning project, government planning for indigenous peoples. The background section closes with a discussion of the history of planning for Bedouin in Israel, and an overview of the case, the Abu-Basma Regional Council.

History of planning theory: Pre-paradigm to post-breakdown

Planning, as it is considered here, is an “intervention with an intention to alter the existing course of events” (Campbell and Fainstein 1987: 6). This research primarily addresses one form of planning, urban planning. Urban planning is concerned with “designing and regulating the uses of space” by considering the “urban form, economic functions and social impacts of the urban environment” (Fainstein 1998).

Planning theory can be most clearly understood as a “telescope”, in that “our ability to see [an] issue clearly depends on the equipment we use…the theoretical frame we use for the questions we ask and how we understand the answers”4 (Forester 2004, in

Hillier and Healey 2010: 4).

Throughout the progression of planning theory, theorists have debated the best lenses through which to understand and approach current problems. The focus of this

4 Innes adds that theory “has helped students and academics to see planning, and has helped planners to see themselves” (Innes 1995: 183). While these descriptions have been provided by communicative theorists, they support the prescriptions for theory put forward by other theories and paradigms, including those of planning-as-control. For more about the “lens” metaphor of planning theory, see Harris, N. (2000) Practice Through a Len: A Metaphor for Planning Theory. Journal of Planning Education and Research: 309-315. 11 thesis is on two schools of theory which form part of a recent “postmodern turn” in planning thought. These theories have rejected positivist notions of a universal truth, and rejected earlier assumptions that there exists one, “rational” approach to doing planning work (Allmendiger 2002: 86-7). Following thinkers like Foucault and

Bourdieu, postmodern theorists have become particularly concerned with the aspects of

“power” in planning- how it is mobilized through formal and informal channels of planning and governance, and how it may determine outcomes. Power is understood here as a “question of ‘capacity’, which “brings into play relations between individuals

(or between groups)” (Foucault 1982: 786).

Rational-procedural planning

Planning theory emerged out of the Modernist movement of the early 20th century. Modernism was a response to the decline of the great industrial cities in North

America and Europe (Fishman 2003; Beauregard 2003). Modernist planners produced models of massive urban renewal projects, which they hoped to replicate in industrial cities throughout the world. The movement is often captured with a quote from Daniel

Burnham, the architect responsible for the master plan of Chicago: “make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized” (Burnham 1909, quoted in Beauregard 1991: 19). Changing space was understood to alter society; therefore, transforming places was believed to realize a better society.

Like Burnham, however, the majority of Modernist planners were architects, and had not considered the complex social processes operating within urban space

(Beauregard 2003; Taylor 1999). Plans also lacked clear methods to implement them. In the 1960s, the rational-procedural planning approach emerged in response. Rational- procedural planners understand planning to be apolitical and value-free. The work of 12 theorists such as Britton Harris, Harvey Perloff and Edward Banfield transformed urban planning from a discipline in “creative design” to “scientific analysis” (Taylor 1999:

330). Planning practice became a “rational process of problem identification, goal definition, analysis, implementation, and evaluation” (Klosterman 1985: 12) 5.

Rational-procedural theory developed following advancements in the physical and social sciences, adopting Thomas Kuhn’s concept of the paradigm6. In Kuhn's version, a paradigm is a theoretical approach to doing science which explains natural phenomena (Kuhn 1970). In planning, the paradigm shares its definition with the field of policy analysis, as “a set of ideas that make sense of the world, similar to concepts of ideologies and discourses...[which] ‘permeate established practice, and orient the thinking of professionals within particular policy communities’” (Orenstein and

Hamburg 2009: 985, citing Howlett 1994 and Stewart 2006). Like the Kuhnian paradigm, the planning paradigm has an explanatory component which interprets expressions of society and space, and a prescriptive component which promotes norms and methods7 (Galloway and Mahayni 1977; Faludi 1982; Yiftachel 1989). Theories achieving paradigm status, or what is known as academic consensus, were believed to be capable of defining the range of problems facing different communities, and to guide practitioners in addressing them.

5 See Harris (1960), McLoughlin (1969), Keeble (1969), and Faludi (1973) for essential texts in rational- procedural planning theory. 6 Effrat (1973) introduced the Kuhnian paradigm to political sociology. Galloway and Mahani (1977) brought Effrat’s interpretation to planning. This was then adapted by theorists from the rational/procedural school, such as Andreas Faludi (1979). 7 A style of practice includes the steps of cognitive and physical work in the formation and implementation of plans, such as mapping, stakeholder selection, public participation, budgeting and plan submission, and the order each step is taken in. 13

Paradigm breakdown and beyond

Planning theory was left in a “paradigm breakdown” 8 following the Civil

Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s in North America and Europe (Schon 1982:

353; Yiftachel 1989). Social movements revealed that many of the problems plaguing urban communities had endured, despite the earlier attempts by planners to address them. This generated a gap between the projections of planners, rooted in theory, and the outcomes of their work in practice. Planners had overlooked the diverse meanings of “good” to different individuals and groups, and had not addressed the historical embeddedness of social problems such as poverty and substance abuse. As a result, many of the social inequalities which divided places prior to planners’ interventions persisted (Friedmann 1971). Other factors were found to permeate practice and to be overlooked by rational planning theory, such as the intrusion of politics in plans outside of open channels and forums (Kiernan 1983). This led several planning theorists to describe a gap between theory, what planning should be, and practice, what it actually was (De Neufville 1983; Brooks 1998).

Since the breakdown, planning academia has produced a flurry of theoretical work which has attempted to account for the people, processes and values theorists had missed. The concept of the “paradigm” has reappeared in claims by some theorists to having sufficiently developed their new approaches, such that they have reached consensus in the literature (See Innes 1995; Bagheri and Hjorth 2007; Banister 2008;

Beatley 1995). Others have suggested that paradigms, including remnants of the

8 A “paradigm breakdown” has been said to occur when the prevailing paradigm can no longer account for scientific anomalies (Schon 1982: 353). In urban planning, changes in the values of planners, politicians and publics challenge the ability of the paradigm, built on prior values, to satisfactorily address common interests. This can generate a disconnect between spatial policies and the urban environment (Friedmann 1971; Galloway and Mahayni 1977; deNeufville 1983). At this point, academics search for theory which can better describe and address current realities. As new theories accumulate, the earlier paradigm is less and less able to accommodate them, and a new paradigm or paradigms may begin to form. A “paradigm shift” occurs when a new paradigm gains hold, proving more capable of addressing and explaining new realities than its competitors and the old paradigm (Kuhn 1970: 23).

14 rational/procedural model, can actually coexist and even be complementary, while their relevance might differ by geopolitical context9 or by the stage of planning and implementation (Allmendiger 2002a: 84; Alexander 2000; Sager 1993; Sandercock

1998). Most recently, theory has been developed into a powerful analytical tool.

Postmodern planning theorists, such as Leonie Sandercock and Philip Allmendinger, have suggested that “adhering to one [paradigm] rather than another involves a political choice rather than scientific verification…it involves questions of values and allegiances” (Sandercock 1998: 103), and have therefore promoted (1998) methods which examine planning outcomes. Planning literature has reflected this trend, as both case studies and theorizing have begun in contexts outside of the global North, and have explored practice through the lenses of multiple planning theories.10

Recently, two planning theories have stirred debate in planning academia. The first, “communicative planning” (Healey 1992b; Innes 1995), advocates for a focus on the fine-grain of planning work through a focus on public engagement while the second,

“planning-as-control” (Yiftachel 1998), contemplates the possibility for regressive impacts of planning through severe imbalances of power. Both have been selected for consideration in this thesis because they have ignited significant debate in the literature, between theory adherents (Healey 2000, 2003b; Hoch 2007; Huxley and Yiftachel

2000; Huxley 2000; Flyvbjerg and Richardson 2002: 44), and from theorists in other schools of thought (Mäntysalo 2002; Oranje 2002; Allmendinger and Tewdr-Jones

2002; Hillier 2003).

9 Particularly relevant here are the different political conditions under which planning occurs, as these are responsible for generating planning policy. It is also acknowledged that even within national borders, local governments have been found to advance planning paradigms. One example can be found in Bäcklund and Mäntysalo’s analysis of citizen participation in the planning councils of five Finnish cities, in which different councils could be classified by different paradigms (2010). 10 See Healey (2007), Brand and Gaffikin (2007), and Lo Piccolo (2008) and for assessments of multiple planning paradigms by grounding them in case studies.Orenstein et al. (2011) and Orenstein and Hamburg (2009) are two examples of assessments of planning projects using planning theory. Flyvbjerg (2004, 2002) are examples of the benefits of qualitative research methods to planning academia. 15

Communicative planning

Communicative planning theory (CPT, for short), assumes that planning should serve as a tool for social justice and environmental preservation. Communicative planning has been called “transformative” because it mandates planners to make a situation better than it was before by forming new relationships, building social capital, and building new, shared, understandings (Healey 1999: 114). To do so, all stakeholders should be represented in planning discussions through a fair representation in familiar ways of communicating (Innes and Booher 1999; Healey 2007).

Communicative planning theorists view planning practice as having lost its way due to the dominance of a “scientific rationality” which guided rational/procedural planning

(Healey 1997). Therefore, theorists encourage alternative knowledges in planning to be heard through personal stories, conversations and intuitions (Innes 1998). By listening to these stories, planners are believed to make strides in mitigating the risk of misinformation or domination.

CPT emerged out of the work of the comprehensive planners of the 1980s, who widened the scope of planning work. Comprehensive planners had developed an understanding of the “several structuring dimensions” which shaped outcomes, which could not be accounted for by a traditional planning process (Healey 2003b: 103). The results of planning were found to be influenced by the relationships which had been built through the planning process, and had been sustained through plan implementation. The value dimensions of communicative planning theory take influence from the work of the advocacy planners of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Paul

Davidoff (1965) and David Harvey (1973). These theorists first tied the values of social justice and environmental preservation to planning, and identified public exclusion 16 from the planning process as one cause of the sometimes regressive impacts of rational/procedural planning.11

Much of CPT is rooted in Jürgen Habermas’ theory of “communicative action”

(1984). Habermas’ “ideal speech” is central to CPT (1984). By achieving “ideal speech”, it is believed that “communication will no longer be distorted by the effects of power, self-interest or ignorance” (Norris 1985: 149). In planning, “ideal speech” has been translated into the values for “democratic, multi-vocal citizenship” (Healey 2007:

78). Theorists have also included Giddens’ “structuration” theory (1984) to consider how individuals change and are controlled by society, as well as Bourdieu and James S.

Coleman, in which ability to participate in planning is determined by a participants’

“social capital”(Healey 2007).

Communicative planning theorists aim to close the theory-practice gap by shifting their attention away from “armchair theorizing” by rational/procedural theorists to real-life planning situations (Innes 1995; 183). CPT therefore has a clear practical component. As explained by Healey (1999), “through learning how to collaborate, a richer and more broadly based understanding and awareness of locality relations and conflicts can develop, through which collective approaches to resolving conflicts may emerge” (116). Theorists view what they term “communicative acts”, or “episodes”12— moments of interaction among stakeholders and their ideas—to be highly influential in shaping the outcomes of plans (Healey 1992b, 2007: 67). Close engagement with these episodes is thought to reveal power relations which may advance or constrain participants’ arguments. Planners and theorists are therefore tasked with testing

11 Summarizing the work of David Harvey (1973), “social justice has a dimension of both outcome and process, a just outcome justly arrived at” (Healey 2003b: 105). 12 Healey (2007) calls “specific episodes” “the visible world of people and positions”, in “specific institutional ‘sites’ or arenas where ideas are expressed, strategies played out, ‘decsisions’ made and power games fought out (67). 17 assumptions and validity claims for ideal speech conditions: “comprehensibility, sincerity, legitimacy and truth” (Healey 2003b: 110).

Communicative planning theorists prescribe a research agenda which explores sensitive ways of mobilizing public input, and tests them through practice. They frequently produce “practice stories” which narrate a day in the life of a planner to demonstrate good practice, or critical examinations of particular episodes of participation, such as local council meetings (Healey 1992a, 2007; Forester 1993a,

1999; Throgmorton 1992, 1996; Albrechts 1999). These studies frequently are grounded within the context of liberal democracies, such as in United Kingdom and the

United States. Others, however, have addressed projects designed to empower underserved communities, such as children and indigenous peoples (Healey 1996;

Agius, Jarvis and Howitt 2003; Speak 2000). Planners are therefore expected to see the exertions of power in moments of information distortion13, anbd design communicative infrastructures which do not succumb to them.

Planning-as-control

Planning-as-control theory was introduced in the late 1990s by critical geographer Oren Yiftachel. Yiftachel developed the theory in response to what he perceived as a trend in planning thought to assume the beneficial qualities of planning, and to ignore its potential to produce regressive outcomes. Yiftachel premises his theory on the work of advocacy planners such as David Harvey and Emmanual Castells, both who have drawn attention to negative outcomes of dominant planning approaches, such as environmental degradation and a widening of the inequalities between social groups. Therefore, rather than prescribe planning methods, planning-as-control theorists such as Flyvbjerg (1996), Hillier (2002) and others, question the foundations of

13 Forester (1989) calls moments when the free expression of ideas is limited, as “distortions”. Healey adds that “a communication is distorted when it reduces the hearer’s capacity to grasp what is happening, when it renders a situation more opaque rather than more transparent, or when a hearer is deliberately misinformed” (1992a: 18). 18 planning itself. They introduce the idea that planning is “double-edged” (Yiftachel

1998: 395). Planning is understood as having the potential to be reformist, and therein lead to an improvement in people’s lives, and to be oppressive- to lead to “a regressive deepening of intergroup disparities, inequalities, or undemocratic domination”

(Yiftachel 1998: 395).

Control theory is heavily influenced by Michel Foucault’s concept of the

“modernity project” (Foucault 1977, 1980.) Modern developments, such as the planning office, are understood as having been constructed upon the foundations of the nation- state. Therefore, the state has empowered itself to determine the nature of planning projects through the powers and hierarchies it has engineered into the planning system.

This has enabled administrators to “define the parameters” of planning within their imagined jurisdiction (Kamete 2009: 901).

Planning-as-control theorists prescribe evaluations of planning systems and programs to reveal the power dynamics that may influence their procedures and outcomes. Studies have searched for the “real-rationalitat”, or real-rationality motivating planning projects (Flyvbjerg 1998), and have examined planning through the different “dimensions” of planning control. Considered here, dimensions of planning control are the territorial dimension, the procedural dimension, the socioeconomic dimension, and the cultural dimension (Yiftachel 1998). Since introduced by its theorists, planning-as-control theory has particularly ignited work from the global

South (Watson 2009; Yiftachel 2006a). Its seminal texts continue to be applied to case studies, as in Kamete’s study of an urban renewal project in Zimbabwe, and Tovi

Fenster’s studies on planning for women of minority groups (Kamete 2009; Fenster

1999).

Similar to communicative planning theory, control theory is oriented towards practice. Rather than define an approach, however, control theorists suggest that “the 19 first step to being moral is realizing that we are not” (Flyvbjerg 2006: 387). They prescribe self-reflection and criticism as a means to step outside of the power structures which may constrain planners’ work.

Planning for indigenous peoples in settler-states14

Modernist planning and colonialism

Both communicative planning theory and planning-as-control address planning for groups which had been marginalized by the rational/procedural approach. . One such group, indigenous peoples, had been perceived by planners to conflict with the

“rationality” of rational-procedural planning, and to threaten the territorial control of the nation-state. Indigenous peoples were initially the passive recipients of planning projects which had been designed to meet the settlement needs of white settlers. Settler movements from Europe during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries had imprinted familiar

European building models on the unfamiliar landscapes of the New World, building frontier cities like Perth, Western Australia, and New Orleans, Louisiana over indigenous territories (Jacobs 1996: 105; Bodley 1998). The projects were facilitated by land tenure policies that had been imported from Europe. These policies defined land ownership according to European terms, and therefore empowered colonial cadastral offices to register indigenous lands as state property15 (Garrison 2002; Banner 2005).

All settler states discussed here—Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the

United States—have integrated public participation into their planning approaches. The governments within these countries, however, have been reluctant to relinquish territorial control to indigenous groups. This is particularly clear in the different

14 The definition of settler-state is provided by Perry (1996: 167), referencing Denoon (1983), as “a state in which the predominant population arises from immigrants and the Indigenous population has become a displaced minority”. 15 One example often cited by the literature is the term terra nullius, or “land unoccupied”, applied by the British colonizers of Australia to the ancestral lands of the Aboriginal people (Jacobs 1996: 105-106; Jackson 1997: 222; Sandercock 2003: 24). 20 approaches taken to settling indigenous landownership claims. As will be seen, the progression of government planning for indigenous peoples throughout history illustrates a classic tension between the aspirations of indigenous groups, and the limitations of the government planning system. Simultaneously, developments in planning reflect progressions in planning theory, as new ideas on collaboration and preservation have become integrated into everyday practice. This creates a dynamic environment in which indigenous groups in some countries have begun to make significant gains by participating in the affairs which affect their regions. These changes are found to depend on the political contexts in which indigenous peoples live.

In North America and Australia, the first direct efforts at planning for indigenous peoples were regional concentration programs. These programs were implemented through treaties which transferred valuable lands to the Crown, and concentrated indigenous peoples to native reserves (Ladner 2001; Jackson 1997;

Graham and Peters 2002). These massive projects served as important platforms for the development of national identity, which was guided by the idea of a non-indigenous frontier culture, shared by settlers and immigrants through the common struggle of building a nation (Yiftachel 1995). This identity was advanced by isolating indigenous peoples and settlers spatially.

Modernism as a paradigm informed the “top-down” implementation of these projects, and the moral justification for projects often driven by politics and self-interest

(Sandercock 2002, 2003; Scott 1998). Indigenous peoples were included by planners in the planning process to convince them of the benefits or inevitability of projects such as deforestation and quarrying. This conveyed the “futility and impossibility of opposition” (Wells 1995, citing Jackson 1997). As a product of the Enlightenment, regional development programs were assumed to be universal goods because they made 21 production more efficient. In the case of prairie development in New Zealand, for example, settlers were believed to have “removed ‘uneconomic’ (Maori) owners from fertile and accessible land in order to replace them with ‘productive’ and ‘scientific’

(pakeha) farmers” (Hill 2004: 67-8).

Results of modernist planning and state response

The problems with the Modernist planning were exposed during the 20th century. A spatial separation between rural indigenous peoples and urban white settlers, an original goal of settler governments in promoting the exclusion programs, was never fully realized. Settlers continued to desire the natural resources in “Indian country”, and colonial cities relied on indigenous labor for blue-collar work (Sandercock 1998: 17;

Jacobs 1996: 108). Native reservations were plagued by the social and environmental impacts of a rapid transition to town living, including pollution, unemployment, substance abuse and homelessness, among others. These problems were exacerbated by the deprivation of indigenous peoples from their cultural and economic resources, due to colonial-era extraction projects (Anderson 1993; Roos 2008; Distasio, Sylvestere and

Mulligan 2005; Cornell 2006). As a result, indigenous peoples began leaving government reserves and settling in informal neighborhoods on urban peripheries.

The rise of rational/procedural planning led to a series of assimilation strategies which would integrate indigenous peoples into mainstream society and culture without compromising the stratification of settler society, or the autonomy of settler governments. These included urban employment programs, education vouchers, and low income housing16 (Walker and Barcham 2010; Anderson 1993; Burt 1986; Long

2000). These solutions addressed the visible expressions of colonialism, such as

16 In New Zealand, the short-lived practice of “pepperpotting” encouraged indigenous people to migrate to cities and settle in white suburbs. It was hoped, suggest Walker and Barcham (2010) that through the practice “they too would adopt the nuclear family lifestyle and work habits” (322). 22 homelessness, rather than corrected more deeply rooted problems, such as distributional injustice (Jacobs 1996).

Beginning in the late 1980s, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have instituted reforms in their planning and land ownership policies. Policymakers have begun to respond to the pressures of advocacy organizations for solutions which could recognize cultural needs and tribal or family landholdings, while more aggressively tackling the problems approached through the earlier assimilation strategies. Planning in the late

1990s through 2000s reflects developments in theory, such as the idea of reconciling power imbalances through communicative planning (Porter 2006; Cosgrove and Kliger

1997; Berke and Ericksen et al. 2002). Tools such as “code-switching (Umemoto 2001) and therapeutic storytelling (Dale 1999; Sandercock 2000b) recognize the multiple meanings places may have, and the diverse ways of talking about them. Environmental impact assessments (Chase 1990; Craig and Ehrlich 1996) have informed community- based management programs, and working committees (Anderson 1999) have localized governance over indigenous areas (Dale 1999; Loomis and Mahima 2001; Lane and

Corbett 2005).

In New Zealand and Canada, agreements between indigenous organizations and the national governments have given legal jurisdiction over reserve lands to Maori and

First Nations people (Richardson and Craig et al. 1995; Millette 2001). These agreements have empowered claimants with the legal abilities to make planning decisions for their localities. In these countries, as well as in the United States and

Australia, co-management agreements have recently provided indigenous groups with access to their off-reservation resources, such as fisheries. Nonetheless, with the exception of New Zealand and Canada, land ownership agreements remain inconsistent and nonbinding (Garrison 2002: 243-4; Gibson 1999). Recognition of indigenous 23 claims has been granted as if the connection with the land were “just another land use”

(Sandercock 2000a: 139). This ignores the importance of access and title to indigenous peoples as concerns which trump land uses given the same weight by the agreements

(Sandercock 2000a: 139).

There is also evidence that participation by indigenous peoples in planning continues to be only lip-service. Lacking oversight, programs like community-based management programs, have succumbed to the “tyranny of localism”, in which powerful local interests have controlled communicative infrastructures to, and secure resources for individual gains (Lane and Corbett 2005), while indigenous municipalities have not received the support they need to run sustainably their own affairs (Alfred

2005: 37; Walker and Barcham 2010).

Predictions and prescriptions for how planning for indigenous peoples will or should proceed has begun to popularize urban planning literature. Some scholars have suggested that settler states are entering a period of “postcolonialism” (Sandercock

2000a; Hibbard and Lane et al. 2008; Ross, Grant and Robinson et al. 2008).Others believe that planning is nowhere past colonialism, because projects continue to replicate the power imbalances set in place by colonization. Questions over the distribution of land and resources remain off the table (Jackson 1997; Moreton-Robinson 2003; Lane

2006; Dale 1999; Porter 2006). These conversations reflect the debate in planning theory over communicative planning and planning-as-control, in which changes are believed to come up against of ceiling of state control. They moreover suggest that debate over the place of indigenous peoples within state-based planning systems will continue to popularize planning literature.

Planning for Bedouin in the Negev, Israel

A review of literature on planning for the Bedouin in the Negev Desert, Israel indicates that government planning projects have in some ways reflected progressions in planning thought. Here, a brief history of the government interventions in Bedouin territory will be provided. Then, Israel’s programs for the Bedouin will be explored in- depth, followed by a deeper overview of the case, the Abu-Basma Regional Council.

Historical overview of Bedouin in the Middle East

Bedouin receive their name for their traditional lifestyles as peoples of the desert, or badia. ‘Arab Bedouin are known as the “real” Bedouin17, who migrated North from the

Arabian Peninsula between the 5th century AD through the 19th century, settling in what is today Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Sinai, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories

(Bailey 1985; Marx 1977). In the Negev, ‘Arab Bedouin were semi-nomadic. They migrated up to 4,000km2 annually, growing crops in the south in the winter months, and migrating north in the summer to graze their flocks (Dinero 2004; Marx 1977). Each tribe served traditionally as a large political organization, which governed the resources and property that fell within its jurisdiction (Såhlins 1968; Fabetti 1991).

Before the introduction of modernist planning, Bedouin farmlands and dwellings were divided spatially by tribal sub-unit, while pasture and wells were common property of the tribe (Meir 1997: 85, 86).18 Bedouin society was stratified into three social groups: ‘Arab Bedouin, fellaheen (share-croppers), and ‘abid(African slaves). The distinctions among these three groups are particularly relevant today for the question of land ownership.

17 This term has been taken from Bailey (1985), to indicate indigenous Arab peoples with claims to land ownership. It addresses specifically Bedouin who were nomadic, as opposed to Arab cultivators. 18 These, in declining order, include the extended family (hamula), and the nuclear family (Manor- Binyamini 2011; Al-Krenawi, Maoz and Reicher 1994) 25

'Arab Bedouin migrated the earliest of the three groups, fighting to gain control of the territory in what is today known as the Negev (Meir 1997:77). They have continuously sought to maintain their socio-spatial dominance over the other groups by retaining control of these lands (dira) (Kressel, Ben-David and Abu-Rabia 1991).

Fellaheen generally arrived to the Negev from North Africa, and tilled land they rented from the ‘Arab Bedouin. ‘Abid arrived the latest to the region of these three groups, leaving modern-day Egypt and Sudan to work as slaves under ‘Arab Bedouin lords and fellaheen cultivators (Al-Krenawi and Graham 1999). Before state intervention, the stratification of the three groups was largely maintained, as the groups relied on one another to maintain production.

Bedouin under the Ottomans and the British, 1516-1948

Overall, Ottoman and British administrators in the area of Mandate Palestine did not see a “Bedouin problem” (Kressel, Ben-David and Abu-Rabia 1991: 30). Under both administrations, Bedouin leaders were co-opted to act in the state’s interests (see

Greene 2005, Abu Rabia 2001: 31–2, Nasara 2011, among others), as the authority of

“Bedouin law” in unpatrolled rural areas and the seasonal movement of tribes threatened the control of the foreign administrations. Nonetheless, government interventions in Bedouin affairs were generally based on cooperation, rather than force.

A commonly cited example is the planning of the city of Beersheva under the

Ottomans, which had been planned as a residence for notables of the Bedouin Al-

Azazme tribe, and as a regional administration center and military outpost for the provincial government. Despite not holding a legal title to the lands, the Al-Azazme tribe was compensated by Ottoman administrators for the lands which had been used to develop the city (Abu Rabia 2001: 31–2). 26

Besides these few stories, however, academic literature on the Negev Bedouin living in the Negev under these administrations is “sparse” (Kark and Frantzman 2012:

54). In most tellings, the Negev Bedouin are portrayed as the passive recipients of

Ottoman and Mandate policies, which largely ignored the Bedouin anyway19 (see

Shmueli 1980; Marx 2000; for some examples), Recent scholarship gives a more complex picture of relations between the Bedouin and these governments, however.

Some scholars have given the Bedouin a significant amount of power in influencing

British and Ottoman policies, having advanced the interests of their families and tribes by serving in important leadership positions under the Ottoman and British. The provision of regional educational facilities and wage labor positions during World War

I are some examples (Nasara 2011; Abu-Rabia 2005).

Other scholars describe the intervention of the British differently, as having aggressively outlawed many of traditional occupations of the Bedouin, such as smuggling, and having denied outright some of the Bedouins’ important cultural demands, such as their claims to landownership (Kark and Frantzman 2012). Both cases illustrate an approach taken by regional administrators which perceived the Bedouin as genuine threats to the stability of the empire. Therefore, prior to the intervention of

Israeli authorities, Bedouin leaders can be understood as having had some power in determining their affairs. They collaborated with the government when their offerings were found to be favorable, and opposed them, when they were not. This mixture of compliance and resistance, combined with the intrusion of new geopolitical borders and shifting land uses and environmental conditions in the region, set forth a gradual process of Bedouin sedentarization (Shmueli 1980; Meir 1986). By 1948, many of the

19 While Shmueli (1980) has described Bedouin sedentarization as “influenced by the changes brought by the British Mandate” (260) , rather than by Bedouin engagement with the regime, Marx (2000) has suggested more generally that, “the British mandatory government had largely left the Bedouin to their own devices” (108). 27

65,000 Bedouin living in the Negev had settled in semi-permanent dwellings across

4,000 km2 (Dinero 2011: 3; Meir 1988).

Bedouin of the Negev/Naqab under the State of Israel

Regional concentration20,1948-1966

The victory of the Jewish army (haHagana in Hebrew) in the War of

Independence (also known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War) led 80% of the Arab population of mandatory Palestine to flee or be removed by Israeli authorities (Masalha

1992). By 1949, the 11,000 Bedouin who remained in the Negev were concentrated by military order to a temporary enclosure zone of 1,000 km2 just east of Beer Sheva (Meir

1997: 65). Relocating the Bedouin to this area (known as sayig in Hebrew) freed 1,000 km2 of Bedouin lands for state use. The state expropriated it through a combination of new and inherited land tenure policies, triggering an ongoing land dispute between the

Israel Lands Authority (ILA), the landholding arm of the State of Israel, and the Negev

Bedouin.21 During this time, known as the Military Administration, roughly forty-five

“spontaneous”22 villages were developed by the Bedouin living in the sayig according to traditional landholdings and family affiliations (Shmueli 1980; Marx 2000; Forman and Kedar 2004). These villages lacked basic services, with the exception of the few schools and clinics which had been built by British administrators and residents during the Mandate. During this time, residents suffered many economic hardships as a result

20 The categories of “regional concentration” and “local-urban concentration” are provided by Shmueli and Khamaisi as two of the “three main periods” in Israeli planning policy for the Bedouin (2011: 113). 21 Including the Absentee’s Property Law of 1950, the Defense (Emergency) Regulations, 1945, and the Emergency Regulations (Cultivation of Waste Lands) of 1949 (Jiryis 1973). 22 This term is used here with the recognition that it promotes a Modernist rhetoric which classifies Bedouin settlements as chaotic, and therefore awaiting government regulation. Dinero (2011) adds that the term abdicates the responsibility of the State, whose early policies triggered them (7). Nonetheless, “spontaneous” distinguishes unrecognized Bedouin settlements from the towns and villages planned by the government. 28 of the limits set on their access to pastures and agricultural areas (Abu-Rabia 1994;

Kressel, Ben-David and Abu-Rabia 1991).

Urban townships program, 1966-1991

As in the cases of colonial Australia and the United States, the State of Israel passed land tenure policies early into its administration which empowered government agencies to make planning decisions for the people living within its borders, including the Bedouin (Rangwala 2004; Rosen-Zvi 2004). In 1966, when the military order was lifted, the government sought out planning solutions for the Bedouin which could meet their immediate needs for housing and services, while accommodating the state’s other development objectives (Shmueli and Khamaisi 2011; Dinero 2004: 262). The government settled on urban settlements for the Bedouin, which planners believed could accommodate a large number of residents over a small amount of area, and be relatively inexpensive in terms of service provision (Horner 1982). Seven urban settlements were built within the sayig area between the years of 1966 and 1971. Each town has been planned to accommodate 15,000-25,000 people. Recently, additional neighborhoods have been planned in the towns, including in the largest of the towns, the city of Rahat.

The towns program has been criticized as having the objective to end the land dispute between Bedouin and the State, which is the result of the competing claims of the Bedouin and the Israeli government to lands in the Negev (Marx 2000). The

Bedouin had been given the opportunity to register their claims with the government in the early 1970s23 (Krakover 1999). Thereafter, registered claims were brought to court to decide who was the rightful landowner. Unlike the Bedouin living in the Galilee

23 Bedouin claim 748,327 dunums, out of the approximately 3 million dunums in the Negev (Krakover 1999: 559; Kliot and Medzini 1985: 431). No land dispute has been found in favor of a Negev Bedouin claimant. For more on the land dispute between the Negev Bedouin and the State of Israel, from a variety of perspectives, see Falah (1989), Shamir (1996) and Yahel (2006). 29 region of Israel, Bedouin living in the south had generally not registered their lands with the Ottoman or British authorities. Sources provide a variety of explanations for their decision, including a general fear of laws and authorities, a lack of awareness about the tapu surveys, a desire to avoid paying taxes and extra fees related to land registration, and a feeling that registration was unnecessary, as their lands were recognized practically by other Bedouin and even by some authorities (Kressel, Ben-

David and Abu-Rabia 1991; Abu-Rabia 2001: 11; Yahel 2006). Bedouin claimants brought to court have therefore lacked the registration papers that would indicate to

Israeli authorities that their claims are valid.24

Land ownership is tied to the towns program, because the relocation of the

Bedouin claimant to a planned town is contingent on the resolution of his outstanding land disputes. Only when the claimant has terminated his claim, or has brought his case to court, can he and his family receive compensation to demolish his home in his unrecognized village, and build on a subsidized plot in the planned town (Marx 2000:

110).

Available data on the Bedouin towns indicate that the program has somewhat succeeded in relocating the Bedouin from their unrecognized villages (Dinero 2011: 24-

5). Over 127,000 Bedouin lived in the towns in 2010, and they continue to attract more residents each year (Dinero 2004; Shmueli and Khamaisi 2011: 112). Despite initial setbacks in basic service provision, all towns have public schools, clinics, community centers and infrastructures (Yahel 2006). Information from the Central Bureau of

Statistics (CBS) indicates annual increases in high school graduation rates, and a narrowing gap between the education levels of male and female residents (Dinero 1998;

24 For more on the land dispute between the Negev Bedouin and the State of Israel, from a variety of perspectives, see Falah (1989), Shamir (1996) and Yahel (2006). 30

Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute 2012). There is also evidence that residents have begun to take over leadership positions in the towns (Meir 1997: 202).

Nonetheless, there are also many criticisms of the towns. All towns are faced with similar problems: partial settlement due to conflicting land ownership claims, corruption in local government, incomplete service provision, environmental hazards, high unemployment, welfare dependency, and increasing crime rates (Lithwick 2002;

Dinero 2004; Diamond, Farhat and Al-Amor et al. 2008). Critics in academia have faulted in part a rational/procedural approach to planning the towns, which had ignored many of the important distinctions of unrecognized villages, such as their low population density, and their organic separation among tribes and families. This has perhaps most impacted women living in the towns (Fenster 1999; Abu-Saad et al. 1999;

Meir 2011), and employment (Abu-Rabia 2000; Lithwick 2002; Meir and Baskind

2006). For women, urbanization has restricted their enjoyment of public amenities due to the lack of geographic separation between different families (Fenster 1999a, b;

Jakubowska 1988). The towns may have also altered the organization of Bedouin society, and therein added tension to the relationships among the three groups, as fellahin, once the tenants on the lands of the ‘Arab Bedouin, have migrated to the townships and benefitted from the government’s package of compensation, while ‘Arab

Bedouin have more frequently remained in their unrecognized villages (Meir and Ben-

David 1995; Kressel, Ben-David and Abu-Rabia 1991: 31).

Criticisms have often been grounded in planning theory. Some fault planners for imposing the “Western” rational/procedural model on “non-Western” peoples, therein creating models which do not fit the people they were planned for (Glaubman and Katz

2003: 181; Horner 1982). These scholars have also criticized public participation in planning the towns. Moves to incorporate Bedouin into planning later settlements, such 31 as ‘Arara baNegev and Kseifa, have been only “minor modifications and improvements…[to the] formula ” (Lithwick 2002: 12-13). Participation was actually coercive, used as a tool by planners to convince residents to acquiesce to plans formed prior to resident inclusion in the planning process (Fenster 1993, Kressel, Ben-David and Abu-Rabia 1991).25

Other scholars, evoking planning-as-control theory, suggest that the Bedouin townships are an example of the exertion of ethnically-driven socio-spatial control by the Israeli government. They point to the continued approach to negotiating land ownership claims (Falah 1989; Yiftachel 2008), to evidence of discrimination in regional planning (Tzfadia 2005; Orenstein and Hamburg 2009; Fenster 1993; 2001), and to the persisting social inequalities between the Bedouins and Jews living in the

Negev, despite some efforts to improve the towns through enhancements to public services (Abu-Saad 2008) as indicators of the state’s power and priorities. Fenster

(1993; 2001) suggests that discrimination in planning can be found in the gaps between the accommodation of “citizen” needs (the provision of secure housing and services), and “ethnic” needs. In planning the Bedouin towns, “citizen” needs, such as housing and basic services, were provided, while “ethnic” needs, such as avenues for employment in traditional occupations, were denied. This might have emerged out of the perceived irreconcilability between government interests and Bedouin cultural demands (Fenster 1993; 2001).

Drawing from insurgent planning theory (Sandercock 1998, 199; Miraftab

2009), Meir (1997, 2009) adds a new aspect to the understanding the relationship between the Bedouin’s objectives and the government’s objectives for their settlement.

25 ‘Araba baNegev and Kseifa were planned to accommodate the Bedouin living in Tel Mahata, an area planned for an air force base. To convince residents to move, “tractors began to tear up the ground between the tents and houses on the airfield site, which vividly demonstrated to the procrastinators that negotiations could not be avoided” (Kressel, Ben-David and Abu-Rabia 1991: 30). 32

He describes the relationships as a “spatial dialectic process”, in which “each phase or pattern contains within it a conflictual mechanism that tends to negate it through a reaction exercised by the opposite party” (Meir 1988: 267). Through this lens, the

Bedouin are understood as exerting some power over planning outcomes. This explains the complicated results of the program, in which some Bedouin have received the mix of benefits and challenges provided in town living, while others to remain in their unrecognized villages, lacking the benefits of the towns, but preserving their socio- spatial identity.

“Deadlock” between the Bedouin and authorities forcing a new paradigm?

Despite some improvements to the Bedouin towns, many Bedouin have chosen to remain in their unrecognized settlements, frequently out of objection to the government’s land ownership policies, and to the urban character of the planned towns.

These now constitute 36 “unrecognized” agricultural villages in the Negev (Shmueli and Khamaisi 2011). Unrecognized villages do not appear on official maps because they are not accommodated by District Outline Plans. Therefore, they are not legal settlements. Because they are not recognized, they do not receive many basic public services, and their residents are subject to many environment and health hazards.

Bedouin remaining in these settlements can be subject at any time to crop spraying and housing demolition by the enforcement arm of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the

Green Patrol (Swirski and Hasson 2006). This has actually given some residents more resolve to remain in their unrecognized settlements. The situation has brought many of the Bedouin and the government authorities to a “deadlock” (Yiftachel 2003: 21).

The Abu-Basma Regional Council (in Hebrew, Moatza Ezorit Abu-Basma) is one indicator of how the State has chosen to respond. Abu-Basma was established by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior through an ordinance called the Local Councils 33

Ordinance (2003) as part of a seven-year development project for the Negev Bedouin

(Yahel 2006; Golan 2007). Through Abu-Basma, the Planning Administration of the

Ministry of the Interior recognized ten previously unrecognized Bedouin villages. The first of the towns, Molada, Drejat, Cochle, Tarabin, Kaser al-Ser, Bir-Hadaj, Abu-

Krenat and Umm Batin, began to be planned under the former Bedouin Administration

(in Hebrew, Minhel haBedui), between 1994 and 1998. These villages have all had their master plans approved, and are now at varying stages of local planning. In addition to these ten, four more, Ramat Tsiporim, Wadi El-Naam, Al-Fura and Abu-Tlul, have begun to be planned under the auspices of either the Abu-Basma Regional Council, or the Bedouin Authority (Rashut haBedui), a modified version of the former Bedouin

Administration.

By 2015, planners project that approximately 109,500 Bedouin will live in Abu-

Basma’s settlements. By 2030, the largest of the villages will have the capacity to house

12,000-17,000 residents, and the smallest, between 3,000 and 6,500 (Nahum Dunsky

2009). A chart of population targets and area per kilometer and can be found in

Appendix C. A Master Plan for Agriculture has been commissioned by Abu-Basma through a partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture (Abu-Basma 2009). The plan is hoped to make a traditional occupation of the Bedouin commercially viable (Amos

Brandes, personal interview, 2011; Dinero 2011: 28-9). The municipal area of the Abu-

Basma Regional Council can be found in Figure 1 in the methodology section of this thesis.

In the literature, representations of Abu-Basma have reflected trends in planning theory. Collaborative planning is evoked by the official literature issued by administrators at Abu-Basma, as well as by a published article from an attorney of the

Southern District of the Interior Ministry. Abu-Basma is suggested to mark a shift in the approach to planning Bedouin towns, because planners have learned from their 34 mistakes. Therefore, planners are said to plan in “full consultation with representatives” of the villages (Yahel 2006: 4). Literature from Abu-Basma states the aims to “improve community participation in decision making, planning and implementation” and

“community empowerment” (Abu-Basma 20010a). An example can be found in

Appendix H. In contrast, academics have drawn from collaborative planning theory and planning-as-control to dispute the assertions of government administrators. They have criticized low levels of public participation in planning, and an approach to defining land ownership which is essentially identical to the approach for the Bedouin towns

(Abu-Saad 2009; Berman-Kishony 2008; Swirski 2007).

Recent ministerial committees convened on the issue of Bedouin settlement reflect such divided perspectives. The Goldberg Committee to Regulate Bedouin

Settlement in the Negev (2008) (known commonly as “Goldberg”) supported the recognition of many of the remaining unrecognized villages, and encouraged that the issue of land ownership be reopened, in consideration of the “historic connection” of the Bedouin to their lands (Goldberg Report, as cited in Abu Ras 2011: 3). Nonetheless, a committee convened to generate a policy response to the findings of Goldberg arrived at solutions which did not honor Goldberg’s findings. This committee, known colloquially as “Prawer”, was convened in 2009. After over two years of deliberations,

Prawer proposed a solution which maintains the present policy of compensating

Bedouin for their claims, rather than granting them legal title. Similarly, it has allegedly defined criteria for village recognition which may result in severe limitations to the number of settlements to be recognized through subsequent government programs.

Despite the limits of a major highway, however, the criteria have not been disclosed

(Negev Coexistence Forum 2011, citing Prawer-Amidror Bill 2011). Consistent with the present policy, Bedouin remaining in unrecognized settlements that are not slated to be recognized will be encouraged to relocate to planned settlements through a package 35 of compensation and the threat of demolition (Abu-Raas 2011). It is clear that many emotions and expectations ride on the Abu-Basma Regional Council, the progression of which may provide insight into how government planning for the Bedouin will proceed in the future.

METHODOLOGY

Qualitative methods

This thesis draws from qualitative research methods to understand the expressions of planning control and communicative planning in the Abu-Basma program, as the work of Abu-Basma administrators and planners proceeds in real time.

This thesis follows the definition of qualitative research as the production of a

“bricolage”, or the piecing together of a “set of representations that are fitted to the specifics of a complex situation” (Denzin and Lincoln 2011: 4). Qualitative research methods are capable of reflecting the complexities in the Abu-Basma case by describing the “routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives” (Denzin and

Lincoln 2011: 4). The everyday encounters of people working with or living in the

Abu-Basma Regional Council are understood through the lenses of planning theory; therefore, the findings may reflect expressions of communicative planning in the Abu-

Basma case, and/or planning-as-control.

The case study

General theory on the case study, as well as theory specific to the paradigms and organization theory have informed study methodology. The Abu-Basma Regional

Council is taken here as an “instrumental case”, or a case which is useful to explaining a particular phenomenon by answering a research question (Stake 1995: 3; Yin 2003).

From organization theory, the work of Grunig (2002) assisted the researcher in developing questions which could glean an understanding of the relationship between organizations and organizations, organizations and members, and organizations and publics. Theory specific to the paradigms included Patsy Healey’s “institutionalist account of governance transformation processes” (2007) from collaborative planning, 37 and Bent Flyvbjerg’s “phronetic planning research” (2002, 2004), from planning-as- control. In Healey’s framework, the researcher obtains a “conception of the interplay between deeper, embedded cultural practices and the conscious and visible world of routine and strategic interactions” (2007: 67). This occurs through engagement with

“specific episodes”—“the visible world of people and positions, where ideas are expressed…and ‘decisions’ made” to “learn the discourses, practices and values embedded in governance processes” (Healey 2007: 67-8). Flyvbjerg’s phronetic planning research examines “concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom”

(2004: 302). By incorporating both approaches into the study, the findings could be organized by those which occurred during the planning process, and those which were reflected in outcomes. This resulted in the framework of “During Planning” and “After

Planning” which organizes the presentation of results in this thesis.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork was designed to hear from the stakeholders involved or impacted by planning for Abu-Basma localities. Therefore, different methods were designed to hear from stakeholders clearly, in the languages, places and company with which they were comfortable. Methods included:

1. Focused interviews with stakeholders

2. Participant-observation at stakeholder-led events

3. Document collection

4. Conference attendance

These methods are described in greater detail following an overview of stakeholder groups, study sites, and the approach to entering the field.

Stakeholder groups

Stakeholder groups were first identified by consulting general stakeholder theory (Freeman 1984; Mitchell, Agle et al. 1997).26 This information was supplemented with literature on stakeholders in planning [American Planning

Association (APA) 2006]. According to the APA, stakeholders are the individuals or organizations which make at least one of four contributions: “jurisdiction over an issue”, “particular information or knowledge base”, “party to an actual or potential conflict”, and “connected to community networks” (American Planning Association

2006: 50). The stakeholder groups chosen for this study and their number of respondents appear in Figure 2.27

26Freeman provides the definition of “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the firm's objectives" (1984: 25). Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) provide the example of stakeholders in a business firm: “We will see stakeholders…as owners of capital or owners of a less tangible assets; as actors or those acted upon; as those existing in a voluntary or an involuntary relationship with the firm; as rights-holders, contactors or moral claimants; as resource providers to or dependents…” (Mitchell, Agle and Wood 1997: 853-854). 27 It is acknowledged that there are arguments for and against the existence of a “general planning theory” (see Alexander 2003 and Friedmann 2003). Nonetheless, the American Planning Association’s framework appeared to set flexible parameters which could be applied to this study, as well as to similar studies conducted in the future. 39

Stakeholder Description Number Jurisdiction Information Conflict Networks Group participants

District Southern District Planning 4 government Office; former Bedouin Administration

Regional Abu-Basma Regional 7 government28 Council

Local Local council 8 government29 eg. of Umm Batin

Resident Women, men, children, 50 students, diff. families

Civil society Non-governmental 7 organization organizations

Academic Geographers and planners 4

Planner Government planners of 8 overall plans and neighborhood plans

Social consultant” hired by planners to carry out public participation

Table 1. Stakeholder groups, their contributions to the study, and number of participants. Unless otherwise noted, all figures have been created by the author.

Stakeholder groups were selected to avoid constraining possible reflections of the theories with too narrow a respondent pool, while maintaining limits to the “bounded system” (Stake 1995: 2) of the study. For planning-as-control theory, for example, stakeholders living outside the legal borders of Abu-Basma settlements, such as residents of unrecognized localities (illegal, according to the government, and thus

28 Excludes the approximately 15 employees who were interviewed and work for ORT or the Ministry of Education. 29 Members of the local government group were all village residents. They appear here because they were consulted primarily in their professional roles. 40 perhaps not relevant to a study of planning for recognized settlements) were included in the resident group.30

Study sites

Fieldwork was conducted primarily in three villages within the jurisdication of the

Abu-Basma Regional Council: Abu-Krenat, Umm Batin and Kaser al-Ser. These villages were selected according to several parameters. All could be accessed by using public transportation, or by carpooling with a teacher who worked in the localities.

They all had been recognized in 2002 or 2003, and therefore provided sufficient data on planning and implementation, as they all had approved master plans, and were undergoing local planning. Because they had been recognized around the same time, the reflections of the planning theories in each village could perhaps be explained by more than procedural differences in the timing of planning and implementation.

An overview of the principal villages under study and their reasons for being selected appear in Table 2. Their locations within the Abu-Basma Regional Council appear in Figure 1. Data has been collected on other localities as well, and this information has also been included in the analysis.

30 In the words of Foucault (1982), “to find out what our society means by sanity, perhaps we should investigate what is happening in the field of insanity. And what we mean by legality in the field of illegality” (780). 41

Village Population31 2020 Target Size Location Tribes Reason for population selection Umm Batin 4,500 11,000 6.78 km2 Rt. 60, 20 Abu-Kaf Conflict over (Abu-Kaf) minutes NE (75%) local council of Beersheva Abu-Asa Suburban (25%) Engagement w/ researchers

Abu-Krenat 2,700 15,000 7.32 km2 Rt. 25 across Abu- Nonexistent from A’rara Krenat local council BaNegev, 25 (With Rural minutes NW multiple Little of Dimona sub-tribes) engagement w/ outsiders

Kaser a-Ser 3,500 8,000 4.78 km2 Rt. 25, 15 El- Thriving (Hawashala) minutes NW Huwashala local council of Dimona Suburban Engagement w/ NGOs

Table 2. Study sites in the Abu-Basma Regional Council.

31 Estimated population. Supplied by planner or head of village local council, as census data does not reflect actual number of residents. 42

Figure 1. The Abu-Basma Regional Council, and existing towns and councils in the Northern Negev. Adapted from Khamaisi and Shmueli (2011: 114)

Entering the field

Recruiting the respondents

Respondents were recruited through a “snowball technique” (Rowley 1997).

This technique helped to form the stakeholder groups and locate potential interviewees32. The first respondents interviewed were academics and NGO representatives the researcher had met at conferences. These respondents had also studied planning in the Negev, or had worked outside the formal planning system with

Abu-Basma’s constituents. They therefore served as conduits to “key informants” from

32 In this way, I enhanced the categories I developed from the literature with the specifics of the case. This allowed for the consideration of other actors who do not have formal connections to the regional council or to planners, but may exert an influence over those who do (Rowley 1997). 43 other stakeholder groups.33 They also provided essential information on “entering the field”, or obtaining access to the places, groups, and individuals relevant to the study.

Gatekeepers

“Gatekeepers” (Arksey and Knight 1999) included secretaries, in the case of government personnel, and sheikhs or heads of local councils for resident groups.

Making contact with these respondents was necessary to assure that research respected the codes of the different groups, therein respecting the positions of respondents, and securing warm relations with the village, department, organization or agency. Meeting these individuals first might also have mitigated the negative repercussions responding could have for other individuals whose participation would require a gatekeeper’s approval. Still, respondents were also sought outside the bounds of informants’ and gatekeepers’ suggestions.34

1. Focused interviews

Semi-structured interviews followed the work of Berg (1995) and Arksey and

Knight (1999) on conducting interviews. All interviews were held in-person, at the respondent’s preferred location. They were most commonly held in private or semi- private areas, such as household meeting areas, classrooms, offices and personal cars.

This was particularly important to minimize distractions, assure confidentiality, and respect cultural codes. Some interviews were held in public areas such as cafes and university courtyards. Interviews were generally held with only one respondent, although in some cases, the respondent hoped that I meet with her or his entire family, or key informants offered to organize a group interview with individuals involved with

33 Ladkin and Bertramini (2002) provide a good example of the snowball technique, and the role of “key informants” in locating respondents (76-77). 34 Some examples are young residents or female residents of Abu-Basma localities, and individuals who had worked for an organization but had discontinued their employment.

44 planning.35 Interviews with female residents often occurred in private areas, after a prior interview had been held with the male head of the family.

Interviews generally took one hour-and-a-half. They were conducted in the language respondents expressed feeling comfortable with. This information was obtained while the meeting was scheduled, so that the necessary translator could be obtained, if needed. Before the interview began, respondents were asked if the sessions could be recorded. Most respondents answered in the affirmative; however, there were a few instances in which the respondent declined. On those occasions, I respected the request and instead transcribed the interview from my notes immediately after the interview had concluded. When respondents seemed particularly threatened by the presence of a recorder, I chose to switch the recorder off and put it away. The identities of all respondents were kept confidential.

Interview guides

The interview guide differed by stakeholder group to mobilize their different contributions to or levels of familiarity with planning and implementation (Arksey and

Knight 1999: 101). Interviews were therefore loosely adapted to the roles of respondents in relation to the regional council. This flexibility was a particular advantage of the semi-structured interview, as it enabled me to learn “what…the necessary questions are” as the interview proceeded (Berg 2001: 70). Arabic and

Hebrew translators assisted in adapting questions to the relevant language and culture.

Interviews began with introductions, during which I presented my identity as a student of Ben-Gurion University. I specified that I was not a representative from a non-governmental organization or from a government agency, and provided additional

35 In this case, the “key informant” was the director of a village local council. He had organized a meeting with himself and two other current or prior members of the local council. This interview helped, as suggested by Arksey and Knight (1999: 76), to “cross-check” demographic information about the village (population, employment, family size, etc.) and village histories (traditional occupations, past interactions with the Israeli government, etc.). Also, the presence of multiple council members seemed to reproduce the power relations among them, providing information such as who dominated the conversation, and therefore who might dominate the local council (Arksey and Knight 1999: 76). 45 information on my personal background, research interests, and a general schedule for the interview. The interview then moved to basic demographic questions for the respondents, and to “grand tour questions” (Spradley 1979: 50-1) about the respondent’s daily routine as a member of her or his stakeholder group. The respondent was then prompted about her or his interactions with other stakeholders and her or his physical environment. “Probes” (Berg 1995: 33-35) then followed up on any information that I found particularly relevant to answering the research questions, or that the respondent had seemed particularly to care about, such as themes which elicited emotional responses, or were frequently repeated. At times, respondents were asked to take the researcher on “field trips” to demonstrate the phenomena the respondent had described, reenergize both of us during long interviews, and give me a better feel of how the respondent went about her or his daily routine. At the end of the interview, I thanked the respondent, reminded her or him of the confidentiality of her or his responses, organized any future meetings, and promised to send a copy of the thesis (or translated abstract) after the thesis had been completed. Sample interview guides, by stakeholder group, appear in Appendix B.36

Quality in semi-structured interviews

Attention was paid to the manner by which questions were asked to avoid asking leading questions and minimize problems like question threat (Leech 2002). This was

36 The interviews with the resident group varied most in length and content. Often, residents were encountered in the village spontaneously—by “hanging around” as Morito (2005: 7) has called it—at public places like retail stores, parking lots, and schools. On these occasions, the resident frequently had only ten minutes or so to meet. Some of these residents expressed that they did not know much about the regional council and planning, and the interview was therefore tailored to a discussion of their local, “experiential” knowledge (Fazey and Fazey et al. 2006) of the village and any of its changes.36 On other occasions, the residents expressed extensive knowledge, and offered to bring me to the resident’s home. These visits seemed to bring particular pleasure to the respondent and her or his family. They also gave ample time to interview the respondent, in a place where she or he felt comfortable. The interviews additionally provided a great opportunity to speak with women, who often could not meet in public places for the length of a full interview. The unique cultural codes in Bedouin society (and in government offices, for that matter), and my attempts to navigate them, appear in the “Challenges and positioning” section of the methodology.

46 complicated by the presence of a translator, who had ultimate control over how questions were issued to respondents. Several steps were taken to counter possible distortions. I briefed the translator before the interview began on how I hoped the interview would proceed, including how questions should be framed (such as, open- ended or closed?) and how frequently real-time translations should be provided.37 I also provided the translator with an interview guide before the interview, so that she or he could write down translations of the questions before the interview began. During the interview, translators were encouraged to take notes, and pay attention to discursive nuances I might have missed, like emphases, pauses, and repetition. I also encouraged the translator to bring her or his own cultural knowledge or field experience to the interview, and to disclose her or his own research interests. After recorded interviews and participant-observation sessions (see the following section), recordings were sent to other translators, who transcribed the entire meeting, and translated it into English. This often uncovered important information that the translator and I may have missed, and more closely placed verbal cues, like intonation and pauses. In the case of participant- observation, omitted information was found to be revealing of the translators themselves, three of whom had worked for the organizing group or agency.38

2. Participant-observation

Four types participant-observation episodes were included with fieldwork. The number of sessions appears in parentheses. Episodes included:

1. Abu-Basma Regional Council site visits39 (3)

37 During the interview, translators were also asked to “translate back” their translations of questions, to give me a better understanding of what the respondent was responding to, and to adjust the questions if needed, to better reflect their intentions. 38 One example occurred during a visit to an elementary school in Umm Batin. The translator, a high- level employee at the regional council, translated for a male resident of the village. His translation summarized the respondent’s list of grievances about recognition as “bureaucracy” and “paper work”, omitting challenges like the payment of a housing tax, and the expropriation of land for public facilities. 39 Regional council visits included trips to different communities with the operations director at Abu- Basma, as well as separate visits with an Abu-Basma engineer to others. During the visits, both 47

2. Local Planning and Building Committee meetings40 (2)

3. Planner meetings with residents41 (1)

4. NGO visits and protests42 (6)

Participant-observation provided information which could not have been obtained from interviews alone, as it enabled a direct “sharing…in the life activities…interests and affects of a group of persons” (Kluckhohn 1940: 331). This provided insight into the cultures governing the different places where stakeholders worked and lived (Spradley

1980). Participant-observation gave opportunities to observe the dynamics of stakeholder interactions between and within groups. During the sessions, notes were taken on the event proceedings as well as on side conversations.43 Observations were also made on the location of different stakeholders during the sessions, such as formal seating arrangements.44

I took on the roles of “participant-researcher” and “researcher-who-participates”

(Senese 1997) in all sessions, as my presence as a researcher was never hidden to participants, and took precedence over my role as “activist” or “volunteer”. I did, representatives tended to day-to-day tasks such as overseeing building construction and holding meetings with school employees. 40 Local Planning and Building Committee meetings were held bimonthly, in Abu-Basma’s headquarters in Beer Sheva. These meetings are required by the Planning and Building Law (5725-1965). They are moderated by the head of the Council, open to the public, and attended by all relevant government bodies, local leaders, planners, and residents. During the meetings, planners present their plans to the committee, the moderator asks for any objections, objections are voiced and, if they are found to have weight, are given to the planner to accommodate in the plan. If no objections are found, the plan is “locally approved” and can proceed to the district level. 41 Planner meetings included an opportunity to observe a meeting in a planner’s office between a resident of the village of Umm Batin, and the planner, over a neighborhood plan being formed. 42 NGO-led events included visits to Abu-Basma villages guided by a right-wing NGO director, a solidarity visit with a left-wing NGO to a repeatedly demolished Bedouin village, volunteer “work days” for permaculture and green building organized by an environmental justice organization, left-wing protests against housing demolition at a busy road junction, among others. 43 During a Planning and Building Committee meeting, a Bedouin man from the village of Bir Hadaj had expressed frustration with a plan for the village. When my translator and I, who were seated near the man, did not express any objections, the man said to us, “We thought you were on our side”. Another example occurred after the same meeting, when my translator passed near a conversation between a planner from the Bedouin Authority, and a planner working for Abu-Basma. The residents had all left the meeting, leaving behind only government employees (including the regional council). The planner asked the Bedouin Authority planner, “do you need an escort?” The Bedouin Authority planner responded, “No, the bad guys left.” 44 In the Planning and Building Committee meetings, for example, Abu-Basma residents were observed to sit at the back of the room in exclusive blocks, planners to sit in the far corners, and members of district government to sit as close to the front of the room as the arrangement allowed. 48 however, express admiration for the work of the different groups, compassion with the challenges expressed by respondents, and an interest in supporting their struggle through my research. On most occasions, proceedings were translated to English by a hired translator, while on three occasions they were provided by the meeting organizer, such as the planner or organization leader. Had I been accompanied by a translator independent of the relevant organization, I exchanged observations with her or him subtly as the sessions proceeded, and met to compile our observations immediately following the event.

Unfortunately, I was unable to schedule site visits with planners. Planners feared that introducing another “outsider” to the villages they were planning for would damage the relationships they had built with residents, “disturb[ing] something that is already so fragile” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat, personal interview, 2010). The data from participant-observation during committee meetings, one meeting between a planner and a resident, and semi-structured interviews did, however, enable me to build an understanding of these meetings by hearing respondents recall their own experiences, even if they were not observed first-hand (Stake 1995: 52, 53).

3. Document collection

Primary sources such as government documents, photographs, meeting agendas and master plans were collected during site visits. Document collection provided “products of self-description” (Atkinson and Coffey 2004: 57), which included stated approached of different organizations to planning and implementation for Abu-Basma settlements.

As will be discussed in “Challenges and positioning”, document collection enhanced the quality of data analysis through what Patton (1999) calls “methods triangulation”

(1193).

4. Conference attendance

Conferences I attended included “Round Table”: Structuring Bedouin Space in the

Negev (BGU, 29/10/09), The Negev Arabs: the Right to Land, Housing and State

Services (BGU, 16/6/10), the International Conference on Drylands, Deserts and

Desertification (BGU, 8-11/11/10), the Conference on Active Research by

Environmental Science Students (CARESS) ( Weitzmann Institute, 6/15/11) ,

Indigenous People’s Property Rights: A Cross-National Perspective (Technion,

28/11/10), the Center for Urban & Regional Studies 40th Anniversary Conference

(Technion, 3/6/10), the Israel Planner’s Association 2012 Conference (Technion, 23-

24/2/12), as well as Planning for Resilient Cities and Regions: Joint AESOP/ACSP

Congress (University College, Dublin, 15-19/7/13) . These conferences gave me the opportunity to share my research with others, build contacts, and gain new information.

Analysis

Analysis followed Weiss (1995)’s four-step approach45 to issue-focused analysis. Analysis was both “theory-driven” and “data-driven” (Namey and Guest et al.

2007: 138). Consultation with the literature prior to entering the field informed the limits and some themes in which data would be integrated, such as the structure of a planning paradigm, and the expressions of planning-as-control and communicative planning theory. By using both a data-driven and theory-driven approach, I was able to examine data for the expressions of the planning theories, while also giving the findings the freedom to tell their own stories.

Challenges in fieldwork and positioning

45 The steps include (in order): coding, sorting, local integration, and inclusive integration (Weiss 1995: 154-162) 50

Challenges, as is to be expected, were encountered during fieldwork. They included scheduling meetings with extraordinarily busy people, gaining the trust of respondents on sensitive topics, ensuring data quality, and working with the challenges of communication across different languages and cultures. Data quality was tested through several methods, including the search for “rival explanations” and

“triangulation”- in which locally integrated theories are tested against alternate explanations, and against the findings retrieved from other data collection methods

(Patton 1991, as cited in Hyde 2008: 85-6). Often, gaps between the stories told by stakeholder groups, such those between residents and local committee members, were filled by the information retrieved from other stakeholder groups. In other instances they were widened, adding new elements to the “single, coherent story” told by the research (Weiss 1995: 160).

Many of the challenges in fieldwork were tied to the researcher’s “position” in the field (Jackson 1993). I am a fair-skinned American female in my mid-20s with elementary Hebrew and Arabic skills, as well as a strong American accent. The interest that respondents and passersby’s showed in my presence at field sites—staring or pointing, and approaching me to ask where I was from—made it clear that I was perceived as a bit of a novelty.46 In many field settings, I was accompanied by a

Jordanian, Palestinian, Israeli or Arab-Israeli translator, which added another player to interactions between researcher and respondent.

My presence was certainly noticed by participants, but my status was not as clear as “outsider” or “insider”47. Rather, different “identity markers” (Kusow 2003:

46 As one respondent told her in the offices of the Abu-Basma Regional Council, “I heard you were here. We talk…and when I heard there was a blonde American wandering around I knew it was you” (Director of Statutory Planning, personal conversation, 2010). 47 As an “outsider”, I might be more objective to the testimonies of respondents, but could miss some conversational nuances, or be receiving filtered information. As an “insider”, I might distort less the information received, but could give a biased presentation of my respondents’ testimonies, or be denied information from respondents who fear “failing insider norms” (Weiss 1995: 138). For more on the “insider/outsider” debate, see Merton (1972), and, more recently Corbin-Dwyer and Buckle (2009). 51

593), at different times, helped me to gain entry, or to be excluded. Additionally, the different qualities of the interactions themselves, such as where they occurred, with whom, through what language and whose voice, and the different social and political contexts mobilized by the knowledge I had hoped to obtain, promoted or inhibited the flow of information between me and respondents. I am non-native to all stakeholder groups, perhaps with the partial exception of the academic and NGO groups. My research deals with planning, a field which has historically been dominated by men

(Howe 1980; Leavitt 1980a, 1980b; Beauregard 1976). Fieldwork was often conducted in these restrictive professional arenas, such as offices, classrooms, and boardrooms, as well as in Bedouin villages, where formal planning discussions are often carried out by men, in male-only meeting areas (Social consultant for Al-Fura, personal interview,

2010). In Bedouin villages, this gendered spatial divide also separates public matters from private ones; therefore, “bring[ing] the ordinarily private into view”, as Weiss

(1993: 121) has called qualitative interviewing, is a particularly difficult task for the case.

Some of my identify markers—gender, education level, nationality—might have overcome these barriers. Although not Bedouin, nor a native Arabic speaker, I am female, and therefore had more direct access to female Bedouin respondents than a male Bedouin researcher might have had. As a non-Bedouin woman, I also had access to men from outside my immediate family, and could conduct interviews with women without the presence of a male family member, or through an informant.48 Additionally,

Examples from the different sides of the debate, include Acker, Barry and Esseveld (1983), who advocate for research conducted by “insiders”, and Fay (1996) who suggests that insider status is not a necessary qualifier for good research. 48Traditionally, Bedouin women must be accompanied by a male family member when interacting with men from outside the family. These challenges have been describe by Sarab Abu-Rabia who, as a Bedouin woman, encountered many difficulties speaking with the fathers of female Bedouin high school students. As a woman, she also had advantages, as she could speak with female respondents directly, without the presence of a male figure, or through an informant, and shared similar life experiences (Abu- Rabia 2006; 2007). Insider challenges have been explored by others, including Kusow (2003), who found that, as a Somali man, he had easy entrance to Somali communities, but that he was excluded from their public events like weddings, due to the presence of unmarried women from the communities. 52 my academic background in planning and the sciences might have encouraged respondents to share information on topics typically reserved for (historically male) planning professionals.

Planning, concerned with “the allocation of scarce resources”, as Kilmartin and

Thorns et al. (1985: 140) have defined it, is a sensitive topic, and perhaps made even more so in Israel, where state planning decisions may be strongly influenced by security and demographic concerns (Orenstein, Jiang and Hamburg 2011). My non-nativeness might have made respondents suspicious, particularly when meeting with government personnel or residents. Some suspicions may have been allayed through my approach to entering the field. My identity as a researcher, for example, and the confidentiality of interviews, might have been advantageous, as no respondent, perhaps with the exception of the academic group, had to fear “failing insider norms” by responding honestly (Weiss 1995: 138). Multiple interviews with the same respondent may have also assisted in building trust between me and the participant. This was particularly important when the first interview had been a group interview, as it gave the respondent the freedom to express her or himself without being mediated by others.49

Translators may have helped me gain some insider status. Translators were specifically chosen because they were native speakers of the language preferred by the respondent, were generally of the same gender, and were somewhat familiar with the respondent’s culture. Often, translators found that they lived near a respondent’s friends or family members, or that they frequented similar local places. These mutual realizations seemed to “break the ice”, and give some validity to my claims to be an independent researcher. Arabic translators from Jordan, Israel and the West Bank accompanied me when visiting Bedouin villages, or interviewing native Arabic

49 Findings revealed that these respondents, particularly from the local government group, provided different information during a one-on-one interview. This information described the other representatives who had been present during the first interview, questioning those representatives’ claims to “full participation in planning”, or “equal representation” on the local council, for example. 53 speakers50. Arabic is the first language spoken by Bedouin in Israel, while Hebrew is learned second, and the official language in which the State of Israel conducts its affairs

(Coordinator, ORT English, personal interview, 2011). Therefore, Arabic translators may have allowed respondents to express themselves more freely, particularly so for women and adolescents, whose Hebrew or English skills were frequently less advanced than men’s. Similarly, when interviewing non-English speaking government officials, I was accompanied by a male, Jewish-Israeli translator, who dressed professionally, and had experience conducting fieldwork in government departments. Fieldwork was therefore characterized by a constant process of learning and adjustment. In this way, study participation was hoped to be a beneficial experience for the researcher, translators, and respondents.

50 With the exception of one site visit, in which she was accompanied by a Hebrew speaker who was familiar to some residents, as she had also been conducting research in the community. 54

PRESENTATION OF RESULTS

The results of this thesis are organized in two parts:

1. DURING PLANNING

2. AFTER PLANNING

“During Planning” presents findings on the process of planning Abu-Basma localities. Within this part, there are two chapters, one dedicated to the reflections of the communicative planning paradigm in the Abu-Basma case, and the other to the reflections of planning-as-control. Within each chapter there are sub-chapters. The first sub-chapter is an overview, which summarizes the reflections of the theory, and presents official perspectives from respondents which evoke the basic tenets of the theory. In the case of communicative planning, the overview provides the stated approach of planners to public participation for the localities. In the case of planning-as- control, academics and local government representatives provide their perspectives on how Abu-Basma is a vehicle for state control. These sub-chapters are followed by

“episodes”, reflections of each theory in the case which are grounded in one or two core components of communicative theory or planning-as-control. These are followed by a sub-chapter on “limitations”. Limitations are findings which complicate the readings of the case through communicative planning or planning-as-control.

“After planning” presents the outcomes of planning for Abu-Basma localities which were available at the time of study. These include the physical, social and psychological impacts of the program in the villages and on residents. This section is organized into two chapters which organize the findings temporally, from the initial changes to later changes. These chapters include Abu-Basma’s approach to plan implementation, as it is formally stated by administrators and as it has emerged from 55 the data analysis. Unlike the chapters in “During planning”, after planning attempts to present results without being guided by a single theory or paradigm. This opens the program up to available literature in planning theory, and leads the researcher to find two theories which best explain the recent state of Abu-Basma localities. These theories, urban informality (Roy 2005; AlSayyad 2004) and grey space (Yiftachel

2009a, 2009b) may provide a more comprehensive understanding of how planning and plan implementation have proceeded for the case.

DURING PLANNING

PLANNING AS COMMUNICATION?

“A new approach to settling the Bedouin”: Planning through dialogue

The past has been horrendous. It [Abu-Basma] is a big change. I mean basically, the idea was, after all the Bedouin moved into the sayig, that they should all be concentrated in eight towns. Seven were built...The towns themselves were a major failure…and Abu-Basma is kind of the next stage. You have a place where you are trying to right an injustice, and you are trying to do it legally. (Professor of Geography and Environment, personal interview, 2010)

Respondents from all stakeholder groups expressed believing that Abu-Basma had been founded to improve life for the Bedouin. Abu-Basma was considered to be

“transformative”, in that it had marked a significant departure from the government’s former approach. For local committee members, the regional council was the result of their struggle against relocation and urbanization through the township program, and therefore signified a major shift away from the strict non-recognition of their settlements, towards recognition. For other residents, Abu-Basma indicated that the state was beginning to come to terms with the consequences of a “racist” urbanization policy, and beginning to promote equality between Arabs and Jews (Male high school student, personal interview, 2010). Respondents familiar with earlier work in planning the Bedouin townships, including planners, representatives from non-governmental organizations, academics and government representatives, believed that planning for the new localities was evidence of a “new approach to settling the Bedouin”, as planners were “learning from what didn’t work in planning the Bedouin townships” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010).

Planners with decades of experience in the Israeli planning system recalled witnessing a “revolution” in the government’s approach over the past decade. The overall planner for Abu-Krenat, who had been involved with work in the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva during the late 1970s and early 1980s, believed that, “ten years ago, there 58 really was a revolution. To speak with the Bedouin, to make interdisciplinary teams, to try to make villages self-sufficient” (2011). He explained that the government’s recognition of the new localities followed a shift in the approach to planning Arab and

Jewish settlements. As he explained,

There was an opposition to building something new. It was based on two factors. One, the Ministry of Construction saw that there were a lot of poor places—Ofakim, Arad, Yeruham—and we should focus our efforts towards making them stronger and enlarging them first. (2011) The mixed results of the township program had taught planners that cultural considerations, such as the spatial expressions of tribal and family affiliations, were important to the Bedouin. As the planner continued,

Two, at the time we didn't know—of course we later learned—tribes are very important to the Bedouins. At the time we really didn't know. We thought it didn't matter who lived where, so why can't they move here? Then there was change. We started to realize that there were certain important things we hadn't considered before (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2011). The government had also been facing serious pressure from advocacy organizations and residents to recognize unrecognized Bedouin settlements, and recognize their rights to land ownership. This created a situation in which it was harder for the government “to determine how best they [the Bedouin] want to live” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat

2011).

Respondents who interacted professionally with the regional council, such as academics and representatives from the district government, explained that high- ranking representatives at Abu-Basma were working out of a true desire to promote the

Bedouin. As expressed by the former head of the Bedouin Administration, the authorities at the regional council act not “for their prestige, [but]… for the people who are living here, for the country, and for the Negev.” (Former Director of Bedouin

Administration, personal interview, 2010).” Planners, and particularly their social consultants, echoed the values of Abu-Basma authorities, expressing that they “didn’t work for the money”, but out of a personal “commitment” to social justice (Social 59 consultant for Al-Furan 2010; Overall planners for Abu-Tlul, group interview, 2010;

Social consultant for Umm Batin, personal interview, 2010). They felt it was

“important” to mobilize “my knowledge, tools, my activity, my reputation, to support the community…for a peaceful situation in our community and in our country” (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010). These values resemble those prescribed for the planning enterprise by communicative planning theorists.

In planning the new settlements, planners identified general guidelines they had chosen to follow. The overall planner of Umm Batin expressed being guided by the goals to “do something that is according to the Bedouin tradition, and according, at the same time, to the laws of building and construction here, in Israel” (2010). The cultural needs of the Bedouin had, according to several planners, been overlooked by prior planning processes, because they had excluded most Bedouin from participating.

Planners had also been influenced by new trends in planning thought, which they believed had permeated the Israeli planning system. They therefore needed to consider topics like “sustainability”, “a new item that I am speaking about in planning for the

Bedouins” (Overall planner for Umm Batin, personal interview, 2011). “Sustainability” included environmental concerns, such as green forms of transit, economic considerations, and public consultation, to ensure that plans met the public’s demands

(Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010, 2011; Professor of Geography and Environment

2010).

Planners recognized, however, that conducting public participation was a lengthy process.51. This posed a problem for residents, whose deteriorating situation—“without water, without electricity, without basic needs” (Overall planner for Umm Batin

2011)—required urgent intervention. Planners balanced their ambitions for inclusive

51 The planner of Umm Batin made a distinction between the plan for Umm Batin, which took five years, and the plan for Tarabin, which been formed “through a minimum participation of the public”, and took only one (2010) 60 planning with the immediacy of residents’ needs by hearing from a “representative sample” of residents, which meant meeting with a representatives from all, or most, families in the village (Head of Statutory Planning, Abu-Basma Regional Council, personal interview 2011; Abu-Basma Local Planning Committee Meeting, observations on proceedings, 2011) .

Hiring “social consultants” also expedited the participation process, and made the process more accessible to residents. Social consultants were academics who had expertise in the fields of planning or geography and had either conducted fieldwork in

Bedouin villages or worked as advocates for the Regional Council for Unrecognized

Villages (RCUV). Through direct collaboration with the representatives of families living in Abu-Basma localities, and through collaboration with social consultants, planners believed that they put their personal values and professional training into action in planning the localities.

EPISODE 1: LOCAL REPRESENTATION

It’s a big change in attitude. The new one is to look, as well as it's possible, to the existing situation, to the existing structures, to the land claims and to the population itself. And maybe in the first seven [towns] that was less of an importance. Then it was easier to decide for them how best they want to live. (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010)

Local representation reflects the local institutions52 considered by planners to represent residents' interests. These include local committees, the local government bodies formed “insurgently” (Sandercock, 1998, 1999) by residents and recognized by the Interior Ministry of the State of Israel. This also includes the “existing situation” of development in unrecognized villages, such as the neighborhoods built by different families over their land ownership claims, which had been thought by planners to represent the cultural needs of the Bedouin spatially. The discussion of local representation here will be limited to the local committees. “Official” perspectives from committee members, as well as from planners and relevant representatives of regional council, are presented here. These perspectives provide insight into why the committees were recognized, how they were formed, and how they are expected to operate. This reflects the communicative qualities of the regional council’s approach to the formal representation of local interests. Particularly, recognition for the local committee system provides some evidence of a move towards a “local relativist” approach to planning and governing Abu-Basma localities, away from the “Western universalist” approach the government and planners had taken in planning the Bedouin towns (Fenster 1999a: 39).

Information provided by respondents who did not hold official positions provide deeper insight into the operations of the committees in practice.

52 Here, institutions are “the frameworks of norms, rules and practices which structure action in social contexts” (Healey 2007: 64, citing Giddens 1984, and DiMaggio and Powell 1991). 62

Local committees- how are they structured and how do they work?

Local committees are local governments which operate on behalf of each settlement under the Abu-Basma Regional Council. They have been approved by the

Interior Ministry, and are composed of one representative from each family in the village, as well as a head of the local committee, who oversees the representatives.

Under the local committee is a local planning committee, which is also comprised of one representative from each family, and deals with all matters related to planning in the village. In the village of Umm Batin, for example, there are twenty-six representatives on the local committee, each representing the twenty-six families in

Umm Batin (sub-groups of either the tribe of Abu-Kaf or Abu-Asa tribe) (Head of

Local Committee of Umm Batin, personal interview, 2010). Villages which have been officially recognized as localities within the regional council have one or two representatives, depending on settlement size, which serve on the Abu-Basma Regional

Council53 (Director of Statutory Planning, personal interview, 2011). The structure of local governance appears below in Figure 2. Official listings from the Interior Ministry of local committee members were provided by the Director of Statutory Planning at

Abu-Basma, and appear in Appendix G of this thesis.

53 According to the Operations Director at Abu-Basma, half of the representatives serving on the Abu- Basma Regional Council are Bedouin (Personal interview, 2010). 63

Figure 2. Recognized structure of local governance for settlements within the Abu-Basma Regional Council The directors of Abu-Basma’s various departments believed that the committees represented local interests fairly, because they were “all formed by a democratic process in the villages” (Head Engineer, personal interview, 2010). Residents serving in the position of head of the local committee described the election process as having two stages. In the first, committee members elect a village representative to serve on the Abu-Basma

Regional Council. In the second, each family holds its election to determine its representatives to the local committee. Representatives are nominated based on the criteria that they have received higher education. Therefore representatives are assumed to form a local committee which is capable of engaging in budgeting, permitting and planning (School principal 3, personal interview, 2010).

Regular committee meetings were held monthly. Meetings were convened outside monthly meetings if residents brought forward a concern (Head of Local Committee of

Umm Batin 2010; Head Engineer 2010; Operations Director 2010). If a resident needed to communicate with a representative of Abu-Basma, the resident was expected to 64

“contact us [Abu-Basma] through the committee of the village-your representative.

You should say to your representative, ‘I have a problem with this and that,’ and if it’s a large enough problem, like we need a new school, we need more classrooms, we need a new clinic, they will tell to the representative, and they [the representative] will come to the [local planning] committee” (2010). Therefore, local committees were expected to operate as the links between residents and the regional council and between residents and planners.

Monthly local committee meetings were open to the public and held in the village sheig. The sheig, however, is a space which is restricted to men (Overall planners for

Abu-Tlul 2010). Representatives did not think this posed a problem for women’s participation, as women could have their interests articulated in front of the committee by a male family member (Head of Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010; School principal 3, 2010).

The Abu-Basma Regional Council also met monthly in Abu-Basma’s offices in

Beer Sheva. According to Abu-Basma’s Operations Director, at these meetings all members of the Abu-Basma council had the ability to “approve or reject the “decisions and policies of the council” (Former Representative to Abu-Basma Council, personal interview, 2010). This included the local committee members who had been elected to serve on the Abu-Basma council. Likewise, authorities at the regional council could organize meetings with the local committee if they hoped to discuss a particular issue or program. The Director of Statutory Planning provided the example of a new employment area being planned for the village of Umm Batin:

Through the committee we addressed all the residents, so they can say what they want. Some people want carpentry, some people want welding, car shops, construction shops, stuff like that. On the basis of that, you know what the size of the plot is that is needed for that kind of employment. And then when they plan that [employment area], they will make plots relative to what the demand is. (2011) 65

A photograph of the “arena” (Healey 1997: 259) in which Abu-Basma committee meetings were held appears in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Abu-Basma conference room, the location of Abu-Basma’s Local Planning and Building Committee Meetings. Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva (19/10/10)

The heads of the local committees expressed that they valued a collaborative approach to governance, which could be seen in the day-to-day operations of the committee system. The head of the local committee of Umm Batin explained that,

“without cooperation there is no success. I am the representative of [the village]. I see what the demands of the people are and meet them” (Head of Local Committee of

Umm Batin 2010). Local committee representatives recalled being frequently contacted by the regional council. They believed that organizing meetings with relevant departments at the regional council, or with planners, was not difficult. In Kaser al-Ser, a member of the local planning committee recalled meeting with the regional council

“all the time” during the planning process while in Umm Batin, the head of the local committee, as well as the former representative of Umm Batin on the Abu-Basma

Regional Council recalled not meeting “daily”, but “always” being in contact with the 66 regional council (Head of Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010; Former

Representative 2010; School Principal from Kaser al-Ser 2010). In Abu-Krenat, the village representative to Abu-Basma also worked at the regional council as the head engineer. Therefore, he was believed to serve as a link among the village, planners, and other offices at the regional council (Merchant 1, personal interview, 2011). In these villages, all male residents, with the exception of the elderly, some women and adolescents, had expressed being familiar with the committees.

While most residents interviewed had not recalled having met with planners or representatives of the regional council directly, they frequently expressed feeling served by their committee representative (Maintenance worker, personal interview, Abu-

Krenat, 2011; School Deputy 2, personal interview, 2010). Women who had a family member serving in in a high-ranking position in the village, such as in the position of head of the local committee, or as a member of the Abu-Basma Regional Council, also felt that they “knew what was going on” in their communities, because they had been informed by their family member (School secretary, personal interview, 2010; Daughter of local representative, personal interview, 2010; Female college student, personal interview, 2011). Therefore, the assumptions made by representatives at Abu-Basma and planners that residents had access to the committee system were substantiated by committee members, as well as by many residents.

Planners used local committees as the cornerstones of their approach to public participation. Planners considered committee members or village sheikhs to be gatekeepers to the communities, and therefore contacted them at the beginning of the planning process. This contact was often initiated by a “mediator” who was not a resident, nor an affiliate of Abu-Basma, but an outsider who residents were familiar with (Social consultant for Al-Fura 2010; Former Head of Bedouin Administration 67

2010). A “public meeting” was then organized on-site in the village sheig. In attendance were planners, social consultants, the local committee and the local planning committee of the village (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010; Social consultant for

Umm Batin 2011). The public meeting initiated the public participation process for the village. Throughout the planning process, local committee members were responsible for disseminating information to all residents about different public events, such as the bimonthly meetings of Abu-Basma’s Local Planning Committee.

The planning authorities at Abu-Basma gave local committees the power to approve or reject local and overall plans for their village. After planners had developed several scenarios for the relevant plan, the scenarios were presented to the sheikh or the head of the local committee. After he had decided on the best scenario, the plan was returned to the local planning committee for final approval, before it could proceed to Abu-

Basma’s planning committee, or to the planning committee of the Southern District

(depending on the government agency responsible for commissioning the plan) (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010; Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010). Because the decision of the local planning committee was believed to be the will of the people, Abu-

Basma “of course respected it” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2011).

When plans were rejected by the local planning committee, they were returned to the planner to be reworked, or were re-commissioned. Planners cited cases of the rejection of plans by local committees, such as the first plan for a neighborhood in

Kaser al-Ser which had been rejected by the village sheikh because it had been planned over an existing settlement without considering the existing development

(Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2010). After the plan had been rejected, a different planner, at the request of the village representative to Abu-Basma, was commissioned to re-plan the neighborhood. This plan was approved, as it was thought 68 to better respect the existing land uses. Planners often pointed to similar examples to indicate their flexibility in adjusting solutions to better meet residents’ wishes, and their commitment to protecting residents from oppressive plans

Planners believed that local committees mitigated potential information distortions, because their members were believed to be fluent in two different languages: modern planning, and the local dialect of the Negev Bedouin. Committee members were therefore both institutional intermediaries between residents and the government, and translators. (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010). “Not like [social consultant], that he comes from outside…but from the community”, local committees communicated in ways which were relevant to the socioeconomic status and cultural needs of their constituency (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010). 54 Planners also drew attention to committee members who worked professionally as professors and engineers. These representatives enabled both planner and resident groups to “speak freely”, as they

“understand the way of thinking of the Bedouin better than we do”, and can “read the plans very well” (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010; Overall planner for Abu-Krenat

2010; Operations Director 2010).

Planners and Abu-Basma authorities believed that their collaboration with local committees reflected the essence of their approach to planning the localities. This was to “do something that is according to the Bedouin tradition, and according, at the same time, to the laws of building and construction here, in Israel” (Overall planner for Umm

Batin 2010). As will be explored more deeply in the following section, because local committees had been formed by residents, and continued to be staffed by indigenous leadership, they were thought to work in ways which made sense to residents. A local

54 The Director of Statutory Planning at Abu-Basma explained that information could pass back-and-forth between the committees and households “quicker than the televisions and radios they [residents] don’t have” (Director of Statutory Planning 2011). Similarly, local committee meetings were publicized by committee members, according to their own ideas of effective advertising. Rather than post flyers in different neighborhoods, or publish an announcement in a local newspaper, committee members were responsible for notifying their families of the meetings through word-of-mouth. 69 committee meeting, convened by the social consultant for the village of Abu-Tlul, appears in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Public participation with the Local Committee of Abu-Tlul. (Source: Amos Brandes Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning 2011).

“Insurgent” formation of local committees and government recognition

Local committees had been formed by local residents prior to recognition, operating outside the state, through the non-governmental organization, the Regional Council for

Unrecognized Villages (RCUV).55 The RCUV had been formed “insurgently” by a

“young, thinking generation” from unrecognized Bedouin villages to plan and provide services to the villages, amidst a strict government policy of non-recognition of their settlements. To do so, the RCUV decided to transfer the legal authority of the sheikh to a local committee system (Local Committee candidate member for Umm Batin, personal interview, 2010). When the Interior Ministry decided to recognize some of the

55 These included twelve committees for twelve unrecognized villages (Head of Local Committee of Abu-Tlul, personal interview, 2010). 70 villages, the RCUV was not recognized as the regional body responsible for overseeing the local committees. Instead, the local committees it had established in many of the villages were recognized as local authorities under the Abu-Basma Regional Council.

Planners explained the decision to recognize the committees as having found “a natural structure” and “respecting it” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010). Rather than impose their own conceptions of a “good” organization on the villages, authorities from Abu-Basma had asked residents for their own organizations, and formalized them.

The Director of Statutory Planning explained the process:

When we go to plan a village, we go to the residents and we ask who represents them and it’s usually not one or two, it’s a whole local committee. After we identify it, we start talking with them, and then we give them some legal authorities…We appoint one of them a Council member, and then we establish through them contact with the residents...Then we invite them for a meeting with the Council and the planner, and we start to hear what they want. We tell them what could be given, and we try to get to an understanding about the plan (2011). According to committee members, the committee structure distributed political influence equally among the different families of the village. This dispersed the sheikh’s power over decision-making among educated representatives, rather than concentrate it in the hands of a single person, therein allowing for a theoretically more equitable representation of village residents in front of planners and Abu-Basma (Local

Committee candidate 2010).

The decisions made by planners, village representatives and Abu-Basma authorities over local representation can therefore be said to have been motivated by several communicative qualities. Local leaders were empowered to preserve their preferred mode of governance, and were actually charged with the power that accompanies a legal status. Authorities from Abu-Basma were able to pursue their ideals for democratic participation. Planners’ balanced their two competing goals: to

“hear from everyone” and to “work quickly”, to meet the public need (Overall planner for Umm Batin 2011; Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011). In achieving 71 formal status, local committees were therefore actively co-constituted by the government and by local leaders.

EPISODE 2: MINIMIZING DISTORTION

Most of the work was with [village representative to Abu-Basma]. Some with the heads of the families. That’s a question and a dilemma… there were many things that the men would tell you one thing, and the women would tell you something else (Planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011). Now we had the sheikhs, there, we had many meetings with them, first on site, most in the sheig…but we didn’t want only this (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010)

Although there is evidence that moves had been made by many of the actors involved with planning—planners, administrators from Abu-Basma, residents, local committee members—to incorporate communicative principles into planning the localities, prevailing power relations within the villages may have stood in the way of realizing a communicative planning process. In particular, the traditional political structures which have governed Bedouin villages may have distorted the communicative infrastructure thought to provide for the open articulation of residents' interests. As will be presented here, planners demonstrated an awareness of the challenges to realizing a democratic planning process, and made attempts to ameliorate them. This demonstrates efforts by planners to "minimize distortion" (Forester 1989:

46-7) in planning.

All planners responsible for devising local or overall plans for the localities, as well as their social consultants, used terms like “refuse”, “organizing” and “control” to describe power relations operating within the villages. Residents had used their existing

“intellectual and social capital” (Innes et al. 1994, cited in Healey 1997: 57), such as education and socioeconomic status, and their social networks (family affiliations, ties with academia and advocacy, etc.) to form important institutions in the communities.

As the chapter on local representation has shown, one such institution, local committees, had facilitated the recognition process for the village, and served as an 73 important mechanism for resident participation in the planning process. Nonetheless, by charging the committees with the social capital of recognition—legal responsibilities, and decision-making power—the same public body thought to give residents a voice in the planning process, gave residents who already had a substantial amount of influence in their communities, more power over others to participate. This might have compromised a core communicative goal, challenging the flow of undistorted information from residents to planners.

Planners and social consultants had learned from professional experience that the desires of local committee members were not all the same, nor were they the same as those of ordinary residents. Women and adolescents, for example, had told the planners of Abu-Tlul that “they want to live different than the sheikh wants them to live. They have other ideas of how to live in a Bedouin town” (Overall planners for

Abu-Tlul 2010). This was confirmed by interviews with the resident group, which revealed that residents from different families, of different ages, genders, education levels and occupations, had different visions for their communities. The majority of women, for example, of all ages, hoped to live in a city which housed all of their extended family living in the Bedouin townships or in unrecognized settlements, with accessible services specific to women’s needs. Middle-aged to elderly men, many of whom served on local committees, commonly desired a low-density, agricultural settlement, which was divided by family in accordance with their landownership claims.

Therefore, despite the good intentions of many local committee members, their conceptions of a “good” settlement differed from the conceptions of other residents.

Other challenges also existed. As in any community56, there was evidence that some

56 The use (and misuse) of power by local authorities is not unique to the Bedouin sector. Studies have arrived at similar findings, as in Lane and Corbett’s (2005) analysis of working committees for regional 74 local committee representatives, particularly those in the position of committee head or

Abu-Basma representative, were “off planning on [their] own”, either to advance their own interests, or to advance their own conception of public good (Merchant 2, personal interview, 2011; Regional librarian and Umm Batin resident, personal interview, 2011;

Local Committee candidate 2010; School deputy 2, 2010). Conflicts in local leadership threatened to limit the abilities for the committee system to represent all residents, as some leaders were unwilling to join the process in opposition to the ruling family. A refusal by the local sheikh or committee leader would have cut the official line of communication connecting planners and residents. Planners, and engineers for the regional council who had frequently worked in the villages, drew attention to this problem in the villages of Umm Batin and Kaser al-Ser. As the planner of Kaser al-Ser explained, “When you have two strong families, and one strong family holds the position of being the sheikh of the village at that time, the other family might be in opposition to that. So they did not really want to be part of the process” (2011).

Planners therefore needed to devise participatory measures which could hear from residents without only being “mediated by their leaders” (Social consultant for Al-Fura

2010), while retaining their commitment to the planning process.

To minimize distortion, planners took two approaches:

1. Use of a diversity of participatory tools

2. Quality control

1. Use of a diversity of participatory planning tools

In addition to reaching residents through the committee system, planners sought out mechanisms which could contact residents directly. One such mechanism included what

projects in frontier regions. Similarly, conflicting interests have been found to challenge communicative initiatives aimed at merging interests into a uniform policy (Morrison and Lane 2006). 75 the operations director at the regional council at Abu-Basma called “informal participation” (2010). “This mechanism included one-on-one meetings with residents in the regional council’s headquarters or in planners’ offices, and episodes of conflict resolution between residents within the communities. Authorities at Abu-Basma believed that these meetings indicated transparency in the way in which they governed, and ethics regarding residents’ confidentiality. As the Operations Director explained,

“Our doors are open. If there is a problem, or they [residents] want to speak to us in private they can. They can speak with us directly…if they do not want to go to their local committees. All residents can, it is a part of our policy. So they can see what we are doing, and comment” (2010). Planners also indicated that their doors were open.

Planners who had offices near residents in the Metropolitan Beer Sheva area believed that meetings with individual residents were “not a problem” due to the small distance between their offices and the villages they were planning for (Planner of Umm Batin

2010).

Local committee members believed that “everyone” could participate in planning by speaking with planners directly (School principal 3, 2010; Head of the Local

Committee of Umm Batin 2010). Planners recognized that some practical challenges may have prevented all residents from enjoying one-on-one meetings, however. Three of the planners interviewed were based in the center of Israel and one social consultant in the north, while two planners and one social consultant had offices in or near Beer

Sheva. Although all villages under study are serviced by a major bus service (Egged or

Metropoline) or an independent van service, residents lodged many complaints about the services. Their hours of service were considered inadequate, and the van service, designed to supplement regular bus lines, did not have a clearly marked stop, and appeared to run inconsistently. Both companies stopped on the highway outside the village, which made accessing them difficult. This was particularly the case in villages 76 like Umm Batin and Abu-Krenat, which are over seven square kilometers in area

(Nahum Dunsky 2009). Other localities are located far from the highway. In Abu-

Krenat, the access road from the center of the village to the main road, Route 25, was over four kilometers. There was no reliable shuttle which ran from the center of Abu-

Krenat to the different neighborhoods, nor to the highway. Walking therefore would

“take hours”, as many residents complained57 (Merchant 1, 2011; Preschool teacher from Abu-Krenat, personal interview, 2011; Family from Abu-Krenat, Group interview,

Abu-Krenat 2011). Planners compensated for geographic barriers by scheduling meetings with residents in Abu-Basma’s offices in Beer Sheva, or in the village.

Figure 5. Physical challenges to accessing public participation (L) Van stop across from Umm Batin (1/12/10) (R) Main road in Abu-Krenat (26/12/10)

The use of personal cars could also have eased residents’ access to informal participation (Merchant 2, 2011). Nonetheless, residents who identified as having a low socioeconomic status in the village expressed that they did not own cars. In some villages, residents described car sharing programs which they believed overcame these

57 This was echoed by school employees, who expressed having had serious difficulties walking to the village from the main road. As a high school English teacher recalled, “I came here the first day without a car- what a mistake! I tried to walk all the way up from the road but it was impossible. I mean you could do it- but it would take forever! It was terrible, made my life miserable and made me even regret my decision for coming here” (English teacher 4, personal interview, 2011).

77 disparities. Still, other believed that, “only people with money can afford private cars.

Only people who can afford really have public transportation” (Custodian, personal interview, 2010).

For women there was the added challenge of leaving the community, which required that they be accompanied by a male chaperone. Direct contact with a male from outside the close family risked shaming the honor of the woman’s family, as it was thought to make her vulnerable to sexual temptation by a man outside her family, or were she married, to a man other than her spouse (Kressel et al. 1981; Dinero 1997:

255). Women observed leaving the village unaccompanied, or observed interacting with a male planner or representative from Abu-Basma without the presence of a male chaperone could be susceptible to penalties like rumors, seclusion, and even death

(Abu-Rabia-Queder 2006; Kressel et al.1981). In practice, no female Bedouin respondent expressed having visited a planner’s office or the regional council in Beer

Sheva.58

Planners drew attention to gender-based constraints on residents’ spatial mobility, particularly on women’s access to public facilities in the villages. These constraints are supported by literature on the “territorial” expressions of the codes of

“modesty and honor” which, rooted in Islamic law, govern Bedouin society (Fenster

1999a: 41). The extent of the area accessible to women has been called “spatial range”

(Meir 2011, citing Keddie 1990) in the literature, while the different places women are allowed or denied access to have been termed “permitted” or “forbidden” (Fenster

1999c).

These additional barriers suggest that, despite planners intentions, only male residents with some degree of influence in their communities could take advantage of

58 On one visit to the regional council’s office in Beer Sheva, I noticed a few women going to offices related to education and welfare. These women identified as being from villages in the council. 78 informal participation. Planners confirmed this problem, and they recalled having been approached in their offices primarily by local leaders, rather than average residents.

(Planner of Umm Batin 2010; Local Committee candidate 2010; Merchant 2, 2011).

Therefore, they saw a need to reach residents without being mediated by the individual power-holders in the communities. To do so, they supplemented their “open office policy” with mechanisms including:

 Bimkom Planning Workshops

 Household questionnaires

 Home visits

These tools have been informed by information gathered from professionals and academics with experience working in Bedouin communities. This included planners’ understandings of the spatial expressions of power dividing the village population.

Households, planners explained, were off-limits to non-family members, while village sheigs were off-limits to women (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010; Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010). Therefore, the different arenas where participation occurred needed to be selected with these considerations in mind, had planners hoped to hear from all residents with minimal distortion. Planners supplemented informal participation and local committee work with mechanisms that could navigate these unique spatial divisions.

 Bimkom Planning Workshops

Planning workshops had been organized by the non-profit organization Bimkom prior to the government planning process. Bimkom is an independent organization which aims to “strengthen democracy and human rights in the field of planning…by encouraging the development of new planning policies and procedures that are more equitable and responsive to the needs of the various communities” (Bimkom 2011). 79

Planning workshops were designed to empower underprivileged communities in Israel to take advantage of planning resources by “bridg[ing] a gap” between residents and the government (Professor of Geography, personal interview, 2010). In the case of Abu-

Basma, residents had not been familiar with their legal rights in planning, or of how best to take advantage of the new resources being given to their villages. Therefore, facilitators from Bimkom educated residents about their rights in planning and aimed to assist in the development of skills to participate when the government initiated its formal planning process.

Planning workshops were organized and conducted by volunteers59. They were held in some of Abu-Basma’s localities, in the Bedouin townships, as well as in other

Arab and Jewish localities in Israel.60 The organizers, some of whom came from academia, and others who had worked as government planners, drew from communicative theory to build different activities which would enable residents with little understanding of urban planning to articulate their needs comfortably and clearly.

As a representative from the organization explained, facilitators of the workshop were required to “speak with the people in the community. That will appeal to all of the people, kids, women, the leadership, people who work in the village, people who work outside the village and so on” (Professor of Public Policy, personal interview, 2010). To do so, organizers held separate sessions for men and women, in accessible public places within the villages. The importance of these workshops was highlighted by the planner who had participated in the workshop in Kaser al-Ser, and had later been hired to re- plan a neighborhood in the village:

59 Therefore, representatives from the regional council, including government planners, had not been involved in the sessions. One exception is the planner of several neighborhoods in the village of Kaser al- Ser, who was hired after the workshop at the request of a local representative from the village, after a former plan had been rejected (Interview with neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser ). 60Workshops were not administered in every Bedouin locality. In Abu-Basma, they were held in the villages of Kaser al-Ser, Drejat, Al-Fura, Abu-Tlul, Bir Hadaj, and, partially, in Umm Batin. Outside these localities, they were held in Jewish localities, particularly in development towns such as Sderot and Mizpe Ramon, as well as in Arab villages, such as Abu-Gosh. 80

When you have a structure within a society and the representatives come up to you and say “we are the committee [local committee of Kaser-al-Ser], we are the representatives’, to come and say, “no, I don’t accept that, I want to go and speak to everyone” is quite difficult. So what we did here was a workshop that brought people from all the families. We also had women that were with us in the process who went to the women, and had three sessions with the women. They [local committee members] didn’t want the women that would participate in the workshop with us…their women. But our women did go and have sessions with their women….and they had a lot of insight from the plans for their women, because there were many things that the men would tell you one thing, and the women would tell you something else. (2011) Following the sessions, Bimkom produced a final report called Principles for Planning.

The report included recommendations for the planner to consider when planning the localities, which had been drawn from residents' expressed needs (Former Program

Leader, Bimkom, personal interview, 2010; Professor of Public Policy 2010). After the workshops, Bimkom held one meeting with the planners who would plan the localities to go over the suggestions in-person (Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011).

Figure 6. Bimkom workshop in the village of Umm Batin. (Source: Bimkom 2009).

Although conducted independently, the workshops were integrated into planners’ and representatives’ official approach to conducting public participation in planning. The operations director at Abu-Basma told me that he and his coworkers had

“brought in” Bimkom to plan their settlements, which resulted in a “very good 81 interaction” with the organization (Operations Director 2010). Practically, the workshops were the foundations of the public participation process as they were assumed to have prepared residents to speak with planners. Future mechanisms, such as committee meetings, were assumed to work because residents had been prepared to engage with the topics they would address as planning proceeded. An example of a planning rights workshop can be seen in Figure 6.

Planners affirmed that they consulted the final report of the workshop when devising the official plans for the village (Overall planner for Umm Batin 2010;

Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011). In Kaser al-Ser and Umm Batin, the villages under study where workshops had been (in the case of Umm Batin, partially) held, most residents did not remember the workshops. These workshops had been conducted in the early 2000s, which left a ten-year gap between the workshops and the fieldwork for this thesis. Planners working on villages which had been recognized more recently, however, believed that the workshops had left a positive impact on residents, as they saw a clear improvement in residents’ abilities to engage with planning.61

Bimkom’s planning workshops were used by planners and the authorities at Abu-

Basma to charge the local representation system with “intellectual and social capital”

(Innes et al. 1994, cited in Healey 1997: 57). At the same time, the workshops’ findings were used by planners to hear from residents who may have been vulnerable to information distortion, had participation been limited to informal participation or to the committee system.

61 One example is the village of Abu-Tlul, in which “younger people, who are more educated, more informed, have better knowledge about the particulars of the process and they know to ask the right questions about the process of planning. It is not very new to them….Bimkom had conducted previously a workshop in Al-Fura two years ago, so this perhaps the reason that the younger people knew to ask the right questions. (Social consultant for Al-Fura 2010)

 Household questionnaires

The planners and social consultants active in generating master plans for the localities of Umm Batin, Tarabin, Abu-Tlul, and Al-Fura used questionnaires to hear from residents. These questionnaires were written in Arabic, and were distributed by a local intermediary or social consultant to most male heads of household (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010; Overall planner for Umm Batin 2010). They were therefore considered to be particularly helpful in reaching large quantities of people—

“all the village”, as a former planner of Umm Batin had claimed—through a language participants were comfortable in. The survey included basic demographic questions such as, “Are you married? If so, how many wives?”, occupational questions such as,

“What is the principal place of business? In the village, or outside, and where?” and open-ended questions directed at the planning process, such as, “What are your expectations for a plan that meets your needs and ideas?" (Khamaisi 2011). A questionnaire distributed in the village of Abu-Tlul appears in Appendix E (in Hebrew,

Arabic and English).

Similar to workshops, questionnaires enabled planners to contact people who may have had difficulty articulating their needs to their local committee representative, or speaking directly with planners. As one planner explained, “Now you cannot meet

5,000 people. Of course. They will not all come. I mean, first of all, 60% of them are children…[so] he [social consultant] prepared also a questionnaire. We had 360 I think, more than 300 questionnaires came back” (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010). These results indicated to the planner who distributed them that the questionnaires had succeeded in engaging more residents in the planning process.

 Home visits

Home visits generally were organized between planners and residents when a specific issue regarding the family arose. In one case, the planner of the Abu-Krenat master plan recalled sending his “social team” to every household in the village, so that they could meet with every resident directly (2010). Similar to the other mechanisms, home visits were expected to respect the power relations within Bedouin settlements.

They were held on invitation by the male head of household. The planner and his social team, comprised of female architects and Arabic speakers, could meet with residents like women and children, who might not have been able to access workshops or communicate with planners through other means. Visits generally meant that all family members met with planners together, so participation by women and children did risk being shaped by the wills of other family members.62 Still, by meeting with residents in private places, planners sheltered respondents from other threats to open communication, such as the gaze of more powerful families.

2. Quality control

Planners used different tools to ensure the integrity of information received during episodes of participation. The tools served as a way to assess the quality of participation as it was retrieved, and to test the validity of their findings after participation had finished. These tools included:

 “Checks” on participatory tools

 Triangulation of data

62 During group interviews with families, I observed dynamics which may have been representative of household visits by planners. Frequently, in interviews with mixed male and female family members, male residents, particularly spouses, spoke for female residents, even when their wives or daughters had questions directed towards them. During interviews with only mothers and their children, however, they seemed to have a great deal of agency in answering my questions- at times even overruling their sons and daughters. 84

 “Checks” on participatory tools

In the case of social consultants’ household questionnaires, the planner believed that the questionnaires were susceptible to influence by local powerholders. Residents responsible for distributing the questionnaires either as intermediaries or as household representatives could decide who to distribute them to, and could even discard or forge them. The planner of Abu-Tlul therefore checked “the color of the pen, the way they write, the telegraphic”, to “see that it is not one who was sitting there and writing all of them” (Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010). Additionally, the planner checked the number of questionnaires returned, out of the total distributed, to ensure that his findings had been drawn from a large data set. In the case of Bimkom workshops, government planners had met in-person with the members of the organization that had conducted the workshops, and with the local leaders who had agreed to hold them.

These meetings enabled some of the individuals closely involved with the workshops to meet with the actors responsible for constructing other participatory mechanisms.

Drawing from their own familiarity with the settlements they were planning for, the planners and consultants in attendance could bring up concerns which might not have arisen from Bimkom’s published report.

 Triangulation of data

All planners believed that a strength of the participation process was that it was iterative. In approaching communities, planners were not only consulting with people, but “starting a dialog" (Overall planner for Umm Batin 2010). As this chapter has shown, planners did not rely on a single data so for data on local residents. Their efforts to distribute surveys and visit households were part of an entire program of public participation. Therefore, the data retrieved from one mechanism was encouraged to enter into conversation with the results of another. This enabled planners to check the 85 reliability of their findings through triangulation. Planners working in communities which had Bimkom workshops, for example, expressed having compared the findings from their social consultant work, to the results of Bimkom's workshops. In all of these cases, planners believed that the findings nearly matched (Overall planners for Abu-

Tlul 2010; Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011; Overall planer for Abu-Krenat

2011). Planners also compared their plans to other plans, such as those which had been produced by residents prior to recognition. These included plans formed by local committees under the RCUV, as well as the plans which had been rejected by local committees (Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011).63 Through their actions, planners demonstrated an awareness of the structural forces which threatened to jeopardize the voice of residents in the planning process and to misrepresent their diverse interests. They have demonstrated attempts to navigate these embedded infrastructures, without succumbing to them.

63 In the context of his work on the village of Ma’arit, the planner of Abu-Krenat expressed having referenced a plan put together by residents and government representatives on an earlier "steering committee", which was "not so different from the one submitted". This indicated to him that the planner had been "very attentive to what they [residents] were saying. No aspect that hasn’t been taken into account" (Local Planning Committee Meeting 2011). 86

LIMITATIONS- ABU-BASMA AS COMMUNICATIVE

PLANNING?

Despite the attempts by planners to use the information they had learned about

Bedouin localities to repair existing public participation and introduce new mechanisms, gaps continued to emerge between how planners believed participation should have worked, and how it actually did when implemented. Respondents who were not planners, or who did not serve in a government position, believed that local committees were appointed, rather than elected, while some local committee members, who planners had assumed could engage with planning due to the work of Bimkom or their social consultants, confessed that they actually did not understand what planning was. These findings pose practical challenges to the realization of the transformative goals of planners, local representatives, and administrators. Specifically, they suggest that participation might have been restricted to an elite subset of the village population.

Experiences and strategies for public participation were also found to differ by planner, locality, and family, as planners did not share the same approach, nor did villages, families, or individuals act or the same.

Three challenges are discussed here. The first, “Limited comprehension of plans”, looks at a cornerstone of Abu-Basma’s approach- the programs set in place to prepare residents for planning. The second, “‘Forbidden’ and ‘permitted’ participation for women” examines how a traditional gender division has imprinted itself on the

“modern” discipline of planning. The third, “Problems in representation through local committees”, presents an alternative perspective on the local committee system, from outside government and planning offices. These themes reveal that some of the official perspectives of local committee members and authorities at Abu-Basma did not match 87 with the experiences of respondents who had been or who should have been involved in public participation through a communicative planning approach.

1. Limited comprehension of planning

Planners hired by the planning authorities at the regional council had expressed having confidence in the abilities of residents to participate in planning, because they believed that residents were capable of understanding what planning was. This was expressed most clearly by the social consultant who had worked in the village of Al-

Fura:

The planning process- they know very well already. The Bedouin have reached a stage in which…particularly the younger people, have very much knowledge about the planning process…and they know how to put their fingers on the right things …and they know to ask the right questions. It is not like the people, the Bedouin of the 1950s and the 1960s who didn't know much about the process, and therefore could be manipulated very easily (2010). In villages which had them, Bimkom workshops were assumed to have prepared residents to engage with planning. In villages which did not have them, heads of families and local representatives were said to have been prepared by social consultants to translate planning for others (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010). Nonetheless, the majority of residents interviewed expressed being uncertain what planning was.

Female respondents in particular were puzzled when asked about planning, even after being probed about related disciplines like architecture and geography. Even some members of local planning committees expressed having difficulties understanding planning. Three residents who had served on local planning committees told me that they had seen the plans, but that they had not understood them. Therefore, they had let 88 others comment on the plans during the sessions, while they decided to refrain from making contributions.64

The findings were supported by other local committee members and by NGO leaders, who explained that many residents “were illiterate”, and that most lacked the

“professionalism” required to engage with government planning offices (Former

Director, Abu-Basma Project 2010; School principal 3, 2011). Female residents added that one of the greatest challenges standing in their way of improving their lives in their villages was their illiteracy (Mother of five children 2010). This created a situation in which, as a mother five children from Abu-Krenat explained, “the men are the ones who talk. Lots of women, they don’t read and write. If someone could teach them even to use the phone, for it’s the simplest thing is to call someone” (2011).

Therefore, mechanisms such as local planning committee meetings may have functioned appropriately “from above”, because all families had a representative in attendance. On-the-ground, however, families lacked representation in front of the local committees due to their representatives’ lack of training. These findings counter the assumptions made by planners about residents’ abilities to engage with planning.

2. “Forbidden” and “Permitted” participation for women

Female residents who were aware that the village was undergoing a planning process believed that planning was “political” and therefore an issue which only men were responsible for dealing with (Head of Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010;

History teacher 2010). They then suggested that I interview their fathers, brothers or husbands, who they believed would know more about the subject. Later, when their family prepared to rebuild their homes in neighborhoods, women believed that they

64One such resident is a merchant from the village of Abu-Krenat. He recalled that he “saw the plans. The government shared the plans with the educated man chosen by each family [but] I had nothing to comment on. I am a merchant, I don’t plan. But I did not understand the plans anyway” (2010). 89 would be involved in planning the inside of their homes (Security guard, personal interview, 2011; Female college student 2011).

The findings are supported by the findings of other studies on planning the

Bedouin towns. Males were found to have ultimate control over planning issues, and therefore to have the power to restrict women’s involvement to “private” issues, such as the style and layout of her home (Meir 2011: 238). “Public” issues, such as overall planning for the village, remained issues confined to male spaces, and therefore issues open only to men65 (Meir 2011; Dinero 1997).

These restrictions were found to have impacted the abilities for women to take advantage of the communicative infrastructures enjoyed by male residents. Despite the attempts by social consultants or representatives from Bimkom to prepare women to engage with the planning process, the gendered limitations on knowledge, intensified by the urbanization process, prevented planners’ spatial accommodations from making their desired impacts. This informational boundary was found to not have been surmounted by planners’ attempts to minimize distortion by holding meetings in

“permitted” spaces, or by distributing questionnaires to private households. One illustrative example was observed during interviews with women in the village of Kaser al-Ser. With the exception of one woman interviewed, who had expressed not having had an interest in participating in the sessions (Security guard and family 2011), female residents did not recall a Bimkom workshop having been held in the village. In the case of the woman who did recall the meetings, her husband had interjected during his wife’s interview, and had said that he “believe[s] in women’s rights. But inside tradition”. He then explained that the women of the village “speak to each other about the plans…they have dreams; they have hope to get out of this jail”. Still, female

65 Similarly, Dinero (1997) found this pattern in voting records from the village of Segev Shalom. Male residents were more likely to vote than women, and at times coerced their wives to vote in order to advance their chosen candidate (268). 90 respondents had heard about planning through “gossip” with other women in their homes, or at permitted public spaces, such as kindergartens and baby clinics (Preschool teacher, personal interview, 2010; Mother and female children, group interview, 2011).

They had not been engaged in a discussion by a male resident or planner.

Apparent exceptions were some of the female respondents who were immediate family members of local representatives. On two occasions, women referred me to speak with their female coworkers, who were daughters of residents serving as the head of the local committee, or as the re representative to the Abu-Basma Regional Council.

When interviewed, these women seemed more aware of the planning process than other residents. Still, these respondents had not been invited to provide their input in planning their village or neighborhood. Instead, “maybe, when we start with the houses, we can have whatever we want. Maybe I will put my house like that, maybe two floors. Then we can do everything (2011). Family meetings involved the family representative presenting family information, rather than presenting family members with options, or asking for feedback. A niece of the representative to the regional council recalled her experience during the process of planning a new neighborhood in the village: “I didn’t see [the plans], but my father saw, and he tells us about what we are going to do. What will happen for us. For the Saria* family. And every man was going to his family and telling them what will change and if they have any ideas (2011).

At its best, the participation of women in formal planning extended to the level of “informing”, as “a one-way flow of information-from officials to citizens- within no channel provided for feedback and no power for negotiation” (Arnstein 1978: 219

Women believed that their participation would only be welcomed when the informational territory shifted to the private issues they were granted access to.

3. Unequal and undemocratic representation through local committees

The local committee structure was assumed by authorities at Abu-Basma to be democratic and accessible. The committees were also believed to be comprised of an equal representation of all families in the villages. These assumptions were challenged by members of the local committees. All members of the local committee told the researcher explicitly that the local committees “are not democratic…they are appointed” (School principal 3, 2010). This poses an additional challenge to Abu-

Basma as a communicative planning initiative, as it indicates that a cornerstone of the planning process was administered by an undemocratic public body.

Practically, appointing, rather than electing, local officials, might not have posed problems for information gathering, as each family member could still be represented by an individual of their choosing. Nonetheless, some residents believed that the selection process was unfair. One resident believed that his family’s representative had appointed himself by asserting his dominance over his relative, who had also hoped to serve in the position (School deputy 1, personal interview, 2011). Other residents were unaware of how their family representatives were chosen (Merchant 1, 2010; Male

Abu-Asheba residents, group interview, 2010).

Former committee members provided additional evidence that the local committees were not functioning as administrators had expected them to. In the village of Abu-Krenat, a system similar to the local committee had fallen apart after the demise of the sheikh (Merchant 1, 2011; Car driver, personal interview, 2011). In his place, one resident, the head engineer at the regional council, had taken on the responsibility of coordinating planning with the village. A board or committee was not re-formed. In

Kaser al-Ser, the local committee continued to operate, but planning consultation was initiated by the representative to the Abu-Basma council, “only if there is an issue, and 92 only those specific people in the way” (Merchant 2, 2011). In Umm Batin, the committee structure had fallen apart due to a conflict between the younger and older generations of the village’s dominant Abu-Kaf tribe. In its place, residents suggested that the head of the local committee, also the son of the sheikh, was “off planning by himself, on his own. No one can tell him anything” (Middle-aged male resident 2011).

This was supported by other residents—male and female—from Umm Batin, who expressed that they “don’t know of a planner or something, nothing” but that “I think

[head of the local committee] would be. He’s involved, just [head of local committee]”

(Regional librarian 2011). These findings are in direct opposition to the founding ideology of the committee system. Rather than redistribute the power of the sheikh to the different families, one individual took charge of decision-making for the entire village.

The assumption that local committees were accessible was further questioned by the findings on participation by women in planning. Some women and adolescents expressed that they were unaware that a local committee system existed. Women hoped for some kind of local representation, but believed that they had not yet had a representative organization. In Umm Batin, the head of the local committee said that he had organized sessions with women, because “we wanted the women to be involved”.

He therefore explained that he had held “two sessions with the women regarding the planning” (2010). Nonetheless, all female respondents in the village had never heard of such sessions. The Building Supervisor for Abu-Basma, who had formerly worked with the planning firm responsible for the Umm Batin master plan, explained that these meetings had never occurred, despite her numerous requests to the head of the local committee of Umm Batin to organize a meeting with herself and the women of the village (Personal conversation, 2012). These findings provide further evidence that the

“official” perspectives on public participation, and particularly the communicative 93 ideals held by the regional authorities did not match the experiences of individuals who worked or lived in the villages themselves. It emphasizes that, despite germane efforts by social consultants and Bimkom to prepare residents for planning, the tools provided fell short of what would have been needed for a genuinely representative sample of residents to participate.

Academics with experience working with the local committees had explained that there was a conflict between the local “environment”, and the expectations of the

Israeli government. Abu-Basma’s values for democracy could not be supported in

Bedouin society, which operated based on clan and historical appointment (Professor of

Geography and Environment 2010; Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010). This problem one geographer referred to as a fundamental challenge to communicative planning theory. She called it “the question of how you advance participation in a nondemocratic society”, the answers to which she believed “you’re not going to find in

Patsy [Healey, communicative theorist] (Professor of Geography and Environment

2010). This question she believed was ”one of the hardest” facing planners, as it created a tension between what administrators and planners had hoped to do, and what communities could support.66 .

66 The professor had continued by posing the question “If you believe in collaborative planning, which I do, how do you collaborate?” (Professor of Geography and Environment 2010). 94

PLANNING AS CONTROL?

Overview

This chapter explores planning for Abu-Basma localities as a case of planning reform, planning control, or both, by exploring Abu-Basma’s stated approach to planning and governing its localities against the data collected from the different stakeholder groups. As we have seen, and which we will further explore, some of the expressions of planning reform in Abu-Basma resemble those reflected by the communicative paradigm. At the same time, interviews with local committee members and residents indicate that planning control was exerted over the issues they cared most about. These concerns are found to be talked about outside the communicative channels established during the planning process.

The expressions of reform and control are encapsulated in episodes which fall within two dimensions of planning control:

I. “The Territorial Dimension”, and

II. “The Procedural Dimension” (Yiftachel 1998).

Similar to episodes in communicative theory, these episodes focus on moments of interaction between people and ideas. The episodes follow planning-as-control theorists’ definition of episode as “the visible aspects of power” (Flyvbjerg 1998: 231).

The lens to practice is “zoomed out”, however, as episodes like participation and local representation are discussed in their institutional places within the Israeli planning system. In the “Territorial Dimension”, the episodes “Zero-sum’ ideology” and

“Government planning system” present an ideology and a policy mechanism which may guide important land use decisions that have impacted planning for Abu-Basma localities. This ideology is revealed by comparing two competing discourses- one, that of higher-level government employees and some of the state’s hired planners, and the 95 other, that of residents, other planners, and advocates working outside the formal planning system.

In the “Procedural Dimension”, the ideology explored in the territorial dimension is surfaced by episodes of local planning. These episodes are visible examples from practice of a value-laden approach being taken by the government to settlement planning for Israel’s south. The episodes, titled “Knowledge in planning” and “Conflict resolution and advocacy” reflect limitations which have been set by government decisions on the informational and geographic territory residents had access to during the planning process. These constructed barriers are found to have limited the abilities for planners working in Abu-Basma localities to meet residents’ needs. This returns the analysis to a central theme articulated by planning-as-control theory: the perception of a contradiction between the needs of the State, and the needs of the Bedouin.

Abu-Basma Regional Council- Planning oppression or planning reform?

The authorities at Abu-Basma believed that they were making real, hard-fought efforts to achieve planning “reform”, a “progressive change in the affairs of subject groups towards equality, equity or democratic justice” (Yiftachel 1998: 395). The planners responsible for forming overall and local plans for Abu-Basma localities defined planning as a “profession of idealists” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010).

Along with representatives from Abu-Basma, they operated on the assumption that, by altering the normal course of events, planning would “create some better kind of life condition for the community” (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010; Building supervisor 2011). They identified their individual offices as “pro Bedouin”, and Abu-

Basma, in particular, as an advocate for Bedouin interests. As the planner of Abu- 96

Krenat recalled, “The mayor [of Abu-Basma] used to say, ‘Try to help them, try to go towards them more.’ That, I think, is the mission (2011).

High-ranking authorities at Abu-Basma, including the Operations Director, and the Head of Statutory Planning, explained that their approach valued “people”, before

“politics or any social agenda” (2010, 2011). Drawing from examples of daily life in unrecognized villages, these respondents described their many challenges as part of a regional authority to settlements plagued by unemployment, health hazards, and low graduation rates (Operations Director 2010; Head of Local Committee of Umm Batin

2010; Swirski and Hasson 2006). In response, they chose to take an “action-oriented” approach to “fix a neglect of sixty years”, by “doing the work we think should be done to get them [Bedouin living in unrecognized localities] to at least higher than where they are now. So they can be a part of Israeli society, like everyone else” (Operations

Director 2010). By listening to their constituency, and lobbying for resources, planners and Abu-Basma authorities believed that they were making real strides towards planning reform for the Bedouin.

Many residents and local committee members echoed planners in their initial praise for the Abu-Basma Regional Council. Residents believed that the goals of Abu-

Basma were to “listen to the people, to give them services as soon as possible”

(Preschool teacher 2011). They often used terms like “hope”, “dreams” and “light” to describe their feelings about planning and recognition, which they believed would secure a better future for their children. Local committee members frequently echoed the praise from planners of individual personalities at Abu-Basma, and of the director in particular, who they believed to be “a good person, who wants to support the Bedouins”

(Head of Local Committee of Abu-Tlul 2010). Additionally, they shared the priorities of Abu-Basma authorities to improve public facilities before addressing individual 97 needs related to landownership or housing. As the former representative from the village of Umm Batin to Abu-Basma explained, “for the future of the village, the central point we are stressing is education. All other issues are derived from that point”

(2010). Many residents therefore shared the reformist goals of the Abu-Basma administrators and planners upon entering the planning process.

Some local committee members had drawn attention to the local problems of control over communicative infrastructures which challenged planners’ attempts at conducting public participation in the village. They recognized that Abu-Basma’s attempts at planning reform were, indeed, complicated by very real problems of misrepresentation and corruption within their own communities. Nonetheless, unlike planners or the authorities at the regional council, many local committee members believed that these challenges to communication were insignificant in light of the fundamental policy they believed was being advanced by the Interior Ministry through

Abu-Basma: the expropriation of Bedouin lands, and the concentration of the Bedouin in urban settlements. As a former committee member expressed, visibly frustrated with the thrust of the interview towards questions about public participation, “No, the problem was not in the times for the meeting. The problem is with the policies of the

Council and its ability to perform well” (2010).

Thus, while some residents understood planning as a way to meet their needs, their representatives could not separate planning from what they believed was a regressive and unwavering policy of the State of Israel towards its Arab citizens. They contrasted an “official” policy of Abu-Basma with an “unofficial” policy of the Interior

Ministry, which they understood to loom behind the visible and largely benevolent efforts of Abu-Basma to plan and provide services. As the Head of the Local

Committee of Umm Batin expressed: 98

Officially, it is the responsibility of the regional council to provide the people with the basic needs, basic services, and to be a place for the people to talk with- to plan. Unofficially they're there to take land from the Bedouins, because even when the state recognizes the village, it does not give them ownership of the land, it just recognizes the village. (2010) This created a problem with the “basic terms” of planning through the Abu-Basma

Regional Council (Plumber, personal interview, 2011). In collaborating with planners, some residents believed that they had actually been coerced into promoting a program which hinged the provision of a public good on the implementation of a series of regressive policies. These included the Israel Land Authority’s approach to settling land ownership disputes, and decisions over the municipal area of the regional council, decided under the Planning Administration of the Ministry of the Interior. These decisions generated “fear”, and “mistrust” in committee members that contrasted strongly with the “hope” and “light” in a future with a regional authority, public services, and permanent housing (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010; Local

Committee of Umm Batin 2010; Merchant 2, 2011).

As will be discussed in the following chapter, the territorial dimension of the

State’s approach to governance and planning determined the geographic and administrative territory available to residents, local representatives, planners, Abu-

Basma, and independent advocates to negotiate over. This included the governmental arenas open to participation by local actors, as well as the actual territory which could be planned and governed under the authority of the regional council. Efforts at implementing planning “reform” by planners and Abu-Basma authorities may have been able to be achieved to the extent at which they did not conflict with an historic government ideology, which could continue to guide the state’s approach to planning and governing its territory. Therefore, the transformative efforts of planners, representatives and administrators were constrained by, and in fact linked to, the 99 enforcement of planning control- “a regressive deepening of intergroup disparities, inequalities or undemocratic domination” (Yiftachel 1998: 395).

100

EP. 1: THE TERRITORIAL DIMENSION

He [former director of Abu-Basma Regional Council] goes to fundraisers and gets a lot of money for infrastructure, for wonderful schools. He distributes laptops to Bedouin children. He tries with the problems of electricity infrastructure to get the funding for solar energy. Everything he can do, and to recognize a small number of villages, but the game is what you call a zero-sum game. Ultimately, the way the government sees it. Any concession to the Bedouin means we are taking valuable land from further generations of Jews. They work very hard in that conception to make life better for the Bedouins. But they don't say, "Look, Bedouins are reality. Their native title is a reality. The land is theirs as indigenous people through declaration of their rights as indigenous people and so on. And their villages a reality. To say this you have to change operating program…to change the disk. To change the whole way you think about the relations between Bedouins and Israel and the game. Which is not a zero sum game. It's not that every village that I recognize for them, is less for me. And this we are not ready to do. (Professor of Geography 2010)

The “zero-sum” ideology: Government interests versus Bedouins interests

Many respondents from the academic and NGO groups echoed residents in their approximation of planning for Abu-Basma localities. They believed that employees from Abu-Basma had tried to do “everything [they] can do” to make life better for the

Bedouin, but that their actions were linked to regressive policies which would worsen life for many of the Bedouin (Professor of Geography 2010). These respondents, policy and geography experts, who had studied earlier government policies relating to land ownership and planning, and advocates, who had worked for years with Bedouin living in the townships and unrecognized localities, believed that an “ethnocratic” (Yiftachel

2006a) ideology guided government decision-making. They defined it as “a zero-sum game. Ultimately, the way the government sees it. Any concession to the Bedouin means we are taking valuable land from further generations of Jews” (Professor of

Geography 2010).

This perceived contradiction between the interests of the Israeli State and the interests of the Bedouin may have led the State to make policy in ways which excluded the public from participating, and denied recognition to many residents’ expressed 101 needs. Respondents referenced examples from the history of government intervention in

Bedouin settlement and landholdings to indicate a contradiction between the government's historically prescribed settlement patterns, and the traditional lifestyle of the Bedouin. Urban settlements like Tel Sheva and Rahat opposed the traditionally agrarian and semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Bedouin, which would have been better suited to a Jewish-style agricultural settlement, such as a moshav or a kibbutz (Director of Negev Coexistence Forum, personal interview, 2010; Professor of Geography 2010;

Professor of Public Policy 2010; Head of the Local Committee of Abu-Tlul 2010).

Respondents also explained that the State worked through different mechanisms to advance its ideology. Decisions over Bedouin land disputes, for example, had, through the district and national court system, found consistently in favor of government claimants.67 Therefore, as a local planner who worked in El-Sayyid, explained, the government used its legal tools to define “reality”.68 This approach directly opposed the Bedouins’ own reality, which they had developed as occupants of the land for hundreds of years prior to the establishment of the modern Israeli state.

Despite Israeli court rulings and early lands ordinances, there remained, for the

Bedouin, “no question” that “all of the Negev belongs to them” (Local planner for El-

Sayyid, personal interview, 2011). These decisions “give them [residents] the feeling, and the reality, that this really is a great feud” (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010).

67According to Yahel (2006), between the 1970s, when Bedouin began registering their claims, and 2006, no land dispute between the Negev Bedouin and the State of Israel has been found in favor of the Bedouin. While arguments for and against the decisions abound (see Kark and Gerber 1984; Yahel 2006, and against, Meir 2007; Kedar and Yiftachel 2006) the government's approach nonetheless denies formal legitimacy to a major concern of many Bedouin living in the Negev. This is supported by the government, which denies that Bedouin have any ownership rights over the land, but recognizes that: "The Bedouin ownership claims are not based on legal grounds but rather on their own tradition and the period of time they have occupied the land, with limited documentation" (Yahel 2006: 11). 68 As the planner explained, “They don’t say, “okay, you registered the land, it belongs to you.” You have to go to the court and see what is the reality. And if you have a problem between the government and the Bedouins, they go to the court, 100% of the time, the government wins. There’s no chance. (2011) 102

Recent government decisions regarding planning for Arab and Jewish settlements in the Negev were believed to indicate that the ideology continued to guide spatial policymaking. In the case of the Abu-Basma Regional Council, the Interior

Ministry’s decisions in the early 1990s to legalize a limited number of unrecognized settlements clashed with the “insurgent” plans developed by the RCUV, which had called for the recognition of all forty-five villages (Social consultant for Al-Fura 2010;

Head of the Local Committee of Abu-Tlul 2010). Arguments have been advanced for and against the government’s decision, including, from the side of the government, a commitment to provide for the needs of Bedouin citizens, an environmental agenda to preserve open spaces, and financial arguments against planning “irrational”, low- density settlements, as well as from Bedouin advocates, who believe the decisions have reflected clear moves by the government to prioritize the concerns of national security, and the expansion of Jewish settlements, over the settlement rights of Arab citizens.

These arguments aside, the recent decisions reflect that limitations have been placed on existing Bedouin settlements, while new, Jewish settlements—which meet the criteria of “irrational” as applied to Bedouin villages—are being planned and promoted69 by the government. Several respondents provided the example of Jewish single-family farms along highway 40, which have recently been planned and promoted by the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council. These respondents believed that the new settlements illustrate a contradiction in the government’s approach to spatial planning in the Negev. On the one hand, the government publicly stated a commitment to the preservation of open spaces. This argument justified the actions of national and district level planning offices to place limits on the size and number of recognized Bedouin

69 Examples provided by respondents included Beer Milka, a village of 400 residents which borders Sinai, and existing Bedouin villages, such as the village of Al-Arakib, which “was a successful farm. They put their own road, they're own electricity...without the help of the government. And still, they demolish. There they have enough people, a strong connection to identity and tradition. We don't have to justify that. They are villages” (Director of Negev Coexistence Forum 2010). 103 settlements. On the other hand, local authorities were encouraging new, Jewish villages to be planned and developed in the periphery (Orenstein and Jiang et al. 2011).70

Therefore, planners may have been “pro-Bedouin”, but they were perceived by respondents familiar with planning policy to operate within a government system which continued to approach planning and landownership as if they were zero-sum games.

Despite well-meaning staff members, with Abu-Basma, the government had not

“change[d] the disk… the whole way you think about the relations between Bedouins and Israel and the game” (Professor of Geography 2010). Instead, many respondents believed that the State had maintained the same assumptions which deny Bedouins’ claims to landownership, and prescribed urban dwellings for the rural Bedouin.

The government planning system: “Good intents” in an “atmosphere of limitation”

Respondents from the NGO and academic groups pointed to a mechanism which they believed empowered the government to promote its ideology through planning decisionmaking. They explained that the mechanism, Israel’s “top-down” planning system, had built-in “barriers” which kept local actors like residents, Abu-

Basma authorities, and planners, from negotiating over higher-order planning issues

(Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010). In the case of Abu-Basma, the “good intents” of administrators and planners were constrained by the bureaucratic territory they legally operated in. The social consultant in Umm Batin explained the situation as follows:

I believe the head of Abu-Basma tried to do his best effort to provide the needs and the service for the community. But he is limited in resources, limited in policy, limited in the hierarchy of who make the decision. Because the Ministry of the Interior has a higher rule in getting the decision than [then-Mayor]. And that means there are, I

70An assistant engineer at Abu-Basma explained that he believed the “family farms” were set up to stop the Bedouin expansion. If you don't agree with what the Bedouin are doing wrong, then why do you let them [Jewish settlers] do the same thing? Look if my name is Yisrael, it's fine, but if my name is Mohammad, why you won't let me sit on the land? It's a very big problem. (Personal interview, 2011) 104

believe, good intents, good will, but, there are a lot of barriers which create a climate, an atmosphere, of limitation. (2010)

Israel’s planning system had been established during the early days of nation-building, and concentrated decision-making power in the hands of a central authority. This, at the time, had enabled careful policymaking and oversight of issues central to the future development and security of the Israeli state (Shachar 1998; Alfasi and Portugali 2004).

The system is organized in a hierarchy, such that plans are commissioned and approved by planning agencies which oversee the district or municipality the plan is relevant to.

In the case of Abu-Basma, district-level plans, which serve as intermediaries between national and local planning offices, have determined the resources local planners can plan with and the public can negotiate over (Shmueli 2005). Therefore, any expressions of reform or regression at the higher levels of the planning system may be advanced by the work of local planners. The planning institutions in Israel appear in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Institutional structure of Israel’s “top-down” planning system. Gray arrows indicate the power to approve plans, formed at the subordinate level of the planning system. Light arrows indicate the power to approve plan proposals. Black arrows 105

indicate the process of providing plan instructions, in which higher-level agencies provide guidelines to lower-level planning agencies (Source: Alfasi 2003: 188). Israel’s planning system has been criticized by respondents for being exclusionary towards all citizens in Israel, whose participation over district and regional planning issues is restricted to representation through appointed committees, and to public comment periods after plans have been formed (Professor of Geography and

Environment 2010; Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010; Shmueli 2005). These procedural barriers may be more severe for the Bedouin, who suffer double- discrimination as a religious and ethnic minority living in Israel’s periphery (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010; Local planner for El-Sayyid 2011). Therefore, the exclusion of the Bedouin from decision-making at the higher levels of the planning system may go beyond the structural exclusion felt by all Israeli citizens, towards one which is more value-laden, and capitalizes on the population’s unique challenges to understanding and accessing the policies which impact them. In the case of Abu-Basma, relevant district-level planning decisions, such as the number of unrecognized Bedouin settlements to formalize, and the jurisdiction of the Abu-Basma Regional Council, have been criticized by respondents from across stakeholder groups for being out-of-touch with residents’ needs (Professor of Geography and Environment 2010; Local planner for El-Sayyid 2011; Former Head of Bedouin Administration; Director of Negev

Coexistence Forum 2010). As will be seen, outcomes which appeared as if they were made “from a satellite”, or “arbitrarily” (Director of preschool, personal interview,

2011; Merchant 2, 2011; Professor of Geography and Environment 2010) to observers were believed by others with experience working within the planning system to have been made “within the rules of the game of planning in Israel” (Head of Ministerial

Committee to Determine Disputed Land in Beer Sheva, personal interview, 2010). 106

In the 1990s and early 2000s, important government decisions were made over the number of unrecognized Bedouin villages to formalize, and the future jurisdiction of the Abu-Basma Regional Council. These issues were deliberated over by appointed

“search” committees under the auspices of national and district planning offices.

Former committee members distinguished between “the decision of the committee, and the law”, to indicate that the government had chosen to form solutions which did not respect all of their findings (Head of Ministerial Committee 2010). These respondents were planners who believed that the outcomes reflected their position within the government planning system, in which they were “controlled all the time”, and “not working in a vacuum”; their abilities to do what they hoped “depend[ed] on the attitude in the system” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2011; Head of Ministerial Committee

2010). The decisions of the district government and other ministries over these issues reflect the administrative constraints on planners working at different levels of the

Israeli planning system, as well as the “attitude in the system” which may have guided these important decisions.71

The overall planner for Abu-Krenat had participated in a search committee of professionals convened in 1991, to decide on the first unrecognized villages to be recognized by the government.72 He explained that the number of settlements had

“shrunk, from the original plan which involved many, many more, almost all villages in the Negev, to five”, because “the decision was up to the high committee to decide”

(2011). He believed that the government had reached a “highly formed decision” which had integrated the concerns of various government ministries in its final decision.

Nonetheless, he explained that “they [decisionmakers] are politicians…it is not their job

71 Other respondents have called the structure “dishonest”. The former member of Bimkom described the structure in reference to the work of a neighborhood planner in Kaser al-Ser. As he explained, “He [the planner] thought he was doing a good job, a good plan, doing a good thing- he's a good man. It was the whole structure- his office, Abu-Basma, everything that enabled the plan to be formed, and pushed forward. So the plan was not honest, and not just” (Former Program Leader 2010). 72 Known as the “Ministerial Sub-Committee on Bedouin Affairs” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2000). 107 to enter into the details…when they said five [villages], I knew it would be a problem”

(2011). The government’s deliberations had produced a solution which respondents from outside the government stakeholder groups believed would prove problematic upon being implemented, because it conflicted with the desires of many Bedouin residents, despite respecting the needs of the government. Nonetheless, despite foreseeing problems with the decision, the planner believed that it was out of his hands, as it had “come from up” (2011), from an office which was beyond his jurisdiction as a committee member and planner.

An academic from Kay College, who led the committee responsible for determining the status of disputed lands around the municipality of Beer Sheva, also recalled that the outcomes of her committee work did not reflect the committee’s initial findings (2010). She explained that the committee had reached a decision to allocate some of the disputed areas to the Abu-Basma Regional Council, whose villages are scattered throughout the region. This would have provided Abu-Basma with more space for industry or agriculture, and would have secured some additional tax revenues for the municipality. Nonetheless, the decision was made to allocate most of the disputed lands to the City of Beer Sheva (Head of Ministerial Committee 2010). This led to an outcome in which the municipal area of the regional council was limited to the settlements themselves. Lacking the revenues collected by Jewish regional councils and representing the poorest sector in the nation, Abu-Basma would be likely to face financial troubles after it had used the initial startup grants from the Interior Ministry

(Outreach Coordinator, SHATIL, personal interview, 2010; Director of Negev

Coexistence Forum 2010; Head of Ministerial Committee 2010). This indicated, to the participant, that the Interior Ministry had acted “within the rules of the game” in making spatial policy, and that “no paradigm shift” had occurred from the government’s former approach. As she explained, 108

Abu-Basma is not like other regional councils. In Abu-Basma they only recognized polygons…I was the head of the committee that said to them, give them all the area between the villages, but they recognized only polygons. So they recognized it, but within the “rules of the game”. It’s not like a Jewish regional council- but they have the privilege to say to me thanks, you did a very good job, but not in our state. (Head of Ministerial Committee 2010) A map of the municipalities in the Southern Beer Sheva Region appears in Figure 8. As can be noted, Abu-Basma’s municipal area is not contiguous. This stands in contrast to all other regional councils in the Negev, including Bnei Shimon Regional Council.

Figure 8. Local authorities in the Southern District. Adapted from Ministry of the

Interior (2011).

109

EPISODE 2: THE PROCEDURAL DIMENSION

This chapter examines the impacts of the “territorial dimension” on the process of planning Abu-Basma localities. The controls of the planning institution and the allowances and limitations of district planning decisions were found to have shaped participation before planners could arrange public meetings with residents, or issue household questionnaires. As will be seen, the limitations set on planners’ work challenged the ability for planning to meet residents’ needs. Two episodes of communication are discussed here:

1. Knowledge in planning

2. Conflict resolution and advocacy

The first section reveals how what planners call “cultural knowledge”—the accommodation of the distinct needs of the Bedouin community—are not permanent accommodations of indigenous needs within the modern planning system, nor evidence that planners are striking a balance between the expressed needs of the Bedouin, with those of the State of Israel. Rather, they may be symbolic offerings to ease the implementation of the State’s plans, which do not threaten its long-term goals for

Bedouin settlement: modernization and territorial control. In the second section, issues which Abu-Basma authorities could negotiate over, on behalf of residents, are found to be limited to those which fell within their institutional jurisdiction as local authorities. 110

The procedural dimension 1

Knowledge in planning- “Rational” vs. “irrational” knowledge

The community has a lot to give as far as their local knowledge, their knowing the land, knowing the weather, knowing the things that might be obstacles to life later on, and things that are advantages in a specific area. So if you actually come with an approach that you want to listen, that you really want to hear, you want people to respond, you want people to tell you what’s good or bad about your plan, and not tell them what they should, what you’re giving them and what they should expect and so on, then, then you have a chance of really benefitting from the local knowledge. (Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011)

If you go to Abu-Basma, they will say “see, we give the people the authority, and they can plan whatever they want.” But from outside you can’t see it like this. Because the reality is they can plan with this really small square. (Local planner for El-Sayyid 2010)

This section reflects how “permissible” cultural knowledge, knowledge which planners deemed legitimate to enter into planning conversations, respected the legal guidelines given to planners of Abu-Basma localities. The incorporation of permissible cultural knowledge supports that planners had heard residents talk about demands unique to their places, families, and organizations, and tried to recognize these through their work. Nonetheless, in accommodating some cultural knowledge, planners denied recognition to the feelings and personal experiences of residents in other places. This poses a practical challenge to the realization of planning reform for Abu-Basma localities, as planners are found to have refused essential information about the people they were planning for.

The findings reflect the presence of planning control over the public participation process for Abu-Basma localities not because the inclusion of “cultural knowledge” demonstrates a will by planners to control and oppress residents, but because the conditions of good, culturally-sensitive planning, according to planners, are found to fit within the overriding apparatus of government control. Planners therefore 111 were capable of hearing and accommodating residents’ “cultural knowledge” only to the extent at which its inclusion did not contradict the “territorial dimension” to government policymaking. This reflects control theorist Bent Flyvbjerg’s (1998) concept of “rationalitat”, or “real-rationality”, in that “power determines what counts as knowledge…[it] procures the knowledge which supports its purposes, while it ignores or suppresses that knowledge which does not serve it” (1998: 226).

Planners hired to plan Abu-Basma localities expressed having accommodated different sources of information into their plans. These can be divided into four

“knowledges”: “political knowledge”, “cultural knowledge”, “experiential knowledge” and “technical knowledge”. “Political knowledge”, the “knowledge of the elite”

(Fenster 2001: 79, citing Mazza 1986) planners described as the “program from the authorities” (Overall planner for Umm Batin 2010). It included the government’s objectives for the project, such as population targets, municipal services, and village borders. “Cultural knowledge” included information on the unique needs of the

Bedouin, considered to be “locally situated”, and mobilized through resident participation in the planning process (Barhardt and Kawagley 2005: 20). “Experiential knowledge” (Fazey and Fazey et al. 2006) included planners’ professional knowledge about other knowledges, such as their awareness of Bedouin cultural needs and the inner workings of the planning system, which planners had obtained through their work experience, often accumulated over many years of work as planners of Bedouin settlements. “Technical knowledge” planners learned as part of their trade. Ultimately, political knowledge, the knowledge of the state, will be found to have determined how planners could use the other sources of information at their disposal.

All planners, with a few exceptions (which will be discussed in the Challenges section to this chapter), believed that planning localities in Abu-Basma departed from 112 their work on Jewish settlements and on the Bedouin townships for their close attention to residents’ unique cultural needs. Jewish settlements could be planned by “ordering settlements, applying planning conceptions, using tools, following the planning regulations of the government. But since it is not for a specific population…well, it is planned by a model” (Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010). Planners had learned however, from “what didn’t work” in the township program, and were therefore

“absolutely more open to the wants and needs of the Bedouin” (Overall planner for

Abu-Krenat 2011). Of particular importance were the spatial divisions among families and tribes. Because residents would not move onto lands held by another family, or settle with another hamula or tribe, planners were careful to separate neighborhoods by existing social divisions, and closely plan for each family over their land claims. To do so, planners acquired “cultural knowledge” through public participation, and joined it with their experiential, political, and technical knowledges to innovate new settlement types. One example is the village of Ma’arit, a “neighborhood-like settlement” in which each neighborhood was planned for one hamula (Local Planning and Building

Committee 2011).

In villages recognized “in situ”, existing development was taken by planners as indicators of Bedouins’ cultural needs. By preserving the existing neighborhoods and services, planners believed that they enabled “almost everyone [to] stay in his own terrain, his own position” (2010). In Umm Batin, district planners had encircled the unrecognized village of Abu-Kaf with a blue line, which indicated that the limits to the planned area of the village included the majority of existing development. (Professor of

Geography and Environment 2010; Building supervisor 2011). Major roads built by residents, for example, had been developed by local committees prior to recognition in neutral areas which could be accessed by all residents, regardless of family affiliation.

Therefore, they were taken by planners as good indicators of where new facilities and 113 infrastructures could be located. The planner of Umm Batin expressed having planned in this manner because “everything is here”. His work was only “translating” the existing development to meet the standards of modern planning.

Planners also made some accommodations for women, drawing from their store of “experiential knowledge” to ease women’s access to public services. Some examples include the provision of services within neighborhoods, the domain of the extended family, and the provision of mixed-use women’s centers and baby clinics in areas which could be accessed regardless of one’s family status. (Planning Committee Meeting

2010; Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2011; Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010).73

Despite its reformist expressions, these accommodations of Bedouin cultural knowledge were shaped by the spatial limits set on existing Bedouin settlements by the decisions of the Interior Ministry. Planners expressed following these limits because they were guidelines, issued by the agencies which had hired them. They therefore believed it was their job to plan “inside” the space they had been given by the government to plan with (Overall planner for Umm Batin 2011; Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011). Planners justified their decisions to deny or accommodate cultural knowledge—and therein gave their support for the decisions of the government which determined the admissibility of that knowledge—by justifying them using logic, or rationalizing them (Flyvbjerg 1998). They promoted admissible cultural knowledge—knowledge relating to places within the planned area of recognized settlements—as “rational”, and inadmissible knowledge—knowledge relating to places outside the borders to the settlement—as “irrational”.

Two examples of cultural knowledge are illustrated here. The first comes from the recognized village of Umm Batin, and the other from the unrecognized settlement of

73 In a few cases, planners added that they had been developing gender-separated schools, despite the persistence of a government policy which forbade them. 114

Abu-Asheba. In both cases, residents expressed that they possessed local knowledge which was representative of their cultural needs. Nonetheless, in the first case, the resident’s knowledge was deemed to be a valid concern which could enter into planning, while in the other, his knowledge was ignored.

 Case 1: “Rational” knowledge of families and land claims in a legal

neighborhood

In this case, a resident of Umm Batin had met with a planner in his office at the planner’s request. This meeting I had observed after having been invited by the planner while waiting for my own appointment to interview the planner. The resident’s cultural knowledge was expressed through a hand-written plan he had drawn of his family’s present neighborhood. A reconstruction of the map appears in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Reproduction of map presented to the planner of Umm Batin by an Umm Batin resident (Omer, Field observations, 2011).

Within the neighborhood, the resident had drawn the limits to the land ownership claims of each household, distinguished by the names of each brother, and his number of sons74. The resident had been asked to bring the map to the planner

74 The number of sons determined the quantity of residential plots the planner would need to set aside for the future inhabitants of the neighborhood (Planner of Umm Batin 2011). 115 because his lands would be expropriated by the government for a public works project, an access road to a bridge being planned by the Bedouin Authority over the Hebron

River. The neighborhood planner (also responsible for the village’s master plan) had therefore decided to plan the entire neighborhood first, so that he could find, with the help of the resident, a plot that he could move to within the borders of the future neighborhood. The planner explained the situation as follows:

He [the resident] brought me today his needs… All his brothers are here and we have to find some other places to build two new houses inside this space. Because in this area, the government can take something about 40%...just for this purpose to build bridges and public needs…so we don't have any place more. (2011) In planning the neighborhood, the map gave him

An idea for how many dwellings I will need for the third generation, and probably for the fourth generation. Because every one of them will want—because they have only this land—will want to know where his sons are going to live. Which means, they know that they must calculate their needs. And save the land for the next generation. (2011) This information was considered to be Bedouin cultural knowledge, because it was provided by a resident, and respected the social divisions which planners had learned to organize Bedouin settlements. It was admissible because it fit within a neighborhood allotted by the overall plan of Umm Batin, and was based on registered land claims, “a kind of legal document, because their demands were delivered to the Minister of

Justice…[which] didn't get any legal status, but in a way, did” (Overall planner for

Abu-Krenat 2011). Using the map to inform the neighborhood plan would facilitate the implementation of an inevitable public works project, as well as help the planner to develop the plan for Umm Batin’s first neighborhood.

 Case 2: “Irrational” knowledge of family histories and traditions in an

unrecognized settlement

In the second case, residents of an unrecognized locality outside the recognized village of Abu-Krenat had told the researcher their cultural needs verbally during a group interview in their village sheig. They drew from their own conceptions of 116

“village” to indicate that, despite the exclusion of their settlement from the legal borders of Abu-Krenat, they felt that they had merited in-situ recognition from the government.

These respondents advanced their argument by telling the history of their village, which began “way before 1948” (Plumber 2011).

The planner of Abu-Krenat had planned a new neighborhood for Abu-Asheba in an area within Abu-Krenat’s recognized borders. Therefore, the residents of the existing settlement would be expected to relocate from their settlement to the neighborhood. The planner believed that unrecognized settlements like Abu-Asheba could not be considered villages. For that reason, among others—existing zoning for military areas and industry, ease of service provision, nearness to major roads and cities–the villages had not been recognized as independent settlements or incorporated within other localities. The planner of Abu-Krenat defined settlements like Abu-Asheba as “social infrastructure with a physical expression. We call it pezora.” Planning, in contrast, “is not spontaneous- you see we are doing it here- it takes time, experience, tools. It is a rational process.” (2010). In the case of Abu-Asheba, the planner contrasted the emotions of residents with the science of planning. As he explained, “You see in the news all the time this—so-and-so, he has a very good story of his father and his father’s father who have been on the land for generations—it is a very nice story. But this is not a village” (2010). Rational concerns like the efficiency of service provision, which could be better met by planning a denser settlement, were perceived to contradict with perhaps the most fundamental of the Abu-Asheba family’s expressed cultural needs

(Overall planner for Abu-Krenat 2010; Director of Statutory Planning 2011). Therefore, planners expected that residents of settlements like Abu-Asheba would “agree peacefully [to relocation] because he understands… planning …They [residents] are still together, and they have all of the modern conveniences” (Overall planner for Abu-

Krenat 2010). The location of Abu-Asheba on the first neighborhood plan for Abu- 117

Krenat, and photographs by the researcher of some of the existing development within the settlement can be found in Figure 10.

Figure 10. The unrecognized settlement of Abu-Asheba (8/3/11), and the first (28/מק/neighborhood plan for Abu-Krenat (11/102

The residents of Abu-Asheba disagreed with the decision of the planning authorities. They valued “services, and a better life for our kids” (Machine operator, personal interview, 2011), but believed that “a better life” would only be attainable if the planner recognized their right to live in their traditional settlement. As residents of

Abu-Asheba explained during a group interview, “We are originally from Gaza…we came here way before 1948. We want this. We want to be a part of Abu-Basma. But there are 400 people here, so why to move? Here there is a real village” (2011).

Residents added that they had never been contacted by a planner or by a representative from Abu-Basma. Rather, they had been approached by an implementation authority which had sought to realize the plans for Abu-Krenat, rather than engage Abu-Asheba in a collaborative planning process. The authorities that had approached residents were 118 from the Israel Lands Authority, and had told us we are not legal and that we have to move” (Male Abu-Asheba residents 2011).

There were, however, “rational” motivations for the Abu-Asheba people to settle on their lands. Residents explained that the lands they lived on were optimal for residence due to their topography. The lands were flatter, and protected from winds by the surrouending hills. The new neighborhood in Abu-Krenat had been planned over the lands they had used for agriculture. Therefore, the residents believed the planners’ decision was “silly. There is a reason why we are here and not there, and that is because it is better for farming there than living” (Male Abu-Asheba residents 2011).

As these cases demonstrate, by hearing and recognizing some of residents’ needs, planners facilitated planning reforms. In Umm Batin, the accommodation of existing ownership claims within a neighborhood plan could provide for a much-needed public works project, as well as a legal neighborhood. In doing so, however, planners sanitized other, regressive planning outcomes. In the Abu-Asheba case, the exclusion of residents’ family histories in the name of rational/procedural planning may generate a town which is seriously diminished in its abilities to provide for the public good. The conflict between indigenous knowledge and political knowledge reflects the “real- rationalitat” of government planning for the Bedouin, in which the power of an

“irrational” political ideology has been allowed to operate in the name of a “rational” planning process.

119

The procedural dimension 2

Conflict resolution and advocacy

All our planners must talk to people. Must. They will follow the demands if they are not too illogical, if they are not too spread out. We do not want the infrastructure too spread out, we want to preserve open spaces. (Operations Director 2010)

People can think and can design and can plan, but if the government doesn’t have the willingness to do that, then it doesn’t work. It’s not really about the planners, it’s more about a conflict. There is like a red line that says, “okay, you can do this, but you can’t do more”. (Local planner for El-Sayyid 2011)

I. Surmounting zero-sum conflicts: NIMBYs or land disputes?

Conflict resolution was an important aspect of the approach taken by planners and Abu-Basma administrators to planning Abu-Basma localities. Through mechanisms like “informal participation”, planners and the officials at Abu-Basma believed they demonstrated a commitment to building new relationships and resolving disagreements peacefully. This was suggested to indicate a communicative planning quality, in which power relations came to the surface, and battled over the issues and places which were important to stakeholders. As in the committee system, these power relationships could be harnessed, instead of dismantled, and perhaps lead to a sustainable future for the localities.

In negotiating local conflicts, however, Abu-Basma administrators and planners may have distracted residents from disagreements over even greater resources, particularly from the conflict between the government and the Bedouin over land. Abu-

Basma’s authorities described local disagreements, such as conflicts between residents over whose lands would be expropriated for public facilities and infrastructures, as

“impossible situation[s]” (Local Planning Committee Meeting 2011)75 A national

75 The former director of Abu-Basma explained one “impossible situation” during a Local Planning Committee Meeting. The planning of the road over ownership claims was very, very problematic. The road got stuck because no one could agree to give up their land to build. So Ibrahim El-Huashla* [resident of Abu-Basma locality] came and told us, where you have problems it is because some are 120 policy had enabled the government to expropriate 30-40% of leased or private lands for the public good (Attorney, Southern District Planning Bureau, personal interview,

2011; Head of the Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010). Cases of “not in my backyard” syndrome, or “NIMBY” (Dear 1992), arose when residents refused to allow developers to build the infrastructures on what they perceived as their property

(Professor of Geography and Environment 2010).

Local committee members believed that Abu-Basma authorities had actually wasted their time and resources resolving conflicts between residents over local planning issues. Unlike the authorities at Abu-Basma, local committee members believed that NIMBY conflicts could be resolved by residents through the committee system (Former representative to Abu-Basma council 2010; Local committee of Umm

Batin 2010). They hoped instead that Abu-Basma administrators would shift their attention to resolving the conflict over land ownership between residents and the Israel

Lands Administration. Residents therefore believed that there was a problem with the context in which Abu-Basma worked. As a local committee representative from Umm

Batin complained, “The residents have special requests regarding the ownership of their land, the compensation and the Council [Abu-Basma Regional Council] is in a hurry when it comes to things like that but for example when it comes to building a street so far it’s taken a whole year…The disagreement is on land ownership. The government wants to strip us of land ownership and we won't give it up” (School principal 1, personal interview, 2010).

The policy regarding land ownership had been maintained from the days of the

Bedouin townships, which required that lands have a defined owner in the Israeli lands registry, before residents could proceed with permitted building (Yahel 2006; Marx rejecting the authority, they do not want to cooperate. So where there are major objections, he said you can build on my land. (2011) 121

2000). In practice, this required that residents with outstanding land ownership claims end their disputes with the government to obtain a building permit and build their homes legally (Building supervisor 2011). In villages which did not have outstanding claims, such as Kaser al-Ser, residents believed that their lack of claims had empowered planners determine where they would live without considering the traditional organization of their settlement (School principal 3, 2010; School deputy 2, 2010).

Kaser al-Ser residents had lost the majority of their lands to the Lands Administration after they had brought their claims to court [Hwashala and Others v. The State of Israel,

38(3) P.D. 141]. Therefore, residents of Kaser al-Ser opposed to a “whole system we are being forced into”, rather than the “individual issues of one person who is unwilling to give up land for public space”, (School deputy 2, 2010). Abu-Basma’s approach to conflict resolution demonstrated to all of the village representatives interviewed that the authorities at Abu-Basma “did not listen” during their meetings with residents.

Moreover, it indicated that the people working there were dishonest, as they hid the

“real” problems with space and land ownership—that their hands were tied—behind a rhetoric which framed the Bedouin instead as “the problem” (Former Representative to

Abu-Basma council (2010).

II. Planning advocacy and its limits within the “territorial dimension”

Planners and academics believed that, working through Abu-Basma, they were better able to advocate on behalf of residents in front of government ministries. The familiarity of Abu-Basma administrators and seasoned planners with the planning system for example, had resulted in expansions to the borders of some of the localities to include villages which had not been recognized through the earlier district plans. This indicated to planners that they had widened their concept of a “rational” village to include some of the ideas of the Bedouin residents. Nonetheless, these changes were small, according to local committee members and Bedouin advocates. They did not 122 compromise the State’s position regarding space and landownership. Therefore, the limits to advocacy work provide more visible expressions of the State’s control over policy and territory.

Examples of planning advocacy include:

 Expansions to the area of building for individual housing lots

 Zoning changes in overall plans to accommodate existing land uses

 Addition of new neighborhoods to overall plans to accommodate existing

settlements

The first episode of advocacy was frequently mentioned by planners, and observed during a meeting between the building supervisor at Abu-Basma and a resident of the

Abu-Basma locality of El-Sayyid. The resident had mistakenly built his home over two lots. In these situations, the supervisor explained that“If there is not enough space, we advocate for them…It’s our job; it’s the whole goal of the Council. If the people say,

‘please give us the right to build more‘…I decide 300 square meters instead of 250, and that becomes an amendment to the neighbourhood plan. The planner changes it and the committee approves it” (2011).

The planner of Abu-Krenat advocated for the recognition of unrecognized settlements by including them as neighborhoods within the master plans for Abu-Basma localities. The village of El-Granami, a village north of Abu-Krenat, was one example.

The sheikh of El-Granami had approached the planner after the master plan had excluded El-Granami from the plans for Abu-Krenat. The planner enlisted the help of

Abu-Basma authorities to expand the borders to the village to include El-Granami.

Planners also adjusted zoning to better match the situation on-the-ground. Three examples were observed while attending meetings of Abu-Basma’s planning committee. In the village of El-Sayyid, one example was in the work of a planner hired 123 by a committee representative to swap the zoning in two areas of the village to preserve the land uses which had existed prior to recognition (Abu-Basma Planning Committee

Meeting 2011). These accommodations suggest that the physical expressions of some residents’ needs were given authority in planning to the degree that plans were expected to “comply” with existing development, rather than existing development expected to fit plans (Building supervisor 2011).

The majority of interviewed planners believed that acts of planning advocacy filled in the gaps between district planning and local planning. District planning for all localities in Israel was “like a game of tennis with the authorities” (Planner of Abu-

Krenat 2010), in which politics guided the decision-making process, and therefore left many details to the side. The planner responsible for modifying the zoning in El-

Sayyid, as well as social consultants and NGO leaders believed that the restrictions were particularly severe, however, regarding Bedouin settlements in the south.

Therefore, these accommodations actually marked the limits to Abu-Basma’s work.

Moments of advocacy were minor adjustments to the government’s plans which did not

“give the people a sharing in the planning, or the authority to decide how to live (2011).

Rather, they enabled the government to implement its plans. In the case of El-Sayyid, they enabled the authorities to “do a street for the people” (2011), while in others, they facilitated the development of neighborhoods and housing.

124

LIMITATIONS- PLANNING-AS-CONTROL?

There were three limitations to the abilities for planning-as-control theory to explain the process of planning Abu-Basma localities:

1. Residents’ conflicting ideas of “the good village”

2. Rational-procedural arguments in favor of neighborhood service provision

3. Abu-Basma’s actions apart from general policy

1. Residents’ conflicting ideas of “the good village”

As the previous chapter has shown, the priorities of village leaders generally revolved around land ownership, living in a more traditional, low-density settlement, and freedom from housing demolition. The government’s approach to defining landownership, as well as the limitations on the area and place of the settlements, indicated for many of these respondents that the regional council was a tool of the

Interior Ministry’s implement its ideology of urbanization and land expropriation from the indigenous Bedouin. Other residents, however, expressed a desire to live differently.

Many women and adolescents expressed that they wanted to live in an urban settlement.

They hoped for shopping malls, hospitals, and “a big village with big houses and lots of people” (Mother of five children 2011). Particularly, they hoped that their family members living outside the village would move in, so that they could be closer to each other (Preschool teacher 2011). The establishment of a mall like Rahat’s in towns planned for 5,000-15,000 residents may, at least for the moment, be unlikely.

Nonetheless, their responses illustrate that a large portion of the Abu-Basma population had their own ideas of what constituted a good village, which did not depart much from the planning outcomes sought by planners. Therefore, while Abu-Basma’s approach to planning may be an example of government control, it may also illustrate an accommodation of many residents’ expressed needs. 125

Still, not all women expressed having the same visions for their communities.

Some had expressed that they hoped to preserve the rural lifestyle they had led prior to recognition. Therefore, some women valued, like men, space. A young female respondent from Kaser al-Ser waved her arms emphatically and interrupted me when I told her that some respondents from other settlements had hoped that their villages would look more like Dimona or Rahat. As she exclaimed, “No, no, not city [shakes head]. Like a farm. That’s the way we are. We have a home and a farm. That’s it

[laughs, waves arms]” (Female college student 2011).

The findings also indicate that women were not aware that planning had the potential to provide them with the amenities of a city, and the space and livelihood of their rural villages. This was indicated by the gaps within female and adolescent respondent groups over the issue of public services. Women who had hoped for a more urban settlement identified the provision of public services, particularly those specific to women and children, as their most important concern .Women who had expressed a desire for a rural settlement hoped for household electricity, but made no mention of women-specific services, such as infant clinics or women’s cooperatives. Frequently, they did not respond to probes about a long-term vision, but simply hoped that their children would receive a good education, and live in a house with stable foundations.

One example is a response by a mother of five children from the village of Kaser al-Ser, who responded, “My dream? That it will be like a house of the British. A big house with a big yard, some agriculture, beautiful fountains and ponds” (Security guard and family 2011). This suggests that women were not aware of the full range of possibilities available to them through planning. Perhaps as a result of a local control over knowledge76—revealed in part by the previous analysis of the communicative

76 Explains Fenster (2001), “For Bedouin women, knowledge exists everywhere outside their homes and neighborhoods and by preventing them from walking in the se spaces, knowledge is prevented as well / Thus, the notion of town planning and its benefits, eg. Large-scale services, education, cultural activities, 126 paradigm—women had been denied access to information regarding the possibilities that should have been available to them in planning. Above the village level, all residents may have been blocked from hearing this information because the full realm of possibilities in planning had already been limited by government control, exerted through the procedural dimension of planning. It is also possible that the visions of the first group—those who preferred an urban settlement—aligned with planners’ intents because they did not contradict the territorial dimension provided to planners to plan with.

These findings still challenge the ability of planning-as-control theory to fully explain planning for Abu-Basma localities, primarily because they highlight nuances in the reform/oppression dichotomy of planning-as-control theory. Males’ visions of

“reform”, may have been some residents’ ideas of “oppression”, and vice-versa; thus, while the results do suggest that an ethnocratic ideology may have guided the government’s approach to planning, they also suggest that the decisions embedded within this approach may have accommodated the needs of some residents perhaps better than they would have been, had the villages’ own organizations been given autonomy over the planning process. By limiting the procedural and territorial resources available to all residents, the government may have forced a solution on the Bedouin which had not been justly arrived at, but had circumvented a local control over knowledge which might have prevented women from articulating their needs to planners.

2. “Rational-procedural” arguments in favor of service provision

As has been explored in the “procedural dimension”, many of planners’ claims to planning “rationally” were actually planning politically. Nonetheless, some of their recreation areas, are literally not available for Bedouin women in the towns planned for them due to gendered mis-knowledge on the planner’s side” (87) 127 arguments did appear to be made strictly out of technical concerns. Service provision, in particular, was an issue which reflected rational/procedural intents, and therein has complicated the case’s reflections of planning control. Males from Umm Batin and

Kaser al-Ser frequently expressed feeling frustrated with Abu-Basma’s approach to neighborhood planning, which required that residents fill a neighborhood to receive services (Head of the Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010; School deputy 2, 2010).

Residents without land claims, such as the residents of El-Granami and Abu-Asheba, would be required to leave their settlement and move onto the lands of other residents to fill planned neighborhoods. Traditional landholders from within the villages, particularly in Umm Batin and Kaser al-Ser, believed that this policy demonstrated a disregard for their cultural needs, which required instead that neighborhoods fill slowly over time to keep lands within the family, as well as accommodate their sons’ future children (Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010; School principal 3, 2010). They therefore believed that the approach was a key part of the urbanization process, which had already limited the size of the village, and would in the future concentrate residents in tightly planned neighborhoods.

Planners explained that accommodating the slow growth of neighborhoods would create economic and environmental problems. If services were provided to partial neighborhoods, infrastructures would be obsolete after only twenty years

(Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011; Overall planners for Abu-Tlul 2010).

This would require that the same services be installed when the neighborhoods were completed. Planners provided further evidence for their point by describing an approach that had been taken initially in planning the Bedouin townships. The approach, once called "Bedouin standard", resembled the scenario of neighborhood development desired by some residents. For decades, “half-infrastructures” were provided to the incomplete neighborhoods. This had created a situation which was difficult for residents 128 who had moved to the towns, who, despite living in legal dwellings, lived on roads which were half-paved, and lacked services like sewage. Had planners decided to take the same approach for the new settlements, “recognized” dwellings would be provided with incomplete services (Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011). Planners supposed that, in the future, planning knowledge could develop to the degree that solutions could enable neighborhoods to grow over time, without compromising the livelihood of residents; nonetheless, the present strategy was the most cost-effective and low-waste solution available at the time.

3. Abu-Basma’s actions apart from general policy

While many respondents expressed that they “cannot separate Abu-Basma from general policy” (Social consultant for Umm Batin 2010) it was clear that some moves by representatives from the regional council were made against general policy in planning. Beyond their acts of planning advocacy, authorities at the regional council actually advanced their own approach to planning and landownership by attempting to limit the expropriation of disputed lands. Planners were instructed by the then-director of Abu-Basma to plan, wherever possible, public services on lands which had already been registered under the State’s name. This avoided expropriating lands claimed by residents, unless undisputed lands were unavailable (2011). This goes against some residents’ suspicions about the regional council’s approach to service provision. Rather than initiate massive land expropriations from Bedouin claimants, Abu-Basma’s aims were, wherever possible, to use State-held lands to provide for residents’ needs. While there were clear limitations to this approach—the Lands Authority’s approach to approving building permits, for example—these findings reveal that the energy of the individuals active in local planning appears to have at times been exerted in favor of 129 residents, as planners and administrators attempted to provide for both the citizen need77 of public services, and the cultural need for space and private landownership.

During fieldwork, a clear tension was observed between representatives from Abu-

Basma, and other government agencies. This was particularly pronounced between

Abu-Basma and the Bedouin Authority. I was not able to secure a personal interview with a present employee of the Bedouin Authority. Nonetheless, every respondent from both Abu-Basma and the district government groups, with the exception of the Southern

District team leader, expressed that there were conflicts between the departments over the issue of land titles and planning. The Director of Statutory Planning explained the tension as,

Different approaches on how to settle the existing situation…we as the Council say that land ownership doesn’t matter…everyone wants to develop and do infrastructure. And the Bedouin Administration is more interested in ownership- defining property rights…and the Bedouin Administration says, until the claims are not settled, we’re not developing anything”. (2011) During Local Planning Committee meetings, this dynamic was observable in action.

Representatives from the Bedouin Authority attempted to make changes to overall plans commissioned by the regional council, but were blocked from doing so due to their position as an outside authority78. One high-ranking Abu-Basma official even called the

Minhelet "the enemy" during a personal interview (2010). During the same meeting, representatives from the Bedouin Authority were observed walking up to plans which had been approved to check that the signatures of district planning authorities had not been forged. The representative claimed that she had not been notified that the plan had been approved, and therefore exclaimed, “Who approved this?!” in the middle of the engineer’s presentation. The engineer responded to the interruption that, “Some people approved it, but all three were Jewish” (2011). The outburst of the representative from

77 Fenster (1993) draws the distinction between citizen needs, or “those which provide the opportunity to be treated as equal citizens” (107), and “ethnic needs”, which have been called “cultural needs” here.

130 the Bedouin Authority might have been a gesture of humor and informality, but also can be understood as an indicator of a break in communication between the two authorities. In their actions to provide public services to undisputed areas, representatives from Abu-Basma therefore demonstrate an immediate concern to meet the needs of their constituency, before promoting the state’s policies regarding land ownership. Additionally, they demonstrate a willingness to act independently of other agencies- perhaps exploiting cracks in the system, rather than overhauling it, but nonetheless acting apart from other agencies responsible for generating planning policy.

131

AFTER PLANNING

132

“After planning” Abu-Basma localities:

The “gray space” between development and recognition

Am I satisfied with the plan? It’s a grey area. It’s not white, it’s not black, it’s better than the situation as it was before. I can’t be satisfied 100%. But it’s also in the building process (Overall planner for Umm Batin 2011)

“After planning” explains the outcomes of the planning process in Abu-Basma which were available during the study period. Using a “data-driven” approach, this section attempts to look at the impacts of planning on Abu-Basma localities without being guided by a single theory or paradigm (Namey and Guest et al. 2007: 138). In doing so, it emerges that two particular theories, urban informality (Roy 2005;

AlSayyad 2004) and “the gray space” (Yiftachel 2009a, 2009b) best explain the existing situation. This chapter engages with the reflections of both planning-as-control and communicative planning “during planning” to understand some potential causes of the observed results, while also considering other phenomena which emerged during plan implementation but were not accounted for by the analysis of the planning process.

“After planning” therefore reflects the power of each theory’s relevant actors and episodes to determine planning outcomes, as it reveals the continuities and the gaps between what should have happened according to each theory’s reflections in the planning process, and what actually occurred. Some of the findings of the planning process, reflected by the application of one theory to the case are refined and enhanced by the findings of the other, as each theory has accounted for different aspects of government planning for Abu-Basma localities. Other results cannot be fully accounted for by the findings of either theory, and therein add new dimensions to Abu-Basma’s approach to planning and governing its localities.

133

New theory: Urban informality and “the gray space”

“After planning” describes a situation when plans have been approved for the localities in the Abu-Basma Regional Council, and are in the process of being implemented. Therefore, final conclusions cannot be made on whether the administrators at Abu-Basma and government planners have realized their expressed goals. Similarly, the existing results, while perhaps providing evidence of the findings observed during the planning process, cannot prove that regressive government intentions (planning-as-control) or progressive planning practices (communicative planning), had been engineered into plans during the planning process. Still, as will be discussed, the present situation indicates that neither the Bedouins’ goals of

“recognition”, nor the government’s goals of “development”, have been fully realized.

The progress of the regional council has reached a point where plan implementation appears to have frozen, while people living in the settlements have continued going about their lives. These findings suggest that “after planning” in Abu-Basma localities can best be described as a “gray space“, in which “people, localities and activities…are neither integrated nor eliminated, forming pseudo-permanent margins of today’s urban regions” (Yiftachel 2009b: 88).

Gray space theory has evolved from the work of Ananya Roy (2005) and Nezar

AlSayyad (2004) on urban informality. Grey spaces are understood as “states of exception”, where the government has intervened in the prevailing order of things using legal tools, but continues to tolerate or even promote spatial expressions which it considers illegal (Roy 2005: 147). Stated approaches and official policies are suspended and enacted by the government, and followed and resisted by residents.

Therefore, “grey spacing” is a “power-laden process”, (Yiftachel 2009a: 243) which may reflect “not simply a bureaucratic or technical problem, but rather a complex 134 political struggle” (Roy 2005: 150). Because the government decides when to intervene, it also possesses the power “to determine what is informal and what is not, and to determine which forms of informality will thrive and which will disappear” (Roy 2005:

149). Acting through a variety of discourses, laws, and agencies, “state power is reproduced through the capacity to construct and reconstruct categories of legitimacy and illegitimacy- such as in the American welfare efforts to sort out the “deserving” from the ‘undeserving’ poor” (Roy 2005: 149).

Roy describes urban informality as a “mode”, rather than a “sector”; it is “a series of transactions that connect different economies and spaces to one another” (Roy

2005: 148). This is particularly apt to describe the current situation in Abu-Basma localities, as it is through the implementation of urban plans that the reflections of planning control and communication met. Their expressions in the case, reflected in different episodes, and in different arenas of government planning, were found to enhance, diminish, or complicate one another, when applied to the situation on-the- ground. At the same time, they were not limited to the constraints of time, as present- day planning solutions were found to come up against traditional understandings and historic conflicts. The “grey space” is therefore, in a sense, where the “whiteness” of the communicative paradigm, and the “blackness” of planning-as-control have mixed, producing a situation in which neither liberation, nor oppression, have prevailed.

Roy describes the example of “urban informality” in the urban upgrading programs of the mid-1990s. The upgrading of existing developments, particularly in the

“third-world” of Global South marked a departure from the former approach taken by governments, which had prescribed demolition and forcible relocation for illegal settlements. Roy looks at the research of Perlman (1976, 2004) on illegal squatter- settlements known as favelas, which had developed on the fringes of Rio De Janiero, 135

Brazil. The favelas had been built insurgently by movements of poor migrant workers, who had fled unemployment in the countryside. After decades of existing informally in the shadows of Rio, the government set in place programs to recognize favelas as official neighborhoods of the city, and provide them with infrastructures and social services. Despite looking better, the favelas took on their own oppressive “order of things” (Yiftachel 2009b: 89).79 They became ruled by drug lords and the army, who had assumed control of the new resources the government had allocated to the communities. Therefore, residents continued to suffer from the uncertainties of informal living, despite living in formally recognized places.

Roy explains that the case of favelas provides insight into why urban informality is allowed to persist: the government’s provision of uncompromising solutions for fundamental social justice issues. In the case of the Rio favelas, the government approached the visible expressions of poverty—crime, housing insecurity, poor educational services—but failed to resolve the social barriers which have divided the country’s population for centuries, such as income concentration80. Through this approach, informal economies are assumed to be capable of being regulated by including them in the marketplace, and illegal settlements are assumed to be capable of being legalized and therefore modernized through their integration into the framework of regional development. In the case of favelas, residents were not given the means to empower themselves to rise above oppressive local forces, or organize themselves in front of the government. Their improved situation was thus only temporary. Therefore, decisions over how to manage gray spaces may preserve existing social relations

79 Yiftachel (2009b) describes this as the crystallization of an “urban regime” after government intervention (94). This regime develops following “creeping urban apartheid,” when “membership in the urban community is stratified and essentialized, creating a range of unequal urban citizenship(s)…often derive[d] from the grids and categories laid by urban planning” (Yiftachel 2009b: 93). 80 For more on the economic situation in Brazil, see Véras, M. (2003) “Brazilian Inequalities: Poverty, Social Inclusion and Exclusion in São Paulo.” Colloquy Hexapolis IV, Providence [RI]. International Contemporary Metropolis Comparison. 136 between communities and within them, at the expense of the residents of informal settlements, who continue to suffer from a modified version of the status quo.

The “gray space” between development and recognition in Abu-Basma’s villages

In Abu-Basma, the creation of a gray space can be mapped as a series of spatial changes and reactions, some triggered by the government, and others by the Bedouin.

The changes are found to reflect the concept, returning to Yiftachel, that “grey spacing is a power-laden process” (Yiftachel 2009: 243). Power relations reflected from within and “above” Abu-Basma settlements during the planning process come to the surface as roads are built, neighborhoods are developed, and local governments begin to lead the affairs of the recognized communities. These changes are found to trigger or rekindle internal disputes, stirring conflict in the village, and causing some frustration with the pace of the regional council’s work. Ultimately, the dynamics reflected by both theories interact, and lead over time to the crystallization of a new “urban regime”, or “an institutionalized system of controlling space and population” within Abu-Basma localities (Yiftachel 2009b: 94). The situation has returned residents of Abu-Basma settlements to a modified version of life in their settlements prior to government recognition, when they were governed by a traditional Bedouin social order, stratified by family affiliations and landholdings.

The outcomes of planning in Abu-Basma localities were found to differ by settlement, and to have been experienced differently by residents within each settlement. Changes could be divided into “gains” or “losses” according to how they promoted or challenged the stated goals of administrators and planners for the regional council, and to be either “emotional” or “physical” in character. These “gains” or

“losses” emerged at different stages of the implementation process. The “gray-spacing” 137 of Abu-Basma localities will be discussed in two stages, each with a corresponding chapter in this thesis:

 Stage 1: Public service provision

 Stage 2: Neighborhood development

These stages have been organized in response to a gulf described across stakeholder groups between the situation immediately after planning, and the situation several years later. As will be seen, all villages made immediate gains when public services were constructed, because their allocation reflected a meeting point between most residents’ needs, and the State’s commitment to meeting those needs. Later, however, when the implementation of neighborhood plans compromised the values of influential residents—particularly those with political authority, as committee members, or sheikhs—the implementation process froze. The return to this “gray space” was triggered in part by a “deadlock” (Yiftachel 2003: 21) between Bedouin and the authorities over the issues of space and land ownership. The situation “after planning” in Abu-Basma localities indicates the resurgence of policies which had mobilized resident opposition to the earlier Bedouin towns program.

An overview of the outcomes of each stage appears in Table 3. They are matched to Abu-Basma’s expressed goals, and the suggested results of communicative planning initiatives. This provides practical information for the regional council on its progress in accomplishing its goals. At the same time, it returns Abu-Basma, which represents itself as a communicative planning initiative, back to the literature, linking its communicative expressions during planning to the theorists’ intended results.81

81According to communicative theorists, “Spatial planning outcomes should therefore be judged by the qualities of process, whether they build up relations between stakeholders in urban region space, and whether the relations enable trust and understanding to flow among the stakeholders and generate sufficient support for policies and strategies to enable these to be relevant to the material opportunities available and the cultural values of those involved, and have the capacity to endure over time” (Healey 1997: 71). 138

Do the goals of Abu-Basma match the current results? Goal of Abu-Basma Description from Earlier (Public service Later (Neighborhood communicative theory provision) development) Gained trust Lost trust Restore trust between “enable trust and Bedouin and the State of understanding to flow among Celebration of Resentment with policies Israel the stakeholders” (Healey “recognition” 1997: 71) Belief in change in government approach Destruction of public To improve the “Approximate the public New public services services, inc. women’s attractiveness of the new interest” (Innes 1996: 469) center Bedouin settlements by Expressed satisfaction providing the best with services Frozen neighborhood infrastructure, services and development employment opportunities, Some neighborhood focusing on women. development Continued deficit of neighborhood services Gains most significant for most powerful residents Frustration with progress

Residents waiting for more changes

Absence of regional To improve community “generate sufficient support Government “provides”, council presence in participation in decision- for policies and strategies residents “receive” villages making, planning and to…have the capacity to implementation endure over time” (Healey Malfunctioning local Confusion about future 1997: 71) committees Frustration with lack of transparency

Withdrawal by village representatives from Abu-Basma council Community empowerment “Building relational bonds Conflicts between creates intellectual, social and Competitions for planning residents political capital…[that] resources Local committee enhances the capability to expresses lack of mobilize to act (Healey 1999: resources 114, citing Innes et al. 1994).

Average residents unaware of local representation Table 3. The goals of the Abu-Basma Regional Council, and its progress in realizing them at two stages of the plan implementation process.

As can be observed, there is a gap between the expected results of communicative planning process, and the actual outcomes of planning for Abu-Basma localities. 139

STAGE 1: PUBLIC SERVICE PROVISION

Well there are lots of changes in the village. Now they’re building a new high school where I live. I think this is Abu-Basma. I love school. I love it so much that I am interested in studying biology in university after I finish my degree. They are doing other stuff too, I think a clinic, and maybe in four years they will be a city or a village so they won’t need the regional council any more. They hope to be on their own. Why Abu-Basma? I think that maybe the government realizes that there needs to be equality between Arabs and Jews. Maybe they finally realize (Male high school student 2010).

”Public service provision” reflects the physical and emotional impacts of urban planning on residents, planners and Abu-Basma administrators immediately after plans were approved. The findings support the reflections and limitations of communicative planning in the approach taken by planners to planning the settlements. They also provide insight into resident participation during implementation, which reflects

“rational/procedural” qualities. These findings are discussed within a two-step approach by Abu-Basma to service provision.

Step 1: “Gaining trust by demonstrating success”

Authorities at the Abu-Basma Regional Council approached the provision of public services and infrastructures through a method they termed “gaining trust by demonstrating success” (Municipal Engineer 2010). The municipal engineer at Abu-

Basma explained that the approach had emerged in response to distrust between residents and the regional council. He believed that mutual distrust posed a significant barrier to the achievement of both parties’ goals. ” So they [residents] had to understand what was the real purpose [of Abu-Basma]…that it was a good thing”

(2010). The engineer had arrived at a solution which would demonstrate the intentions of the regional council through its actions. In addition to providing services, the administrators from Abu-Basma and other government authorities held large celebrations to inaugurate new public facilities and celebrate the recognition of the village. All residents from the village, as well as committee members from other 140 villages and government representatives were invited “to meet each other, sit together, drink coffee together, and explain things together” (Municipal engineer 2010). A picture of a celebration in the village of Kaser al-Ser appears in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Celebrating village recognition in Kaser al-Ser. Pictured, the former director of Abu-Basma, and the Kaser al-Ser representative to the Abu-Basma Regional Council (Source: Abu-Basma 2010) Emotional and material gains and losses

• Material gains The material gains from service provision included public facilities (clinics, schools, community centers, infant clinics) and major infrastructures (access roads, electricity in public facilities, connections to national water grid). All villages under study were found to have a new primary school and a new high school which had begun operations.

The new facilities for community centers, clinics and the dual-use women’s centers and baby clinics, had been constructed, although, with the exception of the clinic in Abu-

Krenat, had not begun to be used for their intended purposes. All new facilities received direct connections to electricity and water grids. The main roads leading from the highway to the village centers had been paved, and served the majority of the new

82 facilities and infrastructures.81F These gave residents easier access to essential services.

Roads also resolved some of the problems of access to important places outside the

82 Older school buildings which had been built prior to recognition continued to be reached by unpaved roads. 141 village, such as to universities, and to the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva, and made travel safer, particularly during the winter months when flooding made transit over dirt roads precarious (Head of the Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010; Security guard and family 2010).

Figure 12. (R) New ORT high school in Abu-Krenat, which houses the regional library. (L) The school’s interior.

The changes during this stage had positive social impacts on all residents. Students who had previously been bussed to high schools in the surrounding Bedouin townships could access schools by walking. They could also attend after-school activities like tutoring and athletics. 7,000 pupils living in unrecognized settlements outside the regional council were bused by the Abu-Basma Regional Council to the new schools daily (Bus driver 2010). Teachers and administrators who worked in the new schools believed that building schools in the settlements gave female students the opportunity to pursue their education beyond primary school, as many had previously been forbidden from leaving the village to attend regional high schools. These respondents saw significant quantitative improvement in student performance on the Ministry of

Education’s bagrut exams (School principal 3, 2010). This indicates that planners may have heard and respected many of residents’ priorities during the planning process. The new women’s and children’s centers also suggest that planners may have “minimized distortion” successfully, as they met some of the concerns of female residents. 142

• Emotional gains

The emotional gains during public service provision included empowerment, trust, and optimism. These reflect that the communicative goals sought by planners and

Abu-Basma administrators had, at this stage of implementation, been realized.

Immediately after planning, nearly all interviewed residents of Abu-Basma localities expressed feeling hopeful and empowered by the planning process. Local representatives celebrated a victory in their historic struggle for village recognition. In

Umm Batin, a newsletter published a year following recognition celebrated that, “The flag of recognition is waving on Umm Batin…the old stage of fighting for staying on this land has ended, and a new stage for building and constructing has begun” (Local

Committee of Umm Batin 2006). Because the legalization of their settlements was the

“fruits” of their labor, it affirmed the efforts of residents to remain in their traditional settlements amid housing demolitions and crop sprayings conducted by the Ministry of

Agriculture’s Green Patrol (Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010). Therefore, when the process of implementing plans began, many village leaders believed that a “new stage” had begun for their communities.

As the analysis of the planning process has shown, local committee members expressed being familiar with the administrators at Abu-Basma, and trusting them as partners upon entering the recognition process (Head of Local Committee of Abu-Tlul

2010; Head of Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010). Residents who had not participated during planning recalled instead the celebrations that had been organized by the authorities to celebrate the recognition of the village (Security guard 2011;

Merchant 2, 2011; Merchant 1, 2011). The positive response generated by new facilities and parties indicate that Abu-Basma’s policy of demonstrating success had worked.

Residents believed that the Abu-Basma Regional Council worked “for the people in the village” (Mother and male children 2011), while parents expressed “hav[ing] hope” that 143

Abu-Basma would bring a better life to them and their children (Mother of five children

2011). Women in particular explained that, because of the services, they “could begin to live now” (Female Umm Batin high school students 2011). By gaining the trust of ordinary and notable residents, “when the recognition process started there was acceptance and welcoming from everyone. Everyone was happy” (Local Committee of

Umm Batin 2010).

 Challenge: Material and emotional losses from flaws in communicative

infrastructures, and a “rational/procedural” approach to service provision

Despite the initial gains made by all residents during the stage of service provision, “demonstrating success” did not ameliorate any of the deficiencies in communicative infrastructure which had guided public participation during the planning process. Undemocratic communications during planning, for example, may have generated planning outcomes which were unfair. Returning to the planner of Umm

Batin, “If you will speak only with some part of the project it will return to you with a boomerang, at the end” (2010). The “boomerangs”, at the stage of initial service provision, were unequal material gains by community elites, and material and emotional losses for the entire community when other residents learned about them.

These early losses mark the first on-the-ground evidence of the challenges which may have faced planners attempting to plan communicatively. Instead of “resisting oppressions” and providing for “socio-spatial justice” (Healey 2007) planners triggered both oppression and liberation when their plans were implemented. The character was determined by existing social cleavages, and the physical locations of families within existing settlements. For the case, unfair planning outcomes can be found in the additional gains made by village elites. These included: 144

 Revenue from public facilities constructed on family lands

 Protection from housing demolition

 Compensation for agricultural lands within planned area of village83

The first gain will be discussed here, as it is most relevant at this stage of plan implementation. Unlike infrastructures such as roads or power lines, school facilities provided a continual stream of employment benefits to the family whose lands had been used to build them. Planners and engineers at the regional council explained that they had worked to avoid this, following their policy of planning facilities over areas which lacked outstanding landownership claims. Nonetheless, in some cases planners could not locate optimal areas which lacked ownership claims. In these situations, residents whose lands had been used for public facilities secured jobs for their family members in positions such as guards and custodial staff, or rent from other families had they hosted commercial areas (Director of Statutory Planning 2011). This stirred conflict among residents, many of whom had either hoped to use their lands for the lucrative facilities like schools and clinics, or had objected to the encroachment of infrastructures which took up space, but lacked such benefits, such as sidewalks or power lines.

In Abu-Krenat and Kaser al-Ser, some residents complained that they had lived farther from the new facilities than the immediate family of local leaders. In all of these cases, the interviewed residents identified as either poorer than the residents whose lands had been used for the new services, or as residents who lived outside the

83 This situation was explained by the Head of the Committee to Determine the Status of Lands in the Metropolitan Beer Sheva Region (2010) as a competition between residents for monetary resources. Had their agricultural lands fallen within the planned area of the community (within areas which were delegated for public use or residential use, for example), they would receive compensation which was greater that the compensation received for non-agricultural lands. Residents whose lands fell outside the planned area of the village would receive compensation only for the structures they needed to demolish to relocate to neighborhoods. This suggests that the deliberations over district-level decisions may have been restricted to elites in the community, had they been open to resident participation. The inclusion of their lands within the borders of the settlements could also be explained by a phenomenon which dates back to the mandates, in which infrastructures and facilities were developed on the lands of residents who cooperated with British authorities (Greene 2005, Abu Rabia 2001: 31–2, Nasara 2011). The old facilities were taken as markers of village centers by planners working under the Bedouin Administration or the Abu-Basma Regional Council, and therefore were included within the overall plans for the village (Head engineer 2010; School principal 1 2010). 145 geographic limits to the recognized village. They resented not having been consulted by planners prior to the construction of the facilities, and therefore assumed that the other families had secured public facilities by participating during planning (Male Abu-

Asheba residents 2011). This suggests that residents who were consulted for the facilities had social advantages over the rest of the village. In Abu-Krenat, public facilities were built over the lands of the Abu-Krenat sub-tribe, the largest sub-tribe in the village, while in Kaser al-Ser, they were constructed over the lands of the most dominant family, of which the most recent head of Kaser al-Ser’s local committee and the representative to the Abu-Basma council were a part of. Therefore, as a resident from Kaser al-Ser speculated, the residents whose lands had been used to build public facilities were “the easiest for the Council to speak with” (Custodian 2010).

Kaser al-Ser also provides evidence of the impact of the act of setting borders to an existing community. A resident whose family lived apart from the rest of the village, on the other side of Highway 25, explained that his family’s lands had been separated from the other families by the construction of the highway. The highway was selected as a border to the planned area of Kaser al-Ser; therefore, the residents’ lands were excluded from the municipal area of the regional council, and his family was excluded from deliberations over the placement of the new public facilities. The resident believed that the placement of the facilities was “not fair”, because “nobody can [ask to have the facilities on their land]; it is not a democratic process” (Merchant 2, 2011). Evidence of his claims can be found in field observations. New schools and the community center were placed in a cluster, nearly adjoining one another. All interviewed custodians, guards, and deputies at the new high school identified as members of the village’s leading family, and relatives of the late sheikh. Therefore, the new school was, “in a way...a private school, a school only for them [the leading family]” (2011).This provides some evidence of the flaws in the communicative infrastructures used by 146 planners during the planning process, as residents who secured these material gains may have been more accessible to government planners. In this way, residents who already had substantial influence and control over their communities may have gained even more power from the distribution of new planning resources.

“Demonstrating success” resulted in further problems of public exclusion after planning because it did not empower the residents who had been overlooked during the planning process. Providing services to residents who had not been involved in planning them did not prevent any of their objections from surfacing later. Rather, as will be discussed, residents’ objections to the plans were expressed physically in the destruction of completed projects and a verbal barrage of complaints to Abu-Basma’s departments. In Umm Batin, a history teacher summarized the problem in regards to the main road being constructed in the village. She recalled that, “People [residents] are saying that they [authorities from Abu-Basma] will do something, and then they found the street, and found out that the people have problems with the street” (2010).

Therefore, the limitations to participation during planning has led to a situation after planning in which the facilities and infrastructures planned to meet residents’ needs are reduced in their capacity to do so.

Assistant engineers at Abu-Basma, responsible for overseeing the implementation of local plans, were the first representatives to encounter the problems with the new facilities and infrastructures. They had not been responsible for meeting with residents during the planning process, and therefore could not understand why residents had chosen to complain to the regional council after the plans had been approved. As an assistant engineer complained,

They [residents] say, “Why you don’t move the road there. Why”- it’s- you don’t [pause] look. First of all, we don’t make a road overnight. It’s not, “we were thinking about the road last evening, and now in the morning”- it’s a process. First you have to see the area, you have to see how the houses are, you have to see where everything [is]. So, they say, why you don’t dig there? You cannot come, after and change it…We are working there for five or six months, why—you see all the time what we are doing—if you have something to tell us, tell us. Tell us. (2011) 147

These administrators responded to the complaints with planning solutions which were piecemeal, as they accommodated each objection as it surfaced, rather than resolved the larger issues of public exclusion during the planning process. This diminished the capacity for the services to serve their intended purposes. The case of public roads in some villages are visible testaments to this approach. A solution called “saucer roads” by an assistant Abu-Basma engineer were built to exclude the lands of residents who refused to give their lands over to the project. The roads looked like saucers, as they widened and narrowed to exclude the land of objecting residents. An example of a

“saucer road” in the village of Umm Batin appears in Figure 13.84

Figure 13. (L) “Saucer road” in Umm Batin (R) Building a wall on the border of a landownership claim.

“Saucer roads” posed serious safety hazards for drivers and pedestrians.

Sidewalks were excluded from them, due to their width constraints, while the narrow portions posed serious traffic dangers. According to an assistant engineer, two school buses had attempted to pass each other on a narrow portion of the road in the village of

Molada, and decapitated a child who had put his head out the window (Assistant engineer 2010). In a more common case, residents who objected to the plans for

84 I asked the man for an interview while he was in the process of constructing the wall. He responded, “This is my land, my land”, pulled down his welding mask, and resumed construction (Abu-Basma site visit, Umm Batin, 2011). 148 infrastructures built walls around their lands to protect them from being used for the projects. These walls made it nearly impossible for drivers and pedestrians to see oncoming traffic.85 The objections also came to the detriment of public facilities, which at times were downsized to accommodate residents’ objections. The Umm Batin sports facility, for example, lost half of the basketball courts that had been allocated in the original plan after a resident had complained that the facility was being built on his lands without consulting with him (Assistant engineer 2011).

In addition to a lack of consultation during planning, these problems reflect how the conflict between the technical concerns promoted by planners in devising new infrastructures, and the cultural needs of some Bedouin residents, may have played out on-the-ground. This provides additional support for the limitations to planning-as- control theory to explain the process of planning Abu-Basma localities, as it provides evidence of a lingering tension between the provision of “rational” citizen needs, and recognition for “irrational” Bedouin cultural demands. Despite the attempts by planners to balance cultural and technical concerns, providing for the particular concerns of some residents compromised the abilities for planners to meet a common need for modern services.

Emotional losses

In addition to the physical losses to new infrastructures, distorted communication and misinformation during planning may have led to emotional losses for residents and Abu-Basma administrators during plan implementation. The relationship among families in Abu-Basma localities was threatened by a growing animosity among residents who had not had the opportunity to negotiate over the

85 While driving to a school in Umm Batin, I witnessed the engineer from Abu-Basma nearly collide with a car coming in the opposite direction, because his visibility had been obstructed by a wall built alongside the major road. 149 location of the facilities. Residents believed that planners “broke agreements between

Abu-Basma and the people” that “decision-making would be with all the stakeholders”

(Local committee candidate 2010).They grew suspicious of other families when they observed that the facilities had been built on their lands (Custodian 2010; Male Abu-

Asheba residents 2011). Residents also began to lose faith in the abilities of the Abu-

Basma Regional Council to provide for them as their regional authority, as public works projects dragged on for years, due in part to surfacing and resurfacing resident objections (Local committee candidate 2010; Bus driver 2010; School secretary 2010;

Male primary school students, 2010). Returning to gray space theory, the changes signify the first steps in the formation of new “boundaries that divide urban groups according to their status” (Yiftachel 2009: 243). 150

STAGE 2: NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT

On the outside, our village looks fine. There are roads to the schools, the school buildings are new. They are nice and clean. The children can learn there. But if you look inside the village itself, nothing has changed. They want to build. But they [government authorities] don’t give everyone enough land to build. And so we build, but the State says, “no, you don’t have permission on building” (School deputy 2, 2010).

With building, they don’t have their father to go with them because he doesn’t know either. So you would come here, to the Council, and we would walk you through it. For them it can be very frustrating, because it is the first time it happened (Building supervisor 2011).

During the second stage of plan implementation residents continued to gain from new facilities and infrastructures. At the same time, some residents maintained their former disagreements over the location of public facilities. This led to a situation in which the gains and losses of the first stage met with new developments in the provision of neighborhood services and housing. These changes were linked to government policies which are tied to planning, but were less relevant to initial service provision. Some of these policies had not been detected by the analysis of the planning process, and included programs under the auspices of other government agencies, such as the demolition program advanced by the Green Patrol, under the Ministry of

Agriculture. These developments reveal regressive aspects to the government’s approach, and provide some support for the reflections of government control over the planning process. Practically, they will be seen to have jeopardized the earlier emotional and material gains made during the first stage of implementation. In the most extreme cases, the prescribed changes at the stage of neighborhood development led village representatives to resign from the regional council. In most cases, neighborhood development led to mixed successes for individual residents, some of whom succeeded in building their homes legally, and a living situation for most residents which closely resembled theirs prior to recognition. 151

These changes will be seen to have led to a point of near-stasis in Abu-Basma localities, in which plan implementation has slowed due to residents’ political objections to some of the requirements of government recognition, and the contingent procedural obstacles to providing neighborhood services. Life in the settlements has stabilized into a modified version of life before recognition, in which gains and losses are felt on the household level, determined by social cleavages such as income and family prestige. Even material gains like permitted housing, however, are found to have unclear benefits. These findings illustrate the crystallization of an “urban regime” in

Abu-Basma localities, in which the acts of setting borders and conducting public participation have triggered a shift in “the accepted order of things” (Yiftachel 2009b:

94). This has widened the “range of unequal urban citizenship(s)” which have traditionally organized Bedouin settlements (Yiftachel 2009b: 93).

The status of plan implementation in Abu-Basma localities is summarized in

Figure 14. In the diagram, power lines indicate infrastructures which provide services to public facilities. Houses are color-coded according to their legal status and their vulnerability to housing demolition. Blue houses are houses which have been constructed prior to the recognition of the village, and are therefore not legal.86

Nonetheless, with the exception of home extensions built after recognition, blue houses are protected from housing demolition (Attorney, Southern District Planning Bureau

2011; Female college student 2011). Green houses have been constructed legally on registered building plots. They are therefore not susceptible to demolition and are expected to receive household services. Red houses are houses which are illegal like blue houses, because they have been built without a permit. Residents living in red houses are in a particularly difficult situation, however, as they face many obstacles to

86 These houses have been called “gray” in the Goldberg Committee Report, as they await legalization (Abu-Ras 2011). This provides further insight into the different urban citizenships within this “gray space” in Abu-Basma localities. 152 obtaining green houses, and their homes—existing outside the planned area of the village—are vulnerable to demolition.

Figure 14. The “grey space” between recognition and development in Abu- Basma localities This range of statuses reflects the territorial limitations placed on planners and service providers. Red and blue houses, which were very real to residents (and apparent during fieldwork) were excluded from neighborhood service provision. Instead, they were visible only to enforcement agents, such as officers from the ILA, who had approached residents to encourage them to leave their unrecognized dwellings.

Residents living in blue houses enjoyed the benefits of the new, nearby facilities, and were somewhat protected from the fear of demolition which permeated the daily life of residents living outside the borders to the localities. Residents living in green houses could afford the costs of building new homes, but lacked the household services they had been promised by Abu-Basma authorities.

Problems with Abu-Basma’s approach to implementation during the first stage of implementation emerged during the second. “Demonstrating success”, for example, had given residents the expectation that they would receive household utilities, local roads, women’s centers, and commercial areas. In practice, some new facilities had been built, but the schools were the only facilities which had begun to be used for their intended purposes, while neighborhoods were, with the exception of a few houses, 153 empty. These respondents had not been involved in the implementation process, and therefore felt “helpless” to improve their situation, despite living in a recognized village

(Director of Preschool 2011).

Women’s centers in the villages under study were either partially constructed or closed. Women believed that they would have to “wait forever” to use the facilities, and reported feeling “bored and sitting in the house all day” (Mother of five children 2011).

Despite having been built legally, permitted houses lacked household services, leaving residents who had rebuilt their houses feeling abandoned by the authorities at Abu-

Basma, and regretful for having invested in homes which had no sewage connection, and were dependent on electricity from a generator (Merchant 1, 2011; Mother and female children 2011). The lack of changes beyond the initial services drove some residents to resent the authorities at Abu-Basma for their celebrations during the first stage of implementation. As a resident of Kaser al-Ser believed, “for all their [Abu-

Basma’s] show, they have only tongue” (Security guard 2011).

Public facilities and infrastructures were damaged by residents, whose persisting objections surfaced as vandalism to the structures which had been built. In the village of

Umm Batin, the major road had finally been paved after accommodating many residents’ objections. Nonetheless, it sustained repeated damages to road signs and a traffic light (Umm Batin, Field observations, 2011). Similar damages had been observed on the main road in Kaser al-Ser (Kaser al-Ser, Field visit, 2011). In Umm

Batin, a new women’s center had twice been gutted and covered with graffiti, after having been rebuilt by the regional council. The inside of the Umm Batin women’s center, and a damaged road sign in Umm Batin appear in Figure 15. 154

Figure 15. (R) Damaged road signs, and walls along landownership claims in Umm Batin. (L) Destroyed Umm Batin women’s center.

During this time, the majority of interviewed residents expressed that they lost communication with the Abu-Basma Regional Council. After residents had become dependent on Abu-Basma to provide them with the services that could meet their needs, the lack of information and the lack of changes gave residents the feeling that, “Abu-

Basma is our father and now our father is not recognizing us” (Merchant 1, 2011).

Authorities at Abu-Basma had similar grievances, lamenting that they had lost touch with residents after some local committees had withdrawn their representatives to the regional council, or internal disputes had led local committees to collapse (Assistant engineer 2010; Director of Statutory Planning 2011). Local committee members believed that Abu-Basma had not given them sufficient training or resources to perform their job responsibilities (Former representative to Abu-Basma Council 2010). The authorities at Abu-Basma acknowledged that their staff was overwhelmed with the work of managing too many settlements, with too few employees, over too large a geographic area (Operations Director 2010).87

87 A mother of eight from Kaser al-Ser described her relationship to the regional council as follows: “They feel related to the house and to the trees. Everyone has to feel related to the home. So they are related to the Council because they are related to the home, which is related to the yard, which is related to the neighbourhood, which is related to the village, which is related to the State. They are only related to the State because they are related to their home” (Security guard and family 2011). 155

Gains and losses in neighborhood development: Household gains amid procedural

obstacles and political objections

During the stage of initial service provision, residents had continued living in the same residential situation as they had prior to recognition. Neighborhoods were either being planning, or had plans which were being approved; therefore, their planned development was not relevant during the provision of basic services. During the second stage, some neighborhood plans had been approved. Therefore, representatives from

Abu-Basma and other government agencies, planners, as well as many residents, had the expectation that residents would begin to legalize their housing in accordance with the plans. In the localities under study, however, Abu-Krenat was the only village in which neighborhood plans had begun to be executed. These changes reflect a situation unique to the village, in which the values and household financial situation of particular residents, as well as the requirements of the government’s approach to planning and developing neighborhoods, have met. In other words, this reflects a situation in which the government’s approach to “development” has adequately met residents’ ideas of

“recognition”.

• Abu-Krenat

In Abu-Krenat, three residents had built permitted homes at the time of study.

The majority of residents from the Abu-Krenat, Al-Hawashala and Abu-Krenat sub- tribes living in the area did not have outstanding landownership claims, and some identified as having traditionally been fellaheen. The few residents who had moved to the new neighborhoods identified as members of Abu-Krenat, the most dominant sub- tribe in the village. These residents expressed that they had built trust with the authorities at the regional council, because a prominent family member had worked in a high-ranking position at Abu-Basma. The residents were also impressed by the new 156 high school and clinic which had been built near the new neighborhood (visible in

Figure 12). Nonetheless, all residents, including those who had built with permits, expressed frustration with the slow pace of plan implementation, while representatives from Abu-Basma expressed frustration with the slow pace of residents in securing permits. A new home, built legally in Abu-Krenat, and a view of the neighborhood from the village center, can be seen in Figure 16.

Figure 16. (L) A legally built home in Abu-Krenat. (R) A view of the new neighborhood from Abu-Krenat center.

In Abu-Krenat, the pace of neighborhood development can be explained both by issues felt on the household level, such as financial constraints, and a more general confusion over the council’s approach to local service provision. In other localities, however, the political objections of some residents kept the entire village from developing. In Kaser al-Ser and Umm Batin, the values of local decision-makers had generally been respected by planners during the planning process, through planners’ division of culturally-sensitive communicative infrastructure. Their expectations had also been met through the provision of education services. Nonetheless, the implementation of neighborhood plans in the villages rekindled a fundamental conflict between local leaders and the Israeli government over the issues of land rights and space. 157

The results of the planning process led some residents to deny recognition to the

“recognized” settlements planned for them by the government, and to use their power to maintain their traditional village by blocking the realization of neighborhood plans. As will be seen, residents drew a distinction between the recognized settlements of Kaser al-Ser and Umm Batin, and the unrecognized settlements, which they called by the names of their dominant tribes, El-Huwashala and Abu-Kaf. They distinguished between the government’s villages and their own, because they were spatially different;

El-Huwashala included small settlements on the other side of Highway 25, while Abu-

Kaf included some houses outside the limits to the planned area of the settlement, and their agricultural areas, which also fell outside the village limits. Neighborhoods were planned to accommodate the population of El-Huwahsala and Abu-Kaf, but were planned within the planned area of Kaser al-Ser and Umm Batin; therefore, implementing the plans could provide residents with housing, but would change the spatial dynamics which organized the different families of the unrecognized villages.

Residents of the settlements around Abu-Krenat were waiting for an agreement between the leaders of their families and the regional council to make the process more affordable (Car driver 2011; Machine operator 2011; Mother and male children 2011;

Mother and female children 2011). While all residents had shared the values for “good services, to help our kids” (Machine operator 2011), the cost of obtaining a building permit, hiring an architect, demolishing their homes, rebuilding the home and paying taxes were prohibitive. As a plumber from Abu-Asheba explained, “For the house, for the services, for upkeep, they take the weight of all of it, and all of a sudden…Who can afford this?” (2011). Beyond financial difficulties, communication gaps between the regional council and residents may have exacerbated residents’ unwillingness to follow neighborhood plans. In Abu-Krenat, all interviewed residents from the Abu-Krenat sub- tribe had expressed that they hoped to move to the new neighborhood, but that they saw 158 no reason to do so, as it was nearly empty. Nonetheless, as has been discussed in the limitations of planning-as-control, local services would only be provided to completed neighborhoods. Therefore, residents’ lack of awareness of Abu-Basma’s approach to plan implementation may have further discouraged them from relocating to Abu-

Krenat’s new neighborhoods (Director of Statutory Planning 2011; Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-Ser 2011).

• Kaser al-Ser

In Kaser al-Ser, the neighborhood plans for Neighorhood 7 and Neighborhood 9 had been approved, but had not been implemented (Planner of Kaser al-Ser 2010). The

“blue lines” around Kaser al-Ser had excluded the settlement of a family living on the other side of highway 25; therefore, residents of that unrecognized neighborhood were allocated an alternative neighborhood within the legal area of the new village (Planner of Kaser al-Ser 2011; Merchant 2011). This however, meant that “the state [would] take all of the land and redistribute it” (Merchant 2011). Implementing the plans would create a situation in which residents who traditionally lived outside the borders of the recognized village would be expected to move onto the lands of other families. This would change the traditional organization of the Hawashala village (School principal 3,

2010). .

Despite classifications in Israeli land registries, or the instructions in regional master plans, “recognition”, to residents of Kaser al-Ser, meant planning El-Huwashala in its entirety. As a member of the planning committee in Kaser al-Ser explained, “We can solve the problem [of planning and implementation] internally, but the state is interfering. We have been solving the problem for hundreds of years” (2010). Residents living within the planned area to Kaser al-Ser pledged to preserve their families’ holdings by blocking other residents from moving into the recognized settlement. As 159 the historic occupants of the areas within the recognized village, these residents believed that they would be burdened with the extra costs of buying back their lands from the other families which had leased them. As a member of Kaser al-Ser’s planning committee explained,

According to the state no one has claims so they are all the same. This is the problem. There is a need for community facilities and people need places to live. But on the other hand also the claims of the people who owned the land should be true. Why should they give land to people who didn’t have it? Then the people who had the land will have to buy it for their grandchildren. (School deputy 2, 2010)

The actions of the more powerful family, triggered by the decisions of the regional planning authorities, would prevent the residents living in the red houses pictured in figure 14 from obtaining green houses. These residents would continue to be susceptible to housing demolition, and remain farther from public services.

The gains from neighborhood development may therefore be stratified according to the economic and political status of residents in Kaser-al-Ser. This reflects evidence of “creeping ‘urban apartheid’” in the gray spacing of Abu-Basma localities.

The act of setting borders to the existing settlements has triggered shifts in the

“boundaries between ‘accepted’ and ‘rejected’” (Yiftachel 2009a: 243). In planning the localities, planners may have unknowingly set in motion a process of aggravating the social inequalities which divided the villages prior to recognition.

• Umm Batin

In Umm Batin, the plan for the first neighborhood, Umm Batin “Tsafon” (North, in Hebrew), was in the process of being planned during the study period. As has been reflected in the “Procedural dimension” during planning, some cultural knowledge of future residents may have been taken into consideration in planning the new neighborhood. Nonetheless, the accommodation of this knowledge may be insufficient to counter residents’ political objections to the demands of the program. As a village 160 with outstanding land disputes, building legally will enable most residents to remain on the lands claimed by their families. To obtain a permit, however, residents will be required to sign their lands over to the Lands Administration, or wait for the court to decide on their outstanding claims. Only once the status of the land is determined, will they be able to build their homes legally (Building supervisor 2011).

Residents of Umm Batin expressed a strong commitment to holding their lands privately (Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010). They therefore objected to the Israel

Lands Administration, which had linked its approach to land titling to the provision of neighborhood services., Regardless of the good will of the authorities, or the good intents of planners, residents of Umm Batin believed that planning and building through the regional council was premised on the implementation of a regressive policy. The emergence of this policy during the later stages of implementation caused many residents to distrust the authorities at Abu-Basma, whom they believed had deliberately lied about the “terms of recognition” (Bus driver 2010; School deputy 1, 2011; School principal 1, 2010; School principal 2, 2010). It also led the Umm Batin representative to the Abu-Basma Regional Council to resign (Former representative to Abu-Basma;

Local Committee of Umm Batin 2010). The situation evokes the rationality conflict between residents and the government over the issue of landownership. Similar to the situation in Kaser al-Ser, it also leaves some of the most vulnerable people in Umm

Batin—women and children—particularly vulnerable to the perils of non-recognition, as their services are vandalized and they remain in unpermitted housing, without the power to change their situation. Two examples of unpermitted housing, one from the village of Kaser al-Ser, and the other from Umm Batin, appear in Figure 17. 161

Figure 17. (L) Unpermitted housing in Umm Batin. (R) Unrecognized neighborhood in Kaser al-Ser.

Abu-Basma’s implementation policy II: Education and rebuilding public services

The problems that emerged during plan implementation were defined differently by the authorities who encountered them. Those which were triggered by control, such as popular resistance to the government’s approach to defining landownership, were defined by administrators at Abu-Basma as a break in communication between residents and their local representatives, and by planners as the challenge of the persisting rationality conflict between the “rational” terms of government recognition, and the “irrational” traditions and lifestyles of the Bedouin. As a result, the solutions prescribed by administrators at Abu-Basma did not solve the problems. The problem definitions of the two groups—Abu-Basma engineers (responsible for implementation) and residents—with their prescribed solutions appear in Table 4.

162

Abu-Basma Residents Abu-Basma Residents engineers engineers Outcome Problem Solution Slow neighborhood Confusion over Opposition to lands Education Expand planned development procedures policy area of settlement Tax evasion Disagreement with Recognize plans and planning landownership approach claims Place-attachment to unrecognized village Expenses of permitting and building

Destruction of public Opposition to local Juvenile delinquency Rebuild, until run out Rebuild services leadership of resources

Anti-Semitism – Disagreement with Punish problematic Force other plans and planning villages residents to approach respect plans Theft Theft and substance Compensate for abuse lands Table 4. New problems and new solutions at the stage of neighborhood development.

The outcome “slow neighborhood development” will be discussed here. Abu-

Basma engineers believed that neighborhoods were not developing because “they

[residents] did not understand planning. They simply don’t know how” (Building supervisor 2011). They believed that residents had not taken advantages of the opportunities provided by the planning and building process because it was the first time that they had entered into a legal planning process. Therefore, the residents were thought to be overwhelmed with the amount of regulations and paperwork.

In response, the building supervisor at Abu-Basma implemented a participatory approach to building neighborhoods. She believed that her role was similar to that of a driving instructor. Her job was to serve as the building instructor; she would meet with each family to explain the process, and review their progress as they proceeded, so that

“at least they [residents] are not discouraged from going through the [permitting and 163 building] process” (2011). She kept herself available in her office during and after regular hours to respond to residents’ inquiries in person or over the phone.

“A major door opening”- The termination of land claims and waning indigenous resistance?

The package of solutions provided by the Abu-Basma Regional Council and other government bodies—education, rebuilding public services, applying force and compensation to relocate residents from unrecognized settlements—had proven moderately successful by the end of fieldwork. To engineers at the regional council, the

“villages have been a little slow coming into their own”, but it is like “a tango…two steps forward and one step back” (2010). Although the solutions do not provide answers to the question of landownership, nor make many accommodations for residents’ objections to overall plans, physical changes in the localities indicate that Abu-Basma’s work may be gaining some approval. Amid frustration with its costs, residents have begun to move to planned neighborhoods, including in villages with outstanding land disputes (Building supervisor 2011). The regional council has invested millions of shekels in rebuilding the facilities and infrastructures which had been damaged during the stage of neighborhood development (Assistant engineer 2011).

Residents have grown tired of their perilous lives in unrecognized settlements.

Therefore, as residents from Abu-Asheba believed, “the government wants this and so they will do it… if they [the government] will ask us or they will force us, in whatever case we will say, ‘ok, provide us with good services and help our kids’” (Machine operator 2011). Residents objected to the government’s use of force to realize its plans, but believed that the basic needs of their families took precedence over their struggle.

Therefore, despite a strong connection to their original settlement, some residents believed that they would concede to the government’s offer. Therefore, in denying 164 services to unrecognized settlements and providing them instead within legal neighborhoods, the government may be succeeding in moving residents where it wants them. To the authorities at the regional council, the small changes in localities like Abu-

Krenat “signifies a major door opening” (2010). Therefore, two regressive aspects of government planning, undetected by the analysis of the planning process—the exertion of force to exact planning outcomes, and the power to deny services—may be effective in realizing the plans for Abu-Basma localities.

There is also evidence that the rationality conflict between the Bedouin and government planners has persisted, and emerged in a new language issued by the implementation authorities at the Abu-Basma Regional Council. Assistant engineers have separated Bedouin residents into two categories: the good (legal) Bedouin, and the bad (illegal) Bedouin. These categories have classified residents on the village level; settlements like Umm Batin and Bir Hadaj (villages in which residents have opposed land policies) are found to be “illegal”, and therefore “militant”, “ungrateful”, and

“barbaric”, while settlements like Abu-Krenat and Drejat (a village of fellaheen

Bedouin) are “legal”; residents are “civilized Bedouin”, and “partners” in the planning and implementation process (Planner of Abu-Krenat 2010; Assistant engineers 2011).

The implications are two-fold. First, by seeing residents on the village level, implementation authorities allowed one or two dominant residents to represent the entire village population. This, in turn, led Abu-Basma authorities to reward or punish the entire village, rather than approach individuals. As a result, “they [objecting residents] ruin it for the good ones. They spoil” (2011). This leaves all residents of Abu-Basma localities in a precarious position between legality and illegality, inclusion and exclusion, in which the material and emotional gains from recognition continue to be determined by the actions or personalities of a few dominant residents. 165

In the case of Umm Batin, an assistant engineer believed residents had demonstrated that they were “ungrateful…like animals” by vandalizing the new public facilities (2011). The engineer described the actions as “senseless”, because residents had destroyed something which was “for them”; therefore, in vandalizing public infrastructures residents demonstrated a “barbaric” willingness to harm their own people (2010). The other engineer believed that residents were destroying the infrastructures because “they do not like us because we are Jewish” (2011). In response, the assistant engineers took an approach in which, “if you don't like what we do for you….we don’t make any kind of progress in the bureaucracy to get money for you”

(2011). Seeing the localities through this lens leaves residents in a precarious position, in which the infrastructures intended to provide for their needs risk being destroyed permanently. In the case of the Umm Batin women’s center, for example, Abu-Basma had run out of money to rebuild the facility if it was destroyed for a third time. Many residents also lack a voice through their local governance. According to the Director of

Statutory Planning at Abu-Basma, in March of 2011, local leadership in half of Abu-Basma’s localities had decided to not send a representative to serve on the Abu-Basma Regional Council.

These problems of communication are likely to be exacerbated as the employees at the regional council become increasingly overloaded by work. As an assistant engineer explained, “the work all the time increases because we have more schools, and we have more basic schools, more secondary schools, more meters of pipes or hose, more sod, more problems” (Assistant engineer 2011).

Returning to gray space theory, the present situation in Abu-Basma localities indicates the “separating incorporation” of unrecognized Bedouin settlements within the framework of Israeli governance (Yiftachel 2009b: 89). While some of the regional council’s goals may be realized in the physical changes in villages, many residents, particularly those whom authorities had hoped to “empower” (Abu-Basma 2010) 166 through planning reform, continue to suffer from an evolving, and still oppressive, status-quo.

167

DISCUSSION

The findings suggest that the processes of planning and implementation in Abu-

Basma localities cannot be explained clearly by one particular theory or paradigm. As a case study, Abu-Basma’s planning process is neither reflective of a communicative planning program, nor of one which is fully explained by the lens of planning-as- control over space and the State. Instead, the different episodes of planning for Abu-

Basma localities reveal that both theories had cracks in them; communication was controlled by local forces within the villages, while control could not account for some of the transformative moves by planners and authorities to include residents in the planning process.

Throughout the research, a major challenge has been to distinguish between the manner in which planning was understood and conducted by planners and the outcome of the process. This illustrated a distinct gap in the information provided by each theory’s analysis of the regional council. Planners believed that they were following participatory planning procedures, and their declared approach reflected some of the prescriptions of communicative planning theory. At the same time, the outcomes, which did not meet planners’ intents, could be explained by planning-as-control, with its attention to the contextual forces which shape the outcomes of planning work. This suggested that I was actually dealing with two types of theory: explanatory theory and normative/prescriptive theory.88 The primary research question can therefore now be understood as having two distinct sub-questions: “Is Abu-Basma an example of communicative planning?” and, “Can planning-as-control explain how Abu-Basma resulted and proceeded?” The first part of the discussion is organized by these categories.

88 For more on the divide, and different attempts to map or remedy them, see Hall (2002: 371); Alexander (1992); Yiftachel (1989); Allmendiger (2002a, b). 168

1. How do different planning theories explain the process of planning and implementation for the Abu-Basma Regional Council?

a. Is Abu-Basma an example of communicative planning?

Abu-Basma cannot be said to be a product of communicative planning. Residents with the most “power” in the community—more affluent, educated males from landowning families—were found, both during and after planning, to have had the most success in communicating with planners. All residents were therefore not equally empowered and fully informed, as communicative planning prescribes (Innes 1995,

1999). Instead, longstanding inequalities within the villages were found to be preserved and in some cases exacerbated. The outcomes can be explained in part by the mistakes made by some planners in conducting public participation. These include planners’ professional oversights, as the assumptions they made about different participatory mechanisms, such as who they could activate, and how they should operate, did not reflect how they actually worked, when implemented. The “open door” policy of planners, for example, should have enabled all residents to access the planners in a secure setting, without being mediated by other family members or local leaders.

Nonetheless, residents who traditionally mediated communication within the villages— and whom such a policy sought in part to circumvent—succeeded in controlling the mechanisms put in place to facilitate open discussion.

The problems with participation in Abu-Basma localities can be explained by the challenges posed by local forces—dominant residents, traditional culture, Islamic law—to a communicative planning process, but they could not be pointed to as their cause. Rather, planners had not spent enough time enmeshed in their target communities, to develop an understanding of how those forces exerted their control.

Therefore, planners did not develop sufficient knowledge specific to each village to alter their approach as they proceeded, and make public participation more relevant to 169 each locality. Planners had assumed that they were hearing clearly from residents, because they had reviewed the findings of Bimkom’s workshops, had met with committee members, collaborated with social consultants, and had opened their office doors to residents. Nonetheless, planners may have actually been losing information as they leaned on the systems and individuals responsible for participation at different stages of the planning process, rather than engaging with residents directly. Any problems in communicative infrastructure, such as exclusion from Bimkom’s workshops, or malfunctioning local committees were compounded, as they became embedded in the overall approach to public participation in planning the localities. A temporal illustration of the interactions of communicative infrastructures (and the retention of their successes and flaws) can be seen in Figure 18.

Figure 18. Communication distortions in Abu-Basma’s approach to planning

These problems could be explained in part by the failure of some planners to

“minimize distortion” (Forester 1989) sufficiently. Information was not continually 170 tested, retrieved, and challenged throughout the planning process. Planners were comparing data in their offices, rather than bringing different stakeholders to the table and having them challenge each other’s stories directly. As a result, they were not

“changing the rules, changing the flow of resources, and changing the way we think about things” (Healey 1997: 49). Instead, individuals who were dominant in the settlements prior to recognition generally retained their authority though control over communicative resources.

Nonetheless, the expressed goals of Abu-Basma administrators in entering residents into the planning process—empowerment, participation, trust—did reflect some of the values of communicative planning theory. And, as has been shown, attempts had been made by planners, by local representatives, and by the regional council to put these values into practice, even if they were not fully realized. The regional council, though not communicative in practice, can thus be said to have communicative potential- what

Healey (2009) calls “transformative energy” (444). This is important because it recognizes the energy of individuals, acting together and separately, to shift the planning system in a new direction (Healey 2007). This energy could be harnessed to push on resisting structures, or innovate new ways of bringing stakeholders together.

There also remains the question of what planners could do to remedy such distortions. As Healey herself admits, “strategy-making is thus a delicate balancing act…if too little is changed, the effort merely reproduces the status quo. If the activity goes too far, it may reach beyond social and political acceptability to the stakeholders, and float away into irrelevance” (Healey 1997: 268). Local cultural forces which challenged the attainment of planners’ goals were carefully approached by planners through the work of their social consultants. Indeed, the results did not fully meet planners’ goals, nor ultimately reflect the expected outcomes of a communicative 171 planning initiative. Nonetheless, planners did investigate potential threats to the attainment of a democratic planning practice and approached them delicately.

Therefore, Bedouin settlements may actually be undergoing a cultural transition process, in which planners, local committee members and everyday residents are in the process of creating an “additional ‘layer’ of cultural formation” (Healey 1997: 64), as planners learn which mechanisms their communities best respond to, and the communities slowly adjust to new ways of communicating.

b. Can planning-as-control explain how planning for Abu-Basma localities

proceeded?

As an explanatory theory, planning-as-control assisted in drawing the link between local planning and national governance. This is rooted in the theory’s basic definition of planning as “government control of the built environment and national territory”

(Yiftachel 1998: 399). The theory situated planning for Abu-Basma localities in its institutional place under the Interior Ministry of the State of Israel. This explained the gap between the reformist aspirations of planners, Abu-Basma administrators and local leaders, and their abilities to pursue their values through practice.

The theme of the “square” or “line” frequently emerged from the data, and explained how communicative “episodes”, such as conflict resolution, occurred within permitted policy arenas over topics and places which were approved by the decisions of authorities at the higher echelons of the planning system. The aspirations of planners to incorporate cultural knowledge into planning Abu-Basma localities, for example, were limited by the legal borders set to existing Bedouin settlements. Therefore, in conducting public participation, planners were permitted to ask about issues within the planned settlements, such as access to public facilities. These limitations may have been ideological and procedural. Ideologically, they were generated by a system which had 172 been built on the assumption that land use was a “zero-sum game”, in which “any concession to the Bedouin means we are taking valuable land from further generations of Jews” (Professor of Geography 2010). This ideology set procedural limitations on

Abu-Basma’s work, blocking actors who had hoped to advocate for residents from negotiating over the issues many residents had expressed caring most about.

Nonetheless, control theory failed to account for some of what proceeded during planning and implementation. The findings did not reflect many of the local complexities which challenged the attainment of the state’s goals. These include the individual moments of advocacy by planners and authorities of the regional council to act independently from other government agencies. The findings also missed the

“transformative energy” (Healey 2009: 444) of local committees to organize in opposition to the government’s decisions over space and landownership, despite the organizations’ official statuses under the Interior Ministry. Therefore, although planning-as-control prescribes a closer look at “the short- and long-term societal consequences of control policies”, (Yiftachel 1998: 404) the reflections of the theory missed the real power of local actors to act against official decisions and policies by making direct changes to space.

“After planning” revealed the results of planning for Abu-Basma localities. This analysis was essential for both theories, as it served as a “catch-all” for what happened during and after the planning process. After planning encapsulated all expressions of regression, reform, and rational/proceduralism during the planning process by examining the results of planning on-the-ground. Ultimately, the section provided support for the reflections of communicative planning and control in the process of planning Abu-Basma localities. Additionally, it revealed new aspects to the government’s approach which were tied to planning, but emerged only during 173 implementation. Tools such as housing demolition and the refusal of services were found to be linked to planning, but to have been reflected only by an examination of the implementation process. That these aspects were encountered only upon implementation gave some additional support to the “territorial dimension” of government planning, which had barred residents and local representatives from negotiating over these important issues. Therefore, they gave added support to the findings “during planning” for planning-as-control, in particular.

The theories of urban informality (Roy 2005; AlSayyad 2004) and “the gray space”

(Yiftachel 2009a, 2009b) provided new lenses through which to view the episodes and outcomes of planning for Abu-Basma localities, together. Through these lenses, powerful local actors were found to dominate planning discussions out of a fear of losing their control as the village changed its character and size. Similarly, discussions over public resources may have deteriorated into NIMBY conflicts because residents felt that their individual landholdings were being threatened at the expense of public services.

2. What do each theory’s abilities for the case reveal about the theories themselves?

The analysis of planning for Abu-Basma localities reveals that both theories are complementary, rather than antagonistic. Although the theorists may be guilty of

“talking past one another” (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger 2002: 216) in academic journals, when grounded in a real case study, the theories intersected, enabling a close and critical examination of planning and implementation. Together, they revealed a complicated power structure which operated “from above” and “below” to control the outcomes and process of planning. Planners and Abu-Basma administrators, who possessed their own conceptions of “good” planning practice, and their own ideas of 174 desirable outcomes, were found to bounce back-and-forth between these two contexts, attempting to balance the interests issued from the government and from residents, while preserving their own values in the process.

The scale of the reflections of both theories is mapped in Figure 19. As can be observed, the themes reflected by the analysis with planning-as-control subsume those reflected by communicative planning, as they have either negated the impacts of communicative planning, or have had longer and more powerful effects. Some examples are the disintegration of trust between residents and the government, and physical changes to space, whether from the work of developers, or the grassroots resistance of residents.

Figure 19. Map of the themes and exertions of power reflected through the lenses of communicative planning theory and planning-as-control.

Communicative theory revealed a power structure traditionally embedded within unrecognized settlements. Formed “from below”, it set “the rules of the game” 175

(Stankiewicz 1976: 154)89 within Bedouin villages, and had adjusted itself to meet some of the formal expectations of Abu-Basma. During planning, the structure determined who could communicate with local and overall planners, under what conditions. Planning-as-control uncovered a power structure imposed “from above”.

This was the government planning system, which furthered its own vision of a populous and territory by imposing its understandings of rationality and legality on Bedouin settlements. Both structures were at work during the process of planning and implementation for the settlements. Their intersections explain the limited success of

Abu-Basma as a government planning initiative. Gains in planning could be made when the ideas of powerful residents and the government aligned; where they conflicted, neither the government, nor residents, could make much progress. Public service provision, for example, was able to generally succeed because it reflected a shared desire of Bedouin leaders and the Israeli government to meet citizen needs, while landownership remains at an impasse.

These findings illustrate that both theories have explanatory capabilities. From their different contexts, both planning-as-control and communicative planning produced findings which presented a clearer picture of planning and implementation for the Abu-

Basma Regional Council. Each theory’s reflections in the case are revealing of the theories’ abilities and limitations to explain practice. As will be discussed, the theories had different orientations (eg. planning activism, or program evaluation?) and structural components (eg. who are the relevant actors?). Together, their findings provide a clearer understanding of planning and implementation for the case.

Planning-as-control

89 “Rules of the game” are defined by Stankiewicz (1976) as “principles and standards…that one adopts for the purpose of a particular game only” (154). 176

Yiftachel’s theory succeeded in bringing government control into the planning equation. It accounted for possibility-setting by the district government over issues like village recognition and settlement borders, which planners had received “as is” from district-level planners. These limitations set the issues residents could communicative over. Without planning-as-control, there was a danger of recourse to a technical rationality to explain away planning results which had actually been caused by resident opposition to politically-driven plans and policies. The slow pace of neighborhood development and household permitting, for example, was identified by employees at the regional council to be a challenge typical to the development of every new neighborhood. Nonetheless, to build legally, residents of two of the localities under study were required to move onto the lands of other families and/or terminate their outstanding land disputes.

Looking through planning-as-control theory, the value dimensions to the government’s otherwise “rational/procedural” approach to settlement planning were visible. The analysis, which drew from two of Yiftachel’s (1998) “dimensions of planning control“ found that planning was “double-edged”; by “recognizing” Bedouin settlements, residents would receive enhanced service provision and, ultimately, safe housing. Receiving these goods, however, was contingent on the implementation of a policy which directly opposed the traditional way-of-life of the Bedouin, and legitimized a government ideology that many residents strongly disagreed with.

Nonetheless, the scope of planning-as-control theory was insufficient to understand the details of how planning proceeded on the local level. Yiftachel's theory puts primary import on understanding "state-sanctioned urban and regional change” by developing a “structural understanding of the relationship between the state, social peripheries, and space” (1998: 401) and analyzing the “actual material and political 177 outcomes” of planning (Yiftachel 2001: 6; Yiftachel 1998: 401). In this study, the case was too new to perform a full analysis of the long-term impacts of planning. Had sufficient time passed in the development of the council’s localities, however, I may have risked losing the findings reflected through communicative planning within

Yiftachel’s theory. This is because planning-as-control positions itself outside prescriptive planning theories. From its “vista point” (Huxley and Yiftachel 2000: 910) outside the state apparatus, the theory encases prescriptive planning theories within the framework of planning governance. Similarly, looking backwards from planning outcomes towards the planning process, the theory is capable of linking the impacts of planning to a primary cause: the ambitions of the nation-state. In doing so, planning-as- control explains all episodes of planning and implementation, such as public participation and local resistance, as allowances by or reactions to the government's approach.90

Seeing the case through planning-as-control theory, one reads the government approach as one guided by an ethnocratic ideology, in which “territory becomes a key group resource that is used to assert ethnic control, collective identity, and economic superiority” (Yiftachel 1998: 397). This frames all dominations—men over women,

Green Patrol over residents, landholders over fellaheen—as the result of the state's attempts to put its ethnocratic ideology into action. As the findings have shown, some expressions of control were directly linked to such an ideology—housing demolition and land ownership policy, for example—but such a read also washes over the local roots of others. These, like the control of male leaders over communication, existed long before government intervention. While state intervention might have intensified

90One example can be found in a research program suggested by Yiftachel to study planning control. Among his suggestions, he includes “the short-term and long-term societal consequences of control policies” and “the role of planners as professionals and citizens within the apparatus of control” (1998: 404). These operate clearly on his theory’s assumptions on the nature of planning policies and governance. 178 them (see Meir 2011 and Fenster 1999a,c for some examples), such observations cannot be explained sufficiently as the result of government control. This points to a criticism of the theory which is particularly ironic in the context of planning-as-control. The theory, which explicitly opposes dishonesty and domination, nonetheless commits its own hegemony over planning. In maintaining a critical distance, planning-as-control resists being “contaminated by the frames of reference they come across, the cutting edge of their critique thus blunted” (Healey 2000: 920). Therefore, analyses with planning as-control theory present far-off, shadowy glimpses of practice, missing the everyday tension between progression and regression, light and dark, which the theory aims to see.91 Most importantly, this misses the small opportunities for change, which practitioners, residents and advocates could mobilize on to turn the planning system in a new direction.

These problems were, in part, mitigated by the inclusion of Flyvbjerg under planning-as-control theory. Similar to Healey, Flyvbjerg suggests a focus on planning

“episodes”, when power relations surface in the interactions between different actors

(Flyvbjerg 1998: 231). These made planning-as-control accountable for real moments of deliberation and decision-making, and therein provided practical evidence for (and against) the paradigm’s more theoretical findings about the ideology and mechanism of the Israeli planning system. Nonetheless, Flyvbjerg does not locate his work within planning-as-control theory. Flyvbjerg ties his work to the seminal texts identified by

Yiftachel—Foucault, Nietzsche, Machiavelli—but abstains from affiliating with a particular school of planning thought (Flyvbjerg 2001). Therefore, much of what was

91According to Yiftachel (1998), “…it is the double-edged nature of the state, its ability to affect both regressive or progressive social change, that must be stressed. Public policies, particularly planning policies, should thus be viewed as the products of a dialectical process that is shaped and reshaped by an ongoing tension between oppression and reform” (Yiftachel 1998: 400). Nonetheless, the tension is hard to identify without a theory to dig into moments of conflict, agreement and deliberation. 179 problematic with planning-as-control92 was mitigated by Flyvbjerg’s voice, which could speak Yiftachel’s language, but not be subsumed by it. This returns to a problem with planning-as-control. Unlike Flyvbjerg, with Yiftachel’s work, there is no recognition that “no analysis is…outside power” (Flyvbjerg 2001: 290).The theory continues to prescribe research agendas premised on its own assumptions about planning, tasking academia with developing “theorizations that (re)engage theory with the ‘coal face’ of the planning endeavor” (2006b: 219). These studies will continue to miss the potential of individual people and departments, acting within regressive political systems to generate change.

Communicative planning

These criticisms of planning-as-control reveal some of the benefits communicative theory was to the present study. While planning-as-control may position itself outside local planning, suggests Healey, “The communicative planning theorists and interpretive policy analysts are deeply interested in such close encounters inside the

‘black box’” (Healey 2000: 920). Communicative planning succeeded in seeing beyond speculations and statements about planning and governance through the regional council, by examining defined areas of practice. By suggesting how practice should look, under certain conditions—democratic, oppression-resisting and power equalizing–

I could test how practice actually proceeded. The findings reflected on practice and on the conditions themselves. They did not lend themselves to yes or no answers, but instead uncovered complex communication processes. This revealed both operational problems and contextual forces which complicated Abu-Basma’s stated approach.

92 Or, as Healey (2000: 920) has suggested, “the visionaries and the conceptualizers…need to engage with the everyday worlds of governance practice…[Huxley and Yiftachel] discuss theory in unsituated ways, disconnected from specific purposes and practices”. 180

As the study has found, it was essential for theorists to “broaden the scope of their explorations and venture beneath the long shadows of the discipline's dark side"

(Yiftachel 1998: 404). Still, it was important not to get lost in dark without a flashlight.

Communicative planning illuminated planning for Abu-Basma localities in visible chunks, what Healey (2007: 67-70) calls “micro-practices”, or “episodes”.93 These included moments of contact between people and their ideas, such as informal participation between representatives from the regional council and residents. As visible moments of practice, these episodes were analyzable; they presented real forums, actors, and arenas which could be visited, approached and observed. These episodes also pointed to clear areas of practice which could be improved, to help the authorities, residents, and planners better meet their goals.

In communicative theory, viewing planning episodes meant peeling past official statements, whether they were practice stories or policies, to uncover how planning actually proceeded. This acknowledged statements by actors with clear power in the planning process, but rejected assumptions about their universal validity. The inclusion of Forester (1989) under communicative planning provided an additional critical lens to the analysis of local planning. His theory on misinformation revealed a local power dynamic that was deeply embedded within the societies planners were planning for which facilitated public consultation, but challenged the quality of information retrieved.

Despite its clear focus on practice, criticisms are frequently lodged at the theory for being out-of-touch with reality. Critical theorists like Flyvbjerg and Yiftachel believe that communicative theory “fails to capture the role of power in

93“Through involvement in such episodes”, Healey (2007) prescribes, “people learn the discourses, practices and values embedded in governance processes. They may also seek to challenge and change them, through participation in arenas generated by social movements, or innovative governance forms, such as new partnerships or community-based initiatives” (68). 181 planning…[and] as a result, it is a theory which is weak in its capacity to help us understand what happens in the real world; and weak in serving as a basis for effective action and change” (Flyvbjerg 2002: 45). This is supported by the frequent discussions of communicative planning in the theoretical literature as strictly prescriptive and normative, and therefore as separate from theories like planning-as-control, explanatory theories (Yiftachel 1989; Huxley and Yiftachel 2000; Yiftachel 1998). As this study has found, communicative planning indeed prescribes values and procedures to follow by planners and administrators. However, it also functioned as a critical theory, drawing from the work of Jürgen Habermas to focus its attention to discourse as an indicator and mobilizer of power.

For the case, the analysis of communication during planning explained the program’s early results. Residents who communicated their needs to planners were found to enjoy the emotional and material gains from planning greater than residents who had not participated, and to have incurred fewer losses when the implementation of neighborhood plans stalled. Therefore, criticisms that communicative planning

“cover[s] only one part of the theorization endeavor—‘the largely programmatic idea of how things should be’ (Williams 1983: 317—and leaves to one side explanations of why things are as they are” cannot be supported here (Huxley and Yiftachel 2000: 105).

Indeed, as Healey (1997) suggests, “we [planners] ‘have power’ and, if sufficiently aware of the structuring constraints bearing in on us, can work to make changes”

(Healey 1997: 49). Thus, while communicative theory may primarily be classified as a prescriptive theory, its prescriptions are contingent upon reflexive, case-based analysis of the dynamics operating within the many contexts of planning work.

Nonetheless, there were definite limits to communicative planning’s explanatory abilities. If communicative episodes are “the atoms of the ideas that mobilize the flow 182 of resources and the realization of plans”, as Healey (1992: 20) suggests, residents’ different levels of engagement with public participation should have accounted for the results on-the-ground. In part, they did. Mistakes made by planners of assuming that all residents could engage with planning, for example, left a large segment of the population out of public consultation. This led to the “boomerang” during plan implementation that planners had hoped to avoid- long-term feelings of disempowerment, confusion, and mistrust. Nonetheless, the analysis of communicative episodes did not account for other results, such as the destruction of illegal housing.

Such regressive impacts were indeed caused by planning, as they were tied to the availability of planning resources, like new neighborhoods, in other places. They could not be accounted for by the errors in planners’ participatory schemes, as they were imposed on communities from outside the jurisdiction of local planning. Therefore, communicative theory cannot be said to sufficiently account for all impacts of planning and spatial policy.

This points to a problem of communicative theory, which control theorists have drawn attention to: the claims by some of its theorists to having reached academic consensus in the literature (Innes 1996: 183). According to Kuhn (1962), achieving academic consensus is equivalent to having reached paradigm status. In the physical sciences, this means that a theory is capable of nullifying all other competing scientific theories. Without the help of other theories—in our case, planning-as-control—some of the regressive impacts of planning would have been missed, or explained incompletely.

For theorists, the absence of other planning theories would widen the gap between theory and practice which the academy is so eager to fill, because the prescriptions of communicative planning theory would be unattainable. Practically, communicative planners would continue to generate plans which oppress residents, quite contrary to their goals, but which planners—lacking the proper analytical tools—would be 183 powerless to change. These claims risk losing one of communicative theory’s most valuable contributions to practice: its attention to opportunities for change (Healey

1997; Healey 2007).

3. What, if at all, does planning theory have to contribute to practice?

Planning theories may not be paradigmatic, but this may be their greatest contributions to practice. The findings of this thesis have demonstrated that analyzing a planning initiative using two planning theories was not about seeing if it was black or white, oppressive or communicative. Rather, it was about trying on different lenses to see what they illuminated. Each theory was, returning to Forester, the “telescope” through which students and practitioners view the act of planning. “Our ability to see…depend[ed] on the equipment we use…the theoretical frame we use for the questions we ask and how we understand the answers” (Forester 2004, in Hillier and

Healey 2010: 4). For the Abu-Basma case, these illuminations appeared in different areas of practice, and had different expressions. Encapsulated in episodes, they were identified and studied in-depth, drawing from the experiences and perspectives of a variety of actors. The information about these episodes—the different contexts they operated in, and how they actually proceeded—enabled well-considered suggestions to be made for how they could be improved. This points to the first contribution theory is to practice: its potential to generate change.

The second contribution is the ability to learn from case studies. The importance of case studies has been echoed by many scholars across schools of thought and academic disciplines (Bäcklund and Mäntysalo 2010; Flyvbjerg 2004; Dredge and

Jenkins 2011). Amid criticisms of former planning case studies, particularly of the practice stories produced by communicative and control theorists94, studies like this one

94 Theorists may produce “totalizing readings” of planning practice, by looking at a case through the lens of one theory or paradigm (Oranje 2002: 179-90). 184 produce essential learning material for planners and students. By grounding two theories in real practice, planning was revealed to be neither malicious, nor transformative, nor benign, alone. Rather, it was revealed to be extremely complicated, bouncing between different contexts, different people and different ideas. These are the real stories that may help planners find their own ways through the uncertainties of practice. The contributions can also be seen as dialectical; testing theory on cases keeps theory from outpacing practice. Findings on the abilities for different theories to explain actual situations of planning help theorists to adjust and readjust them as we learn more their relevance to practice, and to do away with them when they no longer serve us.

The third contribution would be what Dyckman (1983) has called the “action orientation” of planning. As Dyckman suggests, “the action orientation of planning places it in a position where the activity can scarcely be neutral about “oughts”, and where the studies of the “is” are likely to be critical” (Dyckman 1983: 6). Had communicative planning theory been paradigmatic in a Kuhnian sense, its focus on norms and procedures would have limited developments in the field of planning theory, and perhaps hindered the abilities of planners to truly do communicative work.95

Communicative theory’s value orientations, however, may have encouraged planners to at least try to work towards communicative values, even if they were limited in their abilities to actually do so. Therefore, this thesis suggests that planners cannot be assumed to be acting “good”, but that they should be expected to do so.

Along with the abilities of a relevant planning theory to fix or enhance existing work, so can its values guide future practices. This is suggested with an acknowledgement that “good” is a vague term, and certainly relative; as the thesis has

95 This point is strongest in the criticisms of communicative planning by planning-as-control theorists. As put by Yiftachel (2006b), “ This literature says little about the spatial impact of actions taken by planners and other key agents of spatial change… in some settings talk may never lead to resolution, and may have the adverse impact of concealing or legitimizing planning oppression suffered by marginalized groups” (214). 185 found, a “good” planning outcome certainly meant different things for different stakeholder groups, and for different individuals within these groups. Therefore, through planning theory, values of “good” practice do not need to be attached to specific procedures, nor to “Western” norms, such as ideals of democracy and self- determination. “Good” values, inclusive in that they are decided upon through open negotiations among grassroots organizations, professional associations, schools of planning thought and other institutions from within a variety of global contexts, and specific, in that they are adjusted to the particular situation by local stakeholders, should continue to be sought and prescribed by planning theorists. In this way, real planners can keep trying to act “good”, without losing sight of their commitment to doing so, amid the dominatory forces and procedural barriers which can threaten the quality of their work.96

96 These suggestions build on those made by Oranje (2002) in his analysis of modern and postmodern planning theories. He explains that “some planners…seem to also have become fixated on exposing the past and present ‘evils that planners do’, without providing (some) guidance as to ‘the ways of the good planner’ in the future. This does of course not suggest that a single once-off future must be provided, but that questions as to the why, how and where of a future planning must be asked and answers sought. Hopefully this will also bring some balance to, and some movement beyond, the far-too-easy stories featuring ‘bad/mad/evil/malicious planners’” (181). 186

SUGGESTIONS FOR PRACTICE

If the present approach to settlement planning in the Abu-Basma Regional

Council is maintained, all Abu-Basma localities may become caught in the “gray space” between legality and illegality. Should the government choose to maintain the status quo, it is likely to use a combination of communication, compensation and force to implement its plans. This approach has produced a mix of “acquiescence and resistance” (Yiftachel 2009a,b) in Abu-Basma localities, which has led to a loss of trust and resources on all sides. It is therefore essential that modifications be made to the present approach taken by the government to Bedouin settlement more generally.

I suggest that the meeting points between planning-as-control theory and the communicative paradigm are actually the prescriptions for planners to tackle some of the current problems. These are accessible to the actors involved with planning and implementation, and are also capable of beginning to deal with the problems of control.

The most pertinent point of intersection is found in the instruction from communicative planning theory to “speak truth to power” (Innes 1998: 52), and the principle of planning-as-control that “the first step to being moral is to realizing that we are not”

(Flyvbjerg 1996: 387). “Speaking truth to power” first demands the realization by Abu-

Basma administrators that their organization is not moral, because it both promotes regressive policies, and is dishonest about its role in enforcing them. Planners and administrators are therefore first prescribed to “speak truth” to the policies which have triggered resident resistance and recognize the location of their positions within a regressive political regime.

1. Expansion and enhancement to Abu-Basma’s public participation and

permitting education programs

a. Full disclosure regarding planning and landownership policies 187

Most residents felt that a lack of transparency characterized the process of plan implementation for their settlements. Local committee members believed that the authorities at the regional council had deceived them, in attempting to separate their work from other, regressive policies which were being promoted by other departments.

The return of these policies “in a boomerang” during the stage of neighborhood development lead local committees to resign from the regional council, and created significant emotional losses for residents who had expected that they would be able to move to safe homes, with household services. If Abu-Basma authorities had been honest about these policies, they would have been likely to compromise their relationship with residents. Nonetheless, the severe, perhaps permanent losses in trust and physical infrastructures which emerged during these later stages of plan implementation may have been prevented. Honesty about land ownership, for example, might have compromised residents’ willingness to go into the planning process

(Professor of Public Policy 2010). Nonetheless, had the issue been discussed with residents directly it might not have been solved, but it might have generated a lasting relationship with Abu-Basma administrators. Instead, the reverse happened, at the expense of building an enduring relationship between residents and the regional council.

One practical way to initiate outreach on the issues of land titling and planning could be to tie these issues to other education programs proceeding under the auspices of Abu-Basma. Some of the regional council’s greatest assets are the “individual personalities” working there. These individuals, like Abu-Basma’s former director, used their professional experience to think creatively on the issue of public service provision in settlements with outstanding land disputes, to advocate for additional funding for education and welfare programs, and to push for expansions to the borders of existing settlements (Operations Director 2010; Professor of Geography and Environment 188

2011). They have also demonstrated, when budgets have allowed, excellent communication skills. They have proven successful in mediating NIMBY conflicts between residents (even if residents believed they were minor issues), and have begun to succeed in moving residents through the household permitting process. Therefore, employees at the regional council have demonstrated particular strength in their knowledge of the planning system, and in their abilities to communicate with different people, over difficult issues, across cultural and administrative boundaries.

Administrators at Abu-Basma have the added advantage of having accumulated a significant amount of knowledge “on-the-ground” from the work of planners’ social consultants. This information can certainly be examined more closely to discover better ways of maintaining dialogue with residents over tense planning issues.

All of these findings have pinpointed the key assets as the program moves forward.

Specifically, the permitting education program, organized by Abu-Basma’s building supervisor (discussed in the second stage of implementation) should be expanded to include all of the procedures and policies tied to government recognition. This will mobilize the professional and political knowledge of Abu-Basma authorities and the cultural knowledge acquired by planners and social consultants. The program should be conducted as meetings before the planning process has begun through participation of a representative from the relevant authority (Abu-Basma or the Bedouin Authority) in the

“public meetings” organized by social consultants (discussed in local representation during planning). Should the presence of a government representative compromise the abilities for participants to express themselves, two meetings should be organized, one with a government representative, and one without the representative. This will ensure that all issues related to planning are “on-the-table”, and that all participants are able to speak freely without fearing retribution. This is prescribed with a recognition that issues which are “on-the-table” may not actually be up for negotiation, only open for viewing; 189 like service provision however, creative thinking may open up different possibilities.

Dialogue over these issues should be maintained after the planning process has been completed to prevent the frustration and confusion generated by time lags between plan formation, approval and implementation.

b. Presence of a planner or regional representative in the localities

Visits by planners to Abu-Basma settlements should replace some of the open office hours held in planner’s offices and at Abu-Basma’s offices. The frequent presence of a planner and a government representative in all settlements, at all stages of the planning and implementation process would benefit all stakeholders dramatically. Practically, planners would be able to create better plans because they would be able to hear from more residents. Social consultants would have been less likely to miss the local power dynamics controlling communicative infrastructures on the village and household levels, while the residents most vulnerable to information distortion, such as women and less educated men, could have (through cultural accommodations, such as female moderators and Hebrew translators) spoken to planners and planning authorities directly. This information might have informed planners that they needed to reassess the findings of their participation programs, and adjust or re-implement the programs.

Making these accommodations would have prevented the regional council from pumping more resources into flawed participation programs.

Achieving such a level of familiarity with residents would not be difficult. I learned about the challenges to public participation for Abu-Basma localities through approximately eight months of field work and four months of data analysis. Specific issues, however, such as the inability for most residents to understand planning, became obvious after only a few interviews. These individual problems can be approached by planners and social consultants as they learn about them. Most importantly, they can be 190 integrated into an improved model for conducting public participation and be applied from the beginning of the planning process to newly recognized settlements.

Consulting with more people in the beginning would also prevent hearing about problems as a “boomerang in the end”. This would alleviate stress for engineers at Abu-

Basma, who were aggravated by the residents who dropped in to their offices to complain after public participation for their village had ended. Earlier, more frequent involvement in the localities might have also saved Abu-Basma the millions of shekels it spent to repair the infrastructures and facilities that had been repeatedly vandalized during neighborhood service provision. Such intensive involvement might have led planners to identify the problems which spurred violence during the later stages of implementation. .

2. Incorporation of new planning theories: “inclusion” and “indigenous knowledge”

Possible ways forward may be found in recent public participation theory. These theories are prescribed with a recognition that arguments could be waged against their use in the context of planning for the Bedouin.97 Nonetheless, applying a prescriptive theory to the Abu-Basma case may help in thinking “outside the box” of government control, to negate the assumptions which presently limit Abu-Basma’s work. Here, it is suggested that Quick and Feldman’s (2011) work on “inclusion” be paired with the concept of “indigenous knowledge”, as provided by Dei, Hall and Rosenberg (2000).

Pairing indigenous knowledge and inclusion theory would charge planners with listening to the full range of stories told by the future residents of Abu-Basma localities, even if what they say or how they say it disrespects the boundaries of Abu-Basma’s

97 One example is found in the work of Yiftachel (2006b), who interrogates the imposition of theory generated in the “West” on real projects in the “East”. 191 work. The information reflected by such an analysis could make visible the quiet procedural barriers which constrain planners’ work.

Incorporating Quick and Feldman’s theory of inclusion into the approach of planners and administrators would instruct them to “build the capacity of the community to implement the decisions and tackle related issues” (2011: 274). This could mobilize the cultural and technical knowledge of planners to establish a framework for public inclusion before, during and after the planning process, which would include places for checks on and adjustments to communicative infrastructures as planning proceeded.

Following inclusion theory, planners and administrators would also be responsible for adjusting the focus of their work to the issues which mattered to their constituency and to their government supervisors. To hear the issues that matter to residents would require an adjustment to planners’ thinking. Particularly, it would demand a shift from what they defined as “cultural knowledge” to “indigenous knowledge”; “the commonsense ideas and cultural knowledges of local peoples concerning the everyday realities of living" (by Dei, Hall and Rosenberg (2000: i).

Understanding knowledge as the everyday experiences of living would retrieve the routines of residents of Abu-Basma localities, informing planners about employment and unemployment education and recreation, and housing demolitions. Therefore, indigenous knowledge is not limited to the information asked for by planners of the government, but instead includes the unfiltered stories of residents living in both recognized and unrecognized localities.

Encasing indigenous knowledge within inclusion theory and implementing them could lead to high satisfaction of residents with their local authority, rather than the opposite, which is what happened in the localities under study. This is because

“coproduction of process and content… allows the community to see how their 192 engagement is making a difference and encourages continued engagement” (2011:

283). In Abu-Basma localities, an inclusive approach to planning would build on the trust and hope that had been achieved in the early stages of implementation by maintaining it, through steady material developments and conversations.

These suggestions for practice align with the goals of Israel’s national planning association, the Israel Planner’s Association (IPA). The IPA’s Charter for Sustainable

Planning reads:

The planners are committed to listening and to being sensitive to the needs of the public and those of the various interested parties, and to establishing a discourse with them, enabling them to truly participate in the identification of needs and desires, and to influence planning decisions. This must be done as early as possible in the planning process, in both formal and informal frameworks. (2011) The IPA’s charter also negates the statements by planners that they abstained from considering the politics or outcomes of planning. The planners are, as the charter reads,

“committed to upholding the law without detrimental effect on their ability to introduce innovation and criticize the government establishment, with the aim to promoting quality of government” (2011). Furthermore, ”the planners are also committed to demonstrating good citizenship, educating towards public awareness, understanding the significance of planning, and to promoting an open civil discourse between government, planners and the public” (2011)

The Israel Planning Association, of which several of the interviewed planners were members, provides local support for the prescriptions of planning theory, and can therefore be consulted in one of the first steps to changing the context of planning for

Abu-Basma localities and the actions of planners. In this way, planning can become the

“organization of hope” (Baum 1997: xii), as planners intend it to be. 193

REFERENCES

Abu-Basma Project. 2005. Annual Report. NIF/JDC-Israel.

Abu-Basma Regional Council. 2009. Agricultural Master Plan, Abu-Basma Regional Council: Analysis of Existing Situation. Presentation, 11 Nov. 2009. Kfar Saba: Amos Brandeis Urban and Regional Architecture and Planning Ltd.

------. 2010a. “Our Mission”. Abu-Basma Regional Council. Beer Sheva: Abu-Basma Regional Council.

------. 2010b. “Our Policy”. Abu-Basma Regional Council. Beer Sheva: Abu-Basma Regional Council.

Abu-Rabia, Aref. 1994. “The Bedouin Refugees in the Negev.” Refuge 14(6):15-17.

------. 2001. A Bedouin Century: Education and Development among the Negev Tribes in the 20th Century. New York: Berghahn.

------. 2005. “Bedouin Health Services in Mandated Palestine.” Middle Eastern Studies 41(3): 421-429.

Abu-Rabia-Queder, Sarab. 2006. “Between Tradition and Modernization: Understanding the Problem of Female Bedouin Dropouts.” British Journal of Sociology and Education 27(1): 3-17.

------. 2007. “Coping with ‘Forbidden Love’ and Loveless Marriage. Ethnography 8(3): 297-323.

Abu Rabia, Rawia. 2011. Principles for Arranging Recognition of Bedouin Villages in the Negev: Position Paper. Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Abu Ras, Thabet. 2011. “The Arab-Bedouin in the Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab (Negev): Between the Hammer of Prawer and the Anvil of Goldberg.” In Adalah’s Newsletter 81. Haifa: Adalah

------. 2006. “Land Disputes in Israel: The Case of the Bedouin of the Naqab.” Adalah’s Newsletter 24: 1-9.

Abu-Saad, Ismael. 2008. “Spatial Transformation and Indigenous Resistance: The Urbanization of the Palestinian Bedouin in Southern Israel.” American Behavioral Scientist 51: 1713-1754.

Acker, Jane, Kate Barry and Joke Esseveld. 1983. “Objectivity and Truth: Problems in Doing Feminist Research.” Women’s Studies International Forum 6(4): 423- 435.

Agius, Parry, Sandie Jarvis and Richie Howitt. 2003. “Different Visions, Different Ways: Lessons and Challenges from the Native Title Negotiations in South Australia.” Paper presented at Native Title Conference, Alice Springs. 194

Al-Krenawi, Alean, Benjamin Maoz and Barbara Reicher 1994. “Familial and Cultural Issues in the Brief Strategic Treatment of Israeli Bedouins” Family Systems Medicine 12(4): 415-425.

Al-Krenawi, Alean and John R. Graham. 1999. “Gender and Biomedical/Traditional Mental Health Utilization Among the Bedouin-Arabs of the Negev.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 23.2: 219-243.

Albrechts, Louis. 1997. “Genesis of a Western European Spatial Policy?” Journal of Planning Education and Research 17(2): 158-167.

------. 1999. “Planners As Catalysts and Initiators of Change: The New Structural Plan for Flanders.” European Planning Studies 7(5): 587-603.

Alexander, Ernest R. 1984. “After Rationality, What? A Review of Responses to Paradigm Breakdown.” Journal of the American Planning Association 50(1): 62-69.

------.1992. Approaches to Planning: Introducing Current Planning Theories, Concepts and Issues 2nd ed. Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers.

------. 2000. “Rationality Revisited: Planning Paradigms in a Post-Postmodernist Perspective.” Planning Education and Research 19(3): 242-256.

------. 2003. “Response to ‘Why Do Planning Theory?’” Planning Theory 2(3): 179- 182.

Alfasi, Nurit. 2003. “Is Public Participation Making Urban Planning More Democratic?” Planning Theory & Practice 4(2): 185-202.

Alfasi, Nurit and Juval Portugali. 2004. “Planning Policy? Between Long-term Planning and Zoning Amendments in the Israeli Planning System.” Environment and Planning A 38: 553-568.

Alfred, Taiaiake. 2005. Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom. Petersborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, LTD.

Allmendinger, Philip. 2002a. “Towards a Post-Positivist Typology of Planning Theory.’' Planning Theory 1(1): 77-99.

------. 2002b. “The Post-Positivist Landscape of Planning Theory.” Pp. 1-17 in Planning Futures: New Directions for Planning Theory, edited by M. Tewdwr- Jones and P. Allmendinger. London and New York: Routledge.

Allmendinger, Philip and Mark Tewdr-Jones. 2002. “Conclusion: Communicative Planning, Collaborative Planning and the Post-Positivist Planning Theory Landscape.” Pp. 206-229 in Planning Futures: New Directions for Planning Theory, edited by M. Tewdwr-Jones and P. Allmendinger. London and New York: Routledge. 195

Alsayyad, Nezar. 2004. “Urban Informality as a ‘New’ Way of Life.” Pp. 7-30 in Urban Informality, edited by A. Roy and N. Alsayyad. Lanham. MD: Lexington Books.

Amdam, Roar. 1997. “Empowerment Planning in Local Communities: Some Experiences from Combining Communicative and Instrumental Rationality in Local Planning in Norway.” International Planning Studies 2(3): 329-345.

American Planning Association. 2006. Planning and Urban Design Standards. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Amos Brandes Achitecture and Urban and Regional Planning. 2011. “Meetings with Family Representatives.” Public Participation. Abu-Basma Regional Council.

Anderson, Kay. 1993. “Place Narratives and the Origins of Inner Sydney's Aboriginal Settlement, 1972-73.” Journal of Historical Geography 19: 314-335

Anderson, Robert B. 1999. Economic Development among the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada: The Hope for the Future. Concord, ON: Captus Press.

Arksey, Hilary and Peter Knight 2009. Interviewing for Social Scientists: An Introductory Resource with Examples. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Arnstein, Shelly. 1969. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of American Institute of Planners 35(4): 216-224.

Atkinson, Paul and Amanda Coffey. 2004. “Analysing Documentary Realities.” Pp. 56- 75 in Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice 2nd ed., edited by D. Silverman. London: Sage.

Bäcklund, Pia and Raine Mäntysalo. 2010. “Agonism and Institutional Ambiguity: Ideas of Democracy and the Role of Participation in the Development of Planning Theory and Practice- The Case of Finland.” Planning Theory 9(4): 333-350.

Bagheri, Ali and Peder Hjorth. 2007. “Planning for Sustainable Development: A Paradigm Shift Towards a Process-Based Approach.” Sustainable Development 15(2): 83-96.

Bailey, Clinton. 1985. “Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18: 20-49.

Banister, David. 2008. “The Sustainable Mobility Paradigm.” Transport Policy 15(2): 73-80.

Banner, Stuart. 2005. “Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia.” Law and History Review 23(1): 95-131. 196

Barhardt, Ray and Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley. 2005. “Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Alaska Native Ways of Knowing.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 36(1): 8–23.

Baum, Howell S. 1997. The Organization of Hope: Communities Planning Themselves. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Beatley, Timothy. 1995. “Planning and Sustainability: The Elements of a New (Improved) Paradigm.” Journal of Planning Literature 9(4): 383-395.

Beaumont, Justin and Walter Nicholls. 2008. “Plural Governance, Participation and Democracy in Cities.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32: 87–94.

Beauregard, Robert A. 1976. “The Occupation of Planning: A View from the Census.” Journal of the American Planning Association 42(2): 187-192.

------. 1991. “Without a Net: Modernist Planning and the Postmodern Abyss.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 10(3): 189-194.

------. 2003. “Between Modernity and Postmodernity: The Ambiguous Position of U.S. Planning.” Pp. 108-124 in Readings in Planning Theory 2nd Ed, edited by S. Campbell and S.S. Fainstein. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA: 108-124.

Berg, Bruce L. 1995. Qualitative Research Design for the Social Sciences. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

------. 2001. “Action Research.” Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Toronto: Allyn and Bacon.

Berke, Philip R., Neil Ericksen, Jan Crawford and Jenny Dixon. 2002. “Planning and Indigenous People: Human Rights and Environmental Protection in New Zealand.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 22(2): 115-134.

Berman-Kishony, Talia. 2008. “Bedouin Urbanization Legal Policies in Israel and Jordan: Similar Goals, Contrasting Strategies.” Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems 17: 393-411.

Bimkom. 2011. “About Us.” Jerusalem, Israel: Bimkom. Retrieved Dec. 25, 2011 (http://www.bimkom.org/aboutHeb.asp).

Bodley, John H. 1998. Victims of progress 4th ed. Melno Park: Benjamin Cummins.

Brand, Ralph and Frank Gaffikin. 2007. “Collaborative Planning in an Uncollaborative World.” Planning Theory 6(3): 282-313.

Brooks, Michael P. 1988. “Four Critical Junctures in the History of the Urban Planning Profession: An Exercise in Hindsight.” Journal of the American Planning Association 54(2): 241-248. 197

Burt, Larry W. 1986. “Roots of the Native American Urban Experience: Relocation Policy in the 1950s.” American Indian Quarterly 10(2): 85-99.

Campbell, Scott and Susan. S. Fainstein. 2003. “Introduction: The Structure and Debates of Planning Theory.” Pp. 1-16 in Readings in Planning Theory 2nd ed., edited by S. Campbell and S. S. Fainstein. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Chase, Athol. 1990. “Anthropology and Impact Assessment: Development Pressures and Indigenous Interests in Australia.” Environmental Impact Assessment Review 10(1-2): 11-23.

Collins, Francis Leo and Wardlow Friesen. 2011. “Making the Most of Diversity? The Intercultural City Project and a Rescaled Version of Diversity in Auckland, New Zealand.” Urban Studies 48(14): 3067-3085.

Corbett, Tony, Marcus Lane and Chris Clifford. 1998. Achieving Indigenous Involvement in the Management of Protected Areas: Lessons from Recent Australian Experience. Research Paper No. 5. Research Project on Aboriginal Politics and Public Sector Management. Gold Coast, Australia: Centre for Australian Public Sector Management, Griffith University.

Corbin-Dwyer, Sonya and Jennifer L. Buckle. 2009. “The Space Between: On Being an Insider-Outsider in Qualitative Research.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 8(1):54-63.

Cornell, Stephen. 2006. “Indigenous People, Poverty and Self-Determination in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.” Joint Occasional Papers on Native Affairs 2. Tucson, Arizona: Native Nations Institute. Retrieved June 1, 2012 (www.jopna.net).

Corntassel, Jeff. 2007. “Partnership in Action? Indigenous Political Mobilization and Co-optation During the First UN Indigenous Decade.” Human Rights Quarterly 29(1): 137-166.

Cosgrove, Laurie, and Beverly Kliger. 1997. “Planning with a Difference: A Reflection on Planning and Decision Making with Indigenous people in Broome, WA.” Urban Policy and Research 15(3): 211-217.

Craig & Ehrlich. 1996. Indigenous Participation in Commonwealth Environmental Impact Assessment. Environmental Protection Agency, Australia.

Dale, Norman. 1999. “Cross-cultural Community-Based Planning: Negotiating the Future of Haida Gwaii (British Colombia).” Pp. 923-949 in The Consensus- Building Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Reaching an Agreement, edited by L. Susskind, S. McKearnan and J. Thomas-Larmer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Davidoff, Paul. 1965. “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning.” Journal of American Institute of Planning 31: 331-8. 198

De Neufville, Judith I. 1983. “Planning Theory and Practice: Bridging the Gap.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 3(1): 35-45.

Dear, Michael. 1992. “Understanding and Overcoming the NIMBY Syndrome.” Journal of the American Planning Association 58(3): 288-300.

Dei, George, Jerry Sefa, Budd L. Hall, and Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg. 2000. Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of Our World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonne S. Lincoln. 2011. “Introduction: The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research.” Pp. 1-19 in The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research 4, edited by N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln. London: Sage.

Diamond, Gary M., Aneese Farhat, Mahmud Al-Amor, Salman Elbedour, Karni Shelef and Rachel Bar-Hamburger. 2008. “Drug and Alcohol Use Among the Bedouin of the Negev: Prevalence and Psychosocial Correlates.” Addictive Behaviors 33(1): 143-151.

Dinero, Stephen C. 1996. “Resettlement and Modernization in Post-Nomadic Bedouin Society: The Case of Segev Shalom, Israel.” The Journal of Planning Education and Research 15(2): 105 - 116.

------. 1997. “Female Role Change and Male Response in the Post-Nomadic Urban Environment: The Case of the Israeli Negev Bedouin.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 28(3): 248-261.

------. 1998. “Planning in a Post-nomadic Bedouin Town: An Update and Follow-up Assessment of Development and Change in Segev Shalom, Israel.” Scottish Geographical Magazine: The Journal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society 11 (4/2): 66-75.

------. 2004. “New Identity/identities Formulation in a Post-nomadic Community: The Case of the Bedouin of the Negev.” National Identities 6(3): 261-275.

------. 2011. Settling for Less: The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin. New York: Berghahn.

Distasio, J.G. Sylvestere and S. Mulligan. 2005. “Home is Where the Heart is and Right Now That is Nowhere…An Examination of Hidden Homelessness among Aboriginal Peoples in Prairie Cities.” Institute of Urban Studies,Winnipeg. Retrieved July 7, 2012 (http://www.homelesshub.ca/ResourceFiles/NRP_009_Hidden_Aboriginal_Ho melessness.pdf).

Dredge, Dianne, John Jenkins and Michelle Whitford. 2011. “Stories of Practice.” Pp. 37-78 in Stories of Practice: Tourism Policy and Planning, edited by D. Dredge and J. Jenkins. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. 199

Dyckman, John W. 1983. “Reflections on Planning Practice in An Age of Reaction.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 3(1): 5-12.

Fay, Brian.1996. Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science: A Multicultural Approach. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.

Fazey, Ioan, John A. Fazey, Janet G. Salisbury, David B. Lindenmayer and Steve Dovers. 2006. “The Nature and Role of Experiential Knowledge for Environmental Conservation.” Environmental Conservation 33(1): 1-10.

Forman, Geremy and Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar. 2004. “From Arab Land to ‘Israel Lands’: The Legal Dispossession of the Palestinians Displaced by Israel in the Wake of 1948.” Environment and Planning D 22(6): 809-830.

Effrat, Andrew. 1972. “Power to the Paradigms: An Editorial Introduction.” Sociological Inquiry 42(3-4): 3-33.

Fabetti, Ugo. 1991. “Control of Resources and Social Cohesion. The Role of the Bedouin Domestic Group.” Nomadic Peoples 28: 18-27.

Fainstein, Susan. 1998. “Urban Planning.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved July 4, 2011 (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/619445/urban-planning).

Falah, Ghazi W. 1983. “The Development of the ‘Planned Bedouin Settlement’ in Israel, 1964-1982: Evaluation and Characteristics.” Geoforum 14(3): 311-323.

------. 1989. “Israeli State Policy toward Bedouin Sedentarization in the Negev.” Journal of Palestine Studies 18(2): 71-91.

Faludi, Andreas. 1973. Planning Theory. Oxford, U.K.: Pergamon.

------. 1979. “Towards a Combined Paradigm of Planning Theory?” Pp. 27-38 in Critical Readings in Planning Theory C. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

------. 1982. “The ‘IOR School’: The Development of a Planning Methodology.” Environment and Planning B 9: 241-256.

Fenster, Tovi. 1993. “Settlement Planning and Participation under Principles of Pluralism.” Progress in Planning 39(3): 169-242.

------. 1999a. “Culture, Human Rights and Planning (as Control) for Minority Women in Israel.” Pp. 39-54 in Gender, Planning and Human Rights, edited by T. Fenster. London: Routledge.

------. 1999b. “Gender and Human Rights: Implications for Planning and Development.” Pp. 3-24 in Gender, Planning and Human Rights, edited by T. Fenster. London: Routledge.

------. 1999c. “Space for Gender: Cultural Roles of the Forbidden and the Permitted.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 17: 227-246. 200

------. 2001. “Planning, Culture, Knowledge and Control: Minority Women in Israel.” Pp. 77-90 in The Power of Planning: Spaces of Control and Transformation, edited by O. Yiftachel, and J. Little et al. Boston: Kluwer Academic.

Fishman, Robert. 2003. “Urban Utopias: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier.” Pp. 21-60 in Readings in Planning Theory 2nd ed., edited by S. Campbell and S.S. Fainstein. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. 1996. “The Dark Side of Planning: Rationality and Realrationalität.” Pp. 383-394 in Explorations in Planning Theory, edited by S. Mandelbaum, L. Mazza. and R. Burchell. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research Press.

------. 1998. Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

------2001. “Beyond the Limits of Planning Theory: Response to My Critics.” International Planning Studies 6(3): 285-292.

------. 2002. “Bringing Power to Planning Research: One Researcher’s Praxis Story.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 21(4): 353-366.

------. 2004. “Phronetic Planning Research: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections.” Planning Theory & Practice 5(3): 283-306.

Flyvbjerg, Bent and Tim Richardson. 2002. “Planning and Foucault: In Search of the Dark Side of Planning Theory.” Pp. 44-62 in Planning Futures: New Directions for Planning Theory, edited by P. Allmendinger and M. Tewdwr-Jones. New York: Routledge.

Forester, John. 1989. Planning in the Face of Power. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

------. 1993a. “Learning from Practice Stories: The Priority of Practical Judgment.” Pp. 186-209 in The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, edited by F. Fischer and J. Forester. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

------. 1999. The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes. Boston: MIT Press.

------. 2004. “Reflections on Trying to Teach Planning Theory.” Planning Theory and Practice 5(2): 242-251.

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Allen Lane.

------. 1980. Power/knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Trans. Colin Gordon. Bright, Sussex: Harvester.

------. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777-795. 201

Freeman, R. E. 1984. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Pitman.

Friedmann, John. 1971. “The Future of Comprehensive Planning: A Critique.” Public Administration Review 31(3): 315-326.

------. 1973. “The Public Interest and Community Participation: Toward a Reconstruction of Public Philosophy.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 39(1): 2-12.

------. 2003. “Why Do Planning Theory?” Planning Theory 2(1): 7-10.

Gaffikin, Frank and Mike Morrissey. 2011. Planning in Divided Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Galloway, Thomas D. and Riad G. Mahayni. 1977. “Planning Theory in Retrospect: The Process of Paradigm Change.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 43(1): 62-71.

Garrison, Tim Alan. 2002. The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Glaubman, Rivka and Yaacov Katz. 2003. “The Bedouin Community in the Israeli Negev: Educational and Community Characteristics.” Pp. 181-212 in Education of Minorities and Peace Education in Pluralistic Societies, edited by Y. Iram and H. Wahrman. Westport [CT]: Praeger Publishers.

Ghanem, As'ad. 1998. “State and Minority in Israel: the Case of Ethnic State and the Predicament of its Minority.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(3): 428-48.

Gibson, Chris. 1999. “Cartographies of the Colonial/Capitalist State: A Geopoligitcs of Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia.” Antipode 31(1): 45-79.

Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: An Introduction into the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

Golan, Patricia. 2007. “Beduin in Limbo.” The Jerusalem Post, January 24, The Jerusalem Report. Retrieved May 16 2010 (http://www.jpost.com/JerusalemReport/Article.aspx?id=86452).

Graham, Katherine A.H., and Evelyn Peters. 2002. Aboriginal Communities and Urban Sustainability. Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks Inc.

Greene, Molly. 2005. “The Ottoman Experience.” Daedalus 134(2): 88-99.

Grunig, James E. Qualtitative Methods for Assessing Relationships Between Organizations and Publics. Gainesville [FL]: The Institute for Public Relations, 202

Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation. Retreived 15 Sep. 2010 (http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/organizations-publics-relationships/).

Habermas, J Jürgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Hill.

Hall Peter. 2002.Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell.

Harper, T.L. and S.M. Stein. 1995. “Out of the Postmodern Abyss: Preserving the Rationale for Liberal Planning.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 14(4): 233-244.

Harris, Britton. 1960. “Plan or Projection: An Examination of the Use of Models in Planning.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 26(4): 265-272.

Harvey, David. 1973. Social Justice and the City. London: Blackwell.

Healey, Patsy. 1992a. “A Planner’s Day- Knowledge and Action in Communicative Practice.” Journal of the American Planning Association 58(1): 9-20.

------. 1992b. “Planning through Debate: The Communicative Turn in Planning Theory. Town Planning Review 63(2): 143-62.

------. 1996. “Consensus-building Across Difficult Divisions: New Approaches to Collaborative Strategy Making.” Planning Practice & Research 11(2): 207-216.

------. 1997. Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.

------. 1999. “Institutionalist Analysis, Communicative Planning, and Shaping Places.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 19(2): 111-121.

------. 2000. “Planning Theory and Urban and Regional Dynamics: A Comment on Yiftachel and Huxley.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 24(4): 917-921.

------. 2003b. “Collaborative Planning in Perspective.” Planning Theory 2(2): 101-121.

------. 2007. “The New Institutionalism and the Transformative Goals of Planning.” Pp. 61-87 in Institutions and planning, edited by N. Verma. Oxford: Elsevier.

------. 2009. “In Search of the ‘Strategic’ in Spatial Strategy Making.” Planning Theory and Practice 10(4): 439-457.

Hibbard, Michael, Marcus B. Lane and Kathleen Rasmussen. 2008. “The Split Personality of Planning: Indigenous Peoples and Planning for Land and Resource Management.” Journal of Planning Literature 23(2): 136-151.

Hill, R.S. 2004. State Authority, Indigenous Autonomy: Crown-Maori Relations in New Zealand. Wellington: Victoria University Press. 203

Hillier, Jean. 2003. “Agon’izing over Consensus: Why Habermasian Ideals Cannot Be ‘Real'”. Planning Theory 2(1): 37-59.

Hillier, Jean and Patsy Healey. 2010. “Introduction: Planning at Yet Another Crossroads?” Pp. 1-34 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Planning Theory: Conceptual Challenges for Spatial Planning, edited by J. Hillier and P. Healey. London: Ashgate.

Hoch, Charles J. 2007. “Pragmatic Communicative Action Theory.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 26(3): 272-283.

Horner, Deborah F. 1982. “Planning for Bedouin: The Case of Tel Sheva.” Third World Planning Review 4(2): 159-176.

Howe, Elizabeth. 1980. “Role Choices of Urban Planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 46(4): 398-409.

Howitt, Richard. 1989. “Resource Development and Aborigines: The Case of Roebourne 1960-1980.” Australian Geographical Studies. 27(2): 155-169

Huxley, Margo. 1994. “Planning as a Framework of Power: Utilitarian Reform, Enlightenment Logic and the Control of Urban Space.” Pp. 148-69 in Beasts of Suburbia, edited by S. Ferberm, C. Healey, and C. McAuliffe. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

------. 2000. “The Limits to Communicative Planning.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 19(4): 369-377.

Huxley, Margo and Oren Yiftachel. 2000. “New Paradigm or Old Myopia? Unsettling the Communicative Turn in Planning Theory.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 19: 101-110.

Human Rights Watch. 2008. Off the Map: Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages. New York: Human Rights Watch.

Hyde, K.F. 2008. “Independent Traveler Decision-Making.” Pp. 43-151 in Advances in Culture, Tourism, and Hospitality Research 2, edited by A.G. Woodside. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

Innes, Judith E. 1995. “Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice- Closing the Theory-Practice Gap.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 14(3): 183-89.

------.1996. “Planning Through Consensus Building: A New View of the Comprehensive Planning Ideal.” Journal of the American Planning Association 62(4): 460-472.

------. 1998. “Information in Communicative Planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 64(1): 52-63. 204

Innes, Judith and David Booher. 1999. “Consensus Building as Role Playing and Bricolage: Toward a Theory of Collaborative Planning.” Journal of American Planning Association 65(1): 9-26.

Israel Planners Association. 2011. Charter for Sustainable Planning Retreived Feb. 12, 2012 (www.aepi.org.il/loadedFiles/amanaeng.pdf).

Jackson, Peter. 1993. “Changing Ourselves: A Geography of Position.” Pp. 198-214 in The Challenge for Geography, A Changing World: A Changing Discipline, edited R.J. Johnston. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Jackson, Susan. 1997. “A Disturbing Story: The Fiction of Rationality in Land Use Planning in Aboriginal Australia.” Australian Planner 34(4): 221-6.

------. 1996. “When History Meets the New Native Title Era at the Negotiating Table: A Case Study in Reconciling Land Use in Broome, Western Australia: A Discussion Paper.” North Australian Research Unit. Darwin, Australia: Australian National University.

Jacobs, Jane M. 1996. Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. London: Routledge.

Jakubowska, L. 1988. “The Bedouin Family in Rahat: Perspectives on Social Change.” Pp. 34-48 in Reshimot benoseh Habedouim, edited by Y. Aini and E. Orion. Midreshet Sdeh Boker, Israel: Ben-Gurion University Press (in Hebrew).

Jiryis, Sabri. 1973. “The Legal Structure for the Expropriation and Absorption of Arab Lands in Israel.” Journal of Palestine Studies 2(4): 82-104.

Kamete, Amin Y. 2007. “Cold-hearted, Negligent and Spineless? Planning, Planners and the (R)ejection of ‘Filth’ in Urban Zimbabwe.” International Planning Studies 12(2): 153-171

------. 2008. “Planning Versus Youth: Stamping Out Spatial Unruliness in Harare.” Geoforum 39 (5): 1721-1733.

------. 2009. “In the Service of Tyranny: Debating the Role of Planning in Zimbabwe’s Urban ‘Clean-up’ Operation.” Urban Studies 46(4): 897-922.

Kaplan, Y. and Amit, A. 1979. Master Plan for the Bedouin Tel Aviv (in Hebrew).

Kark, Ruth and Haim Gerber. 1984. “Land Registry Maps in Palestine during the Ottoman Period.” The Cartographic Journal 21(1): 30-32(3).

Kedar, Alexandre (Sandy). 2003. “On the Legal Geography of Ethnocratic Settler States: Notes Towards a Research Agenda.” Pp. 401-442 in Law and Geography: Current Legal Issues, edited by J. Holder and C. Harrison. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 205

Kedar, Alexandre (Sandy) and Oren Yiftachel. 2006. “Land Regime and Social Relations in Israel.” Pp. 127 in Swiss Human Rights Book 1, edited by H. de Soto and F. Cheneval. Zürich: Ruffer and Rub.

Keeble, D. 1969. “School Teaching and Urban Geography: Some New Approaches.” Geography 54(1): 18-33.

Khamaisi, Rassem and Deborah Shmueli. 2009. Abu-Basma Regional Council: Preparing for Municipal Reorganization. Final report for the Abu-Basma Regional Council. Haifa: University of Haifa [in Hebrew].

Khamaisi, Rassem. 2011. “Questionnaires.” In Amos Brandes Achitecture and Urban and Regional Planning. Public Participation.

Kiernan, Michael J. 1983. “Ideology, Politics and Planning: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of Urban Planning.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 10(1): 71-87.

Kilmartin, Leslie, David C. Thorns, and Terry Burke. 1985. Social Theory and the Australian City. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin.

Kliot, Nuitr and Amon Medzini. “Bedouin Settlement Policy in Israel, 1964-1982: Another Perspective.” Geoforum 16(4): 428-439.

Klosterman, Richard E. 1985.“Arguments For and Against Planning.” Town Planning Review 56(1): 5-20.

Kluckhohn, Florence R. 1940. “The Participant-Observer Technique in Small Communities.” American Journal of Sociology 46: 331-342.

Knesset. 1965. Planning and Building Law (5725-1965). Jerusalem, Israel. Jerusalem Israel: Government Printer. Retrieved Sept. 12, 2011 (http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/israellaws/fulltext/planningbuildinglaw .htm).

Krakover, Shaul. 1999. “Urban Settlement Program and Land Dispute Resolution: The State of Israel versus the Negev Bedouin.” GeoJournal 47(4): 551-561.

Kressel, Gideon.M., Alessandro Bausani, and Joseph Ginat et al. 1981. “Sororicide/Filiacide: Homicide for Family Honour [and Comments and Reply].” Current Anthropology 22(2): 141-158.

Kressel, Gideon M. Joseph Ben-David, and Khalil Abu-Rabia. 1991. “Changes in Land Usage by the Negev Bedouin since the Mid-19th Century.” Nomadic Peoples 28: 28-55.

Kuhn, Thomas. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 206

-----. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kusow, Abdi M. 2003. “Beyond Indigenous Authenticity: Reflections on the Insider/outsider Debate in Immigration Research. Symbolic Interaction 26(4): 591-599.

Ladkin, Adele and Bertramini, Andrea M. 2002. “Collaborative Tourism Planning: A Case Study of Cusco, Peru.” Current Issues in Tourism 5(2): 71-93.

Ladner, Kiera L. 2001. “Visions of Neo-Colonialism? Renewing the Relationship with Aboriginal Peoples.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies XXI: 105-135.

Lane, Marcus B. 2006. “The Role of Planning in Achieving Indigenous Land Justice and Community Goals.” Land Use Policy 23(4): 385-394.

Lane Marcus B., G.T. McDonald, and T.H. Morrison. 2004. “Decentralisation and Environmental Mangament in Australia: A Comment on the Prescriptions of The Wentworth Group.” Australian Geographical Studies 42(1): 103-115.

Lane, Marcus B. and Simon Cowell. 2001. “Land and Resource Farming and Indigenous Interests: Reproducing or Transforming the Social Relations of Resource Use.” Pp. 155-169 in The Power of Planning: Spaces of Control and Transformation, edited by O. Yiftachel and J. Little. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Lane, Marcus B. and Tony Corbett. 2005. “The Tyranny of Localism: Indigenous Participation in Community-Based Environmental Management.” Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 7(2): 141-159.

Leavitt, Jacqueline. 1980a. “The History, Status, and Concerns of Women Planners.” Signs 5(3): 226-230.

------. 1980b. “Women in Planning: There’s More to Affirmative Action Than Gaining Access.” Pp. 219-34 in New Space for Women, edited by G.R Wekerle, R. Peterson and D. Morley. Boulder [CO]: Westview.

Leech, Beth L. 2002. “Asking Questions: Techniques for Semistructured Interviews.” Political Science and Politics 35(4): 665-668.

Lithwick, Harvey. 2000. An Urban Development Strategy for the Negev’s Bedouin Community. Beer Sheva: Center for Bedouin Studies and Development and Negev Center for Regional Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Lo Piccolo, Francesco 2008. “Planning Research ‘with’ Minorities in Palermo: Negotiating Ethics and commitments in a participatory process. Planning Practice and Research 23(2): 187-209.

Local Committee of Umm Batin. 2006. Newsletter. 207

Long, Jeremy. 2000. “The Commonwealth Government and Aboriginal Housing, 1968- 81.” Pp. 103-117 in Settlement: A History of Australian Indigenous Housing, edited by P. Read. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press.

Loomis, Terrence and John Mahima. 2001. “Mäori Community-Based Sustainable Development: A Research Progress Report.” International Community Development Conference. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2012 (http://gs.iacdglobal.org/files/loomis.pdf).

Manor-Binyamini, Iris. 2011. “Community in Israel: Family Functioning, Caregiver Burden, and Coping Abilities.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41(5): 610-617.

Mäntysalo, Raine. 2002. “Dilemmas in Critical Planning Theory.” Town Planning Review 73(4): 417-436.

Marx, Emmanuel. 1977. “The Tribe as a Unit of Subsistence: Nomadic Pastoralism in the Middle East. American Anthropologist 79(2): 343-363.

------. 2000. “Land and Work: Negev Bedouin Struggle with Israeli Bureaucracies.” Nomadic Peoples 4(2): 106-121.

Masalha, Nur. 1991. Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies.

McLoughlin, JB. 1969. “Simulation for Beginners: The Planting of a Sub-regional Model System.” Regional Studies 3: 313-323.

Meir, Avinoam. 1986. “Pastoral Nomads and the Dialectics of Development and Modernization: Delivering Public Educational Services to the Israeli Negev Bedouin. Environment and Planning D 4(1): 85-95.

------. 1988. “Nomads and the State: The Spatial Dynamics of Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces among the Israeli Negev Bedouin.” Political Geography Quarterly 7(3): 251-270.

------. 1997. As Nomadism Ends. Boulder: Westview Press.

------. 2005. “Bedouin, the Israeli State and Insurgent Planning: Globalization, Localization or Glocalization?” Cities 22(3): 201-215.

------. 2009. “Socially Sustainable Development: Planning Empowerment among the Bedouin in Israel.” Pp. 825-833. In REAL CORP 2009 Proceedings, edited by M. Schrenk, V.V. Popovich, D. Engelke, and P. Elisei. Sitges, REAL Corp. Retrieved Nov. 12, 2010 (http://www.corp.at/archive/CORP2009_25.pdf).

------. 2011. “Gendered Space, Power Relationships and Domestic Planning and Design among Displaced Israeli Bedouin.” Women’s Studies International Forum 34(3): 232-241. 208

Meir, Avinoam. and Ayelet Baskind. 2006. “Ethnic Business Entrepreneurship among Urbanizing Bedouin in the Negev, Israel.” Nomadic Peoples 10(1): 71-100.

Meir, Avinoam. and Yosef Ben-David. 1995. “From Latent Surplus to Changing Norms: Fertility Behavior of the Israeli Bedouin Along the Nomadism- Sedentarism Continuum.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 26(3): 389- 408.

Merton, Robert K. 1972. “Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge. American Journal of Sociology 78(1): 9-47.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2000. “Israel Government Action in the Arab Sector- February 2000.” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retreived 31 Oct. 2011 (www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/2/Israel+Government+A ction+in+the+Arab+Sector+-+Febr.htm?) Updated 23 Feb. 2000.

Ministry of the Interior. 2011. Jurisdiction of Local Authorities. Planning Administration of the Ministry of the Interior. Retreived 5 Oct. 2012 (www.moin.gov.il/Subjects/LocalGovernmentMap/Pages/About.aspx).

Miraftab, Faranak. 2009. “Insurgent Planning: Situating Radical Planning in the Global South.” Planning Theory 8(1): 32-50.

Mitchell, R.K., B.R. Agle and D.J. Wood. 1997. “Towards a Theory of Stakeholder Identification: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts.” Academy of Management Review 22(4): 853-886.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. 2003. “I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a White Postcolonizing Society.” Pp. 21-40 in Uprootings/regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration. Oxford: Berg.

Morito, B. 2005. A Resource Guide for Community Vulnerability Assessment: IACC Project. Saskatchewan: Prarie Adaptation Research Collaborative.

Morrison, Tiffany and Marcus B. Lane. 2006. “The Convergence of Regional Governance Discourses in Rural Australia: Enduring Challenges and Constructive Suggestions.” Rural Society 16: 341-357.

Muller, John. 1998. “Paradigms and Planning Practice: Conceptual and Contextual Considerations.” International Planning Studies 3(3): 287.

Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute. 2012. “Education.” MJB Data Snapshot: The Bedouin in Israel. Jerusalem: MJB. Acccessed May 23, 2012 (http://brookdale.jdc.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/MJB-Data-Snapshot- The-Bedouin-in-Israel-March-2012.pdf).

Namey, Emily, Greg Guest, Lucy Thairu, and Laura Johnson. 2007. “Data Reduction Techniques for Large Qualitative Data Sets.” Pp. 137-161 in Handbook for Team-Based Qualitative Research, edited by G. Guest and K. M. MacQueen. Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press. 209

Nasara, M. 2011. “The Southern Palestine Bedouin Tribes and British Mandate Relations, 1917-1948: Resistance to Colonialism.” The Arab World Geographer 14(4): 305-355.

Nahum Dunsky, Urban and Regional Planning. 2009. “Plan for the New Bedouin Villages of the Negev.” The Annual Convention of the Engineering Group. Office of Building and Housing, Administration of Planning and Building, 16 Nov. 2009.

Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality. 2010. Response to the Report on the State of Israel on Implementing the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Omer, Israel: NCF.

------. 2011. Al Arakib: A background paper about the demolitions. Omer, Israel: NCF. Retrieved December 12, 2011 (http://www.dukium.org/eng/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Al-Arakib-background-paper-31Jul11.pdf).

------. 2012a. Alternative NGO Report: Information for Establishing List of Issues for the State of Israel before the Committee on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Omer, Israel: NCF.

------. 2012b. “JNF Expected to Resume Work in Al Arakib.” Latest News from the Negev. Omer, Israel: NCF.

Norris C. 1985 The Contest of Faculties: Philosophy and Theory After Deconstruction London: Methuen.

O’Faircheallaigh, Ciaran. 2007. “Environmental Agreements, EIA Follow-up and Aboriginal Participation in Environmental Management: The Canadian Experience.” Environmental Impact Assessment Review 27(4): 319-342.

Oranje, Mark. 2002. “Planning and the Postmodern Turn. Pp. 172-186 in Planning Futures: New Directions for Planning Theory, edited by P. Allmendinger and M. Tewdwr-Jones. London and New York: Routledge.

Orenstein, Daniel E., L. Jiang and S.P. Hamburg. 2011. “An Elephant in the Planning Room: Political Demography and Its Influence on Sustainable Land-Use Planning in Drylands.” Journal of Arid Environments 75(6): 596-611.

Orenstein, Daniel E., and S.P. Hamburg. 2009. “To Populate or Preserve? Evolving Political Demographic and Environmental Paradigms in Israeli Land-Use Policy.” Land Use Policy 26(4): 984-1000.

Palmer, E.H. 1871. The Desert Exodus 2. Cmabridge: Dieghton, Bell.

Patton, Michael Quinn. 1999. “Enhancing the Quality and Credibility of Qualitative Analysis.” HSR: Health Services Research 34(5/2): 1189-1208.

Perlman, Janis. 1976. The Myth of Marginality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 210

------. 2004. “Marginality—From Myth to Reality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2002.” Pp. 105-146 in Urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America, edited by A. Roy and N. AlSayyad. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Perry, Richard J. 1996. From Time Immorial: Indigenous Peoples and State Systems. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Porter, Elizabeth. 2006. “Planning in (Post)colonial Settings: Challenges for Theory and Practice.” Planning Theory and Practice 7(4): 383-396.

Prawer-Amidror Bill, Article 54. Retrieved Aug. 20, 2012 (www.dukium.org/heb/wp- content/uploads/2011/09/Prawer_Bill.pdf).

Quick, Kathryn S. and Martha S. Feldman. “Distinguishing Participation and Inclusion.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 31(3): 1-19.

Rangwala, Tawfiq S. 2004. “Inadequate Housing, Israel, and the Bedouin of the Negev.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 42(3): 415-472.

Richardson, Benjamin, Donna Craig and Ben Boer. 1995. Regional Agreements for Indigenous Lands and Cultures in Canada: A Discussion Paper. Cranberra, Australia: North Australian Research Unit, The Australian National University.

Rodinson, Maxime. 1973. Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? Pathfinder Press: New York.

Roos, Helen. 2008. “My Parents, They Became Poor: The Socio-Economic Effects of the Expropriation and Relocation of Stoney Point Reserve #43, 1942.” Past Imperfect 7.

Rosen-Zvi, Issachar. 2004. “The Reemergence of Space: The Case of the Bedouin.” Pp. in 43-93. Taking Space Seriously: Law, Space, and Society in Contemporary Israel. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Ross, Helen, Chrissy Grant, and Cathy J. Robinson et al. 2009. “Co-management and Indigenous Protected Areas in Australia: Achievement and Ways Forward.” Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 16(4): 242-252.

Rowley, T.J. 1997. “Moving Beyond Dyadic Ties: A Network of Stakeholder Influences.” Academy of Management Review 22(4): 887–910.

Roy, Ananya. 2005. “Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 71(2): 147-158.

Sager, Tore. 1993. “Paradigms for Planning: A Rationality-Based Classification.” Planning Theory 9: 79.

Såhlins, M.D. 1968. Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 211

Sandercock, Leonie. 1997. “The Planner Tamed.” Australian Planner 34(2): 90-95.

------. 1998. Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities. New York: John Wile.

------. 1999. “Expanding the ‘Language’ of Planning: A Meditation on Planning Education for the Twenty-First Century.” European Planning Studies 7(5): 533- 544.

------. 2000a. “Cities of (In)difference and the Challenge for Planning.” DISP 140: 7-15.

------. 2000b. “When Strangers Become Neighbors: Managing Cities of Difference.” Planning Theory & Practice 1(1): 13-30.

------. 2002. “Practicing Utopia: Sustaining Cities.” DISP 148: 4-9.

------. 2003. Cosmopolis Two: Mongrel Cities in the 21st Century. London: Continuum.

Shachar, Ayelet. 1998. “Reshaping the Map of Israel: A New National Planning Doctrine.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 555(1): 209–218.

Schön, Donald A. 1982. “Some of What a Planner Knows.” Journal of American Planning Association 48(3): 351-364.

-----. 1984. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books.

-----. 1987. Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Fracisco: Jossey-Bass.

Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Senese, J.D. 1997. Applied Methods in Criminal Justice. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers.

Shamir, Ronen. 1996. “Suspended in Space: Bedouin Under the Law of Israel.” Law & Society Review 3: 231-257.

Shmueli, Avshalom. 1980. “The Bedouin in the Land of Israel: Settlement and Changes.” Urban Ecology 4(4): 253-286.

Shmueli, Deborah 2005. “Is Israel Ready for Participatory Planning? Expectations and Obstacles.” Planning Theory & Practice 64(4): 485-514.

Shmueli, Deborah and Rassem Khamaisi. 2011. “Bedouin Communities of the Negev: Models for Planning the Unplanned.” Journal of American Planning Association 77(2): 109-125. 212

Smith, Richard Warren. 1973. “A Theoretical Basis for Participatory Planning.” Policy Sciences 4(2): 275-295.

Speak, Suzanne. 2000. “Children in Urban Regeneration: Foundations for Sustainable Participation.” Community Development Journal 35(1): 31-40.

Spradley, James. 1979. “Asking Descriptive Questions.” Pp.. 44-61 in The Ethnographic Interview 1st ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

------. 1980. Participant Observation. New York: Holt.

Stake, Robert. 1995. The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Stankiewicz, W.J. 1976. Aspects of Political Theory: Classical Concepts in an Agerof Relativism. Cassell and Collier MacMillan Publishers.

Stern, E., & Y. Gradus. 1979. “Socio Cultural Considerations in Planning Towns for Nomads.” Ekistics 277: 224-230.

Swirski, Shlomo. 2007. Current Plans for Developing the Negev: A Critical Perspective. Tel Aviv: Adva Center.

Swirski, Shlomo and Yael Hasson. 2006. Invisible Citizens: Israel Government Policy Toward the Negev Bedouin. Tel Aviv: Adva Center.

Taylor, Nigel. 1999. “Anglo-American Town Planning Theory Since 1945: Three Significant Developments But No Paradigm Shifts.” Planning Perspectives 14(4): 327-345.

Tewdwr-Jones, Mark and Philip Allmendinger. 2002. “Conclusion: Communicative Planning, Collaborative Planning and the Post-Positivist Planning Theory Landscape.” Pp. 206-250. Planning Futures: New Directions for Planning Theory, edited by M. Tewdwr-Jones and P. Allmendinger. London and New York: Routledge.

Throgmorton, James A. 1992. “Planning as Persuasive Storytelling About the Future: Negotiating an Electric Power Rate Settlement in Illinois.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 12(1): 17-31.

------. 1996. Planning as Persuasive Storytelling: The Rhetorical Construction of Chicago’s Electric Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Tzfadia, Erez. 2005. “The Ethno-Class Trajectory of New Neighborhoods in Israel.” GeoJournal 64: 141-151.

Umemoto, Karen. 2001. “Walking in Another’s Shoes: Epistemological Challenges in Participatory Planning.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 21(1): 17- 31. 213

Walker, Ryan and Manuhuia Barcham. 2010. “Indigenous-Inclusive Citizenship: The City and Social Housing in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia” Environment and Planning A 42(2): 314–331.

Watson, Vanessa. 2009. “Seeing from the South: Refocusing Urban Planning on the Globe’s Central Urban Issues.” Urban Studies 46 (11): 2259-2275.

Weiss, Robert S. 1995. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Wetzstein Steffen. 2008. “Relaunching Regional Economic-Development Policy and Planning for Auckland: Remaking the State and Contingent Governance Under Neoliberalism.” Environment and Planning C 26(6): 1093–1112.

White, Graham. 2002. “Treaty Federalism in Northern Canada: Aboriginal-Government Land Claims Boards.” Publius 32(3): 89-114.

Wunder, J.1998. “Indigenous Peoples, Identity, History, and Law: The United States and Australian Experience.” Law, Text, Culture 4(1): 81-114.

Xanthaki, Alexandra. 2007. Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards: Self- Determination, Culture and Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yahel, Havetzelet. 2006. “Land Disputes Between the Negev Bedouin and Israel.” Israel Studies 11(2): 1-22.

Yiftachel, Oren. 1989. “Towards a New Typology of Urban Planning Theories.” Planning and Environment B 16: 23-39.

------. 1995. “The Internal Frontier: Territorial Control and Ethnic Relations in Israel.” Regional Studies 30(5): 493-508.

------. 1998. “Planning and Social Control: Exploring the Dark Side.” Journal of Planning Literature 12(4): 395-406.

------. 2000 “Social Control, Urban Planning and Ethno-Class Relations: Mizrahi Jew in Israel’s ‘Development Towns’.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24(2): 418-438.

------. 2002. “Introduction: Outlining the Power of Planning.” Pp. 1-20 in The Power of Planning: Spaces of Control and Transformation, edited by O. Yiftachel, J. Little, D. Hedgecock and I. Alexander.

------. 2003. “Bedouin-Arabs and the Israeli Settler State: Land Policies and Indigenous Resistance.” Pp. 21-47 in The Future of Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Survival and Development, edited by D. Champagne, and I. Abu-Saad. Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, UCLA.

------. 2006a. Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 214

------. 2006b. “Essay: Re-engaging Planning Theory? Towards ‘South-Eastern’ Perspectives.” Planning Theory 5(3): 211-222.

------. 2008. “Epilogue: Studying Naqab/Negev Bedouins- Toward a Colonial Paradigm?” Hagar Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities 8(2): 83-108.

------. 2009a. “Critical Theory and ‘Gray Space’: Mobilization of the Colonized.” City 13(2-3): 240-256.

------. 2009b. “Theoretical Notes on ‘Gray Cities’: The Coming of Urban Apartheid?” Planning Theory 8(1): 88-100.

Yin, Robert K. 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Method 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Zohar, Arale. 2011. Abu-Basma Regional Council. Inaugurating a New School in Kaser al-Ser. Carmei-Yosef: Integrated Regional and Environmntal Planning Ltd.

Zureik, Elia. 1979. The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism. London: Routledge and Kegan.

Appendix A

Semi-structured interviews and participant/observation

Semi-structured interviews

• Residents

Assistant secretary High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

Bus driver Private van, Umm Batin 1/12/10

Car driver Public road, Abu-Krenat 8/3/11

Custodian High School, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

Daughter of local representative High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

Director of preschool Preschool, Abu-Krenat 23/1/11

English teacher 1 and Umm Batin resident High school, Abu-Krenat 27/1/11

Father of five children Supply store, Kaser al-Ser 1/3/11

Female college student Private home, Kaser al-Ser 24/3/11

Female Umm Batin high school students (group) High school, Abu-Krenat 27/1/11

Female Abu-Krenat high school students (group) High school, Abu-Krenat 27/1/11

Female high school student and Abu-Asheba resident Public road, Abu-Krenat 23/1/11

Male primary school students (group) Public road, Umm Batin 1/12/10

Sister of local representative High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

History teacher ORT High School, Umm Batin 1/12/10

Machine operator Private car, Abu-Asheba 8/3/11

Maintenance worker Primary school, Abu-Krenat 8/3/11

Male Abu-Asheba residents (group) Sheig, Abu-Asheba 8/3/11

Male resident of unrecognized settlemen Tarabin, Omer 27/12/11

Male resident of unrecognized settlement Coexistence Forum, Beer Sheva 8/12/10

Male high school student ORT1 High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

Merchant 1 Private home, Abu-Krenat 23/1/11

Merchant 2 Supply store, Kaser al-Ser 1/3/11

1 Organization for Rehabilitation through Training. Multinational non-profit organization which provides job support and affordable, technology-based education to disadvantaged communities (ORT America 2012). Mother and female children (group) Private home, Abu-Krenat 8/3/11

Mother and male children Private home, Abu-Krenat 8/3/11

Mother of five children Private home, Abu-Krenat 23/1/11

Plumber Sheig, Abu-Asheba 8/3/11

Preschool teacher Preschool, Abu-Krenat 23/1/11

Regional librarian and Umm Batin resident Abu-Basma Regional Library, Abu-Krenat 27/1/11

School deputy 1 Primary school, Umm Batin 15/3/11

School secretary Umm Batin 1/12/10 Security guard Convenience store, Kaser al-Ser 1/3/11

Security guard and family (group) Private home, Kaser al-Ser 1/3/11

Truck drivers (group) Private car, Abu-Asheba 8/3/11

• Local committee members2 (resident)

Former representative to Abu-Basma Council Private home, Umm Batin 1/12/10

Head of Local Committee of Abu-Tlul and former RCUV director Aroma Café, Beer Sheva 23/5/10

Head of Local Committee of Umm Batin Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva 17/10/10

“ ” Private car, Umm Batin 1/12/10

Head of Local Committee of Kaser al-Ser Group discussion, sheig, Kaser al-Ser 26/8/11

Local Committee candidate member Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 23/5/10

Local Committee of Umm Batin (group) ORT High School, Umm Batin 1/12/10

School deputy 2 High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

School deputy 3 Umm Batin primary school A, Umm Batin 19/10/10

“ ” Umm Batin primary school B, Umm Batin 15/3/11

School principal 1 Umm Batin primary school A, Umm Batin 19/10/10

School principal 2 Umm Batin primary school B, Umm Batin 19/10/10

School principal 3 High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

School principal 4 Umm Batin high school, Umm Batin 19/10/10

“ ” “ ” 15/3/11

2 Includes active members only. • Planners

Architect for Yeruham Master Plan Midrasha Ben-Gurion, Sde Boker 26/10/10

Head of the Ministerial Committee to Determine the Status of Disputed Lands in the Metropolitan Beer Sheva Region and Member of Conflict Resolution Assessment Team Azrieli Center, Tel Aviv 2/10/10

Local planner for El-Sayyid Aroma Café, Beer Sheva 24/3/11

Neighborhood planner for Kaser al-ser Office, Jerusalem 7/4/11

Overall planner for Abu-Krenat Office, Ramat Gan 17/12/10

“ ” “ ” 22/6/11

Overall planners for Abu-Tlul Aroma Café, Beit Kama 19/12/10

Overall planner for Umm Batin Industrial Park, Omer 30/10/10

“ ” “ ” 19/7/11 Social consultant for Umm Batin Private car, Jerusalem 5/12/2010

Social consultant for Al-Fura Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 29/11/10

• Abu-Basma Regional Council authorities

Assistant engineers (group) Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva 18/1/11

Assistant engineer Bir Hadaj 24/11/10

“ ” Umm Batin 18/1/11

“ “ Personal car from Ashalim 18/4/11

Building Supervisor and former Umm Batin planner Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva

18/1/11

“ ” (personal conversation) Technion University, Haifa 24/2/12

Director of Statutory Planning Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva 29/3/11

Head Engineer Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva 15/12/10

Operations Director Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva 16/6/10

“ ” Private van, Beer Sheva 19/10/10

• Teachers and school administrators (non-resident)

Coordinator, ORT English programs Personal car 26/12/10

“ ” Private home 2/4/11 English teacher 2, ORT English High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

English teacher 3, ORT English High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

English teacher 4, ORT English High school, Abu-Krenat 27/1/11

English teacher 5, ORT English High school, Kaser al-Ser 26/12/10

History teacher Primary school, Abu-Krenat 8/3/11

Language teachers, Umm Batin primary (group) Public van, Umm Batin 12/1/10

School principal 5 Primary school. Tarabin 19/10/10

• Academic

Professor of Public Policy, Ben-Gurion University, and Bimkom volunteer, Omer 10/10/10

Professor of Geography, Ben-Gurion University Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 19/5/10

Professor of Geography and Environment, Haifa University Haifa University, Haifa 7/11/10

Professor of History, Hebrew University Hebrew University, Jerusalem 7/4/11

Lecturer in Architecture and Planning, Technion Technion, Haifa 3/6/10

• NGO

Co-Director of Bustan Mandel Center, Beer Sheva 8/4/10

Director of Negev Coexistence Forum (NCF) Organization headquarters, Beer Sheva 3/10/10

Former Director, Abu-Basma Project (JDC) Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 28/9/10

Former Program Leader, Bimkom Phone interview 12/10/10

“ ” Private home, Tel Aviv 5/11/10

Information Center Representative, Or Movement, Old City, Beer Sheva 28/9/10

Outreach Coordinator, SHATIL Old City, Beer Sheva 2/12/10

Director of Southern District, Regavim: Israel Land Protection Trust Private home, Sede Boker

4/10/10

• District government

Attorney, Southern District Planning Bureau Kiryat Hamemshela, Beer Sheva 31/3/11

Former Director, Bedouin Administration Kibbutz Lahav 15/10/10

“ ” “ ” 27/10/10

District Archaeologist, Israel Antiquities Authority Abu-Basma Regional Offices, Beer Sheva

25/1/11

Team Leader, Southern District Planning Bureau Kiryat Hamemshela3, Beer Sheva 29/11/10

Participant/observation

Abu-Basma Local Planning Committee Meeting Abu-Basma Regional Council, Beer Sheva

25/1/11

“ ” “ ” 2/11/10

Abu-Basma site visit with Operations Director Umm Batin and Tarabin schools 9/10/10

Abu-Basma site visit with Assistant engineer Bir Hadaj public infrastuctures 6/10/10

“ ” Umm Batin construction sites 20/1/11

Bustan, “Mud & Music Weekend” at Kaser al-Ser Kaser al-Ser 11/1/12

“ ” “ ” 26/8/11 “ “ ” 24-26/3/11

Bustan, “Negev Unplugged” Public Tour Kaser al-Ser and Al-Sirra 3/18/10

Coexistence Forum, The Arab-Bedouins of the Negev Lecture Series Multaka/Mifgash, Beer Sheva

“Overview of Bedouin of the Negev” “ ” 3/11/10

“The Right to Health” “ ” 17/11/10

“Townships and Unrecognized Villages” “ ” 24/11/10

Coexistence Forum, Protest Against Demolitions in Arakib Lehavim/Rahat Junction 19/9/10

Coexistence Forum, Solidarity Visit to Arakib Al-Arakib 28/12/10

Public participation with Umm Batin resident and planner Office, Omer Industrial Park

19/7/11

Regavim: Israel Land Protection Trust, “Negev Tour” Kseifa, El-Sayyid, Hura 4/10/10

SHATIL, Demonstration for the Future of Arakib Lehavim/Rahat Junction 13/9/10

SHATIL, Protest against Landownership Policy Regional Supreme Court, Beer Sheva

23/1/10

3 Government complex. Houses the Southern District Planning Bureau, as well as other government offices for the Southern region. Appendix B

Sample interview guides by stakeholder group

A. Planners

1. What is your position here?

2. What projects have you worked with?

a. What plans have you been involved in?

b. How were you first selected for these projects? Who approached you?

c. How did you decide to take these projects on?

3. Who did you work with to develop these plans?

a. Where do these actors fit in your general approach to making plans?

4. Would you say that there is a paradigm you are working in? Like, do you have a set of methods that would fit some school of thought, or way of thinking?

5. Could you walk me through your planning process, from start to finish?

6. Could you walk me through your process of conducting public participation?

a. What, if anything, do you believe Abu-Basma residents have to contribute to the planning process for their villages?

7. When you are given the task of making a plan, how do you start?

8. Does this approach differ by locality?

a. Arab localities?

b. Jewish localities?

c. Abu-Basma localities and Bedouin townships?

9. Is planning with Abu-Basma any different from planning for other government agencies?

10. How do you plan for villages being planned “in-situ”?

11. How do you plan for villages which are not being planned over their existing dwellings?

12. Looking at your past work, would you say, have you changed at all in your approach?

13. How are your plans implemented?

a. Who is responsible for this?

b. How do you feel about the present outcomes of your work?

14. What types of knowledge do you use in making plans?

a. How do you obtain this knowledge? b. How do you integrate it?

15. In approaching these projects, what knowledge and experience did you think was transferable?

16. Can you describe your approach to planning [village under study?] Walk me through the steps taken to formithese plans, and provide me with some examples of particular aspects of the plans which reflect your approach.

17. What challenges have you encountered with your work? What constraints?

18. In planning [locality] is there anything that you are particularly proud of, or that is particularly distinctive? B. District government

1. What is your position here?

2. What are your general tasks? What do you do in your day-to-day to fulfill your job expectations?

3. How long have you held this position?

4. Where have you worked before, and what lead you to this position?

5. What part of your job is related to work with the Bedouin?

6. What are your goals for this type of work? Both personal and professional?

7. What are the particular challenges you have encountered with this work?

8. What, in simple terms, are the challenges to integrating Bedouin into society, and reaching long-term solutions to their residential and settlement needs? In other words, what is the isse here that we need to address?

a. Why is it important to address these issues?

b. What are the challenges to addressing that problem?

c. Why do you beliee these challenges have emerged?

9. What is the government’s stated approach to tackling these issues?

10. Why do you think it important to settle Bedouin in the Negev?

11. How are the issues of defining landownership and planning Bedouin villages, being addressed presently? What is the stated approach?

a. Though your specific department?

b. More generally?

12. How do you believe these issues should be handled?

a. If there are some problems, or if things are going at a slower pace than you would like, what types of steps should be taken to get things moving? How should the government proceed?

13. What differences have you encountered among Abu-Basma localities in your work?

14. Have you interacted with the Abu-Basma Regional Council?

a. Over what?

b. How would you describe these interactions?

15. Who else have you interacted with> villages within the Council, or the people working in it- like what’s your maybe connection to the Council?

16. Do you see any shifts over time in the State’s way of thinking, and in its approach towards the Bedouin? Is there a change? 17. Where would you place Abu-Basma within a history of government interactions with the Negev Bedouin?

a. Is the program something different from what has happened before?

b. How and why have new villages been recognized, and has Abu-Basma been developed?

c. What do you believe the program will it lead to?

18. What departments are responsible for issues related to landownership?

a. How does the process of defining landownership work?

19. Who is responsible for demolishing infrastructures?

a. Can you describe the process? How does it occur?

20. What do you predict for the future of Bedouin settlement in the Negev?

21. What is your ideal?

Official working in land titling

22. Do you see any differences in how land ownership is being dealt with in villages that are part of Abu-Basma, and in other places that aren’t part of that Council?

23. Why, over six years after recognition for some of these villages, have residents still not obtained building permits?

24. How would you respond to someone in a village who says, for example, “I refuse to give up my land to the State. I want my name to be, like I want to have tapu. I want it to be my name, I don’t want it to be State land.” What would you say to that?

25. During fieldwork, residents frequently told me of a problem related to the age at which one could obtain land and building permits. There was an issue being allotted land if you were not eighteen. Could you clarify the issue?

Official working on district-level planning

26. How do you plan?

a. What are your tools?

27. How are the planners selected?

28. What are the current avenues (if any) for Bedouin participation in the planning process?

29. Do you know about public participation for these plans?

a. Is there a formal policy?

b. How has it actually been conducted?

30. How might planning with Abu-Basma be different than Sderot or Kiryat Gat, for example? 31. Can you provide me with an overview of the layout of the Isareli planning system?

a. How does it work?

b. Which departments are responsible for which tasks?

32. How was Abu-Basma founded? How was it decided to incorporate the council into your district?

33. Why is Abu-Basma’s municipal area not contiguous? 34. How long does it generally take for plan approval?

a. What is the status of plans for [localities under study]?

35. What about your work with Abu-Basma might be different from your work with other municipalities?

36. How satisfied are you with the current results of the Abu-Basma Regional Council?

37. Do you think the plans are any different from those of other Jewish or Arab places?

38. So I have heard from a lot of planners about neutrality- that they make the plans because they are paid to do so objectively and then are finished when they plans have finished. In your job do you consider yourself neutral?

39. What does he hear from the planners about their work? So for them, is it challenging, is it rewarding, is it something new?

C. Abu-Basma authorities

1. What is your position here?

2. How long have you held this position?

3. Where have you worked before, and what lead you to this position?

4. What are your general tasks? What do you do in your day-to-day to fulfill your job expectations?

a. Who do you work with?

b. How do these interactions play out?

5. Do you see some of your experiences and skills from your work to be transferable to your new position? If so, which, and how?

6. What, in simple terms, is the challenge of integrating uh Bedouin into Israeli society. Uhm, and reaching long-term solutions to their residential and settlement needs?

7. How do you move forward when you encounter these challenges?

8. How do you communicate with residents in the villages?

a. What mechanisms have been set in place to facilitate this?

9. What are the goals of the Abu-Basma Regional Council?

a. Official?

b. Unofficial?

10. What is the general idea, or vision, for each Abu-Basma locality?

11. What instructions do you provide to planners when they begin to plan?

12. Is there a specific protocol for the planners in terms of meeting with people in the villages? Are requirements?

13. What is the present status of the villages in Abu-Basma?

a. Where have different gains been made?

14. Why, over six years after recognition for some of these villages, have residents still not obtained building permits?

15. Can you explain to me the process of electing the future leadership of the Abu-Basma Regional Council?

16. What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Abu-Basma Regional Council?

a. Specific departments?

b. The Council as a whole?

17. What do you predict for the future? 18. What do you need to fulfill your goals?

19. Drawing from your professional experience, and personal experiences with work at Abu- Basma, is Abu-Basma something different from what’s been tried before, in terms of settling the Bedouin? 20. What can you tell me about the current election process for positions on the Abu- Basma Regional Council? I have heard from other respondents that they hae not yet been held- is there a reason that they haven’t gone yet? D. Residents and local committee members

1. What is your status within your village? a. What family are you a part of? b. Where do they reside? 2. How long have you lived there? 3. Are you married? Children? 4. Have you heard of Abu-Basma? a. What are the first things that come to mind when you think of Abu-Basma? b. What else do you know about Abu-Basma? c. Where and how did you learn this? 5. What do you believe are the goals of Abu-Basma? 6. Do you believe Abu-Basma is significant? In other words, is it a major change, a minor change, or more of the same? 7. What is your connection to Abu-Basma? a. When did you start this? b. How were you selected? c. Why did you choose this role? d. What are your professional responsibilities? 8. Do you feel that you have a relationship with the Council? 9. How often have you interacted with the Council? a. Where? When? How? Why? 10. Have you been invited to participate in the recognition process of your village? a. In planning specifically? 11. How did you find out about it? 12. How has this participation looked? a. In what form? b. Where occurred? c. Who organized this participation? d. Who initiated? e. Who led? f. How did you find out about participation? g. What did you talk about? h. Where subsuequent meetings planned? i. What happened after? 13. Did you know if your decisions appeared in the final plans? 14. Do you feel you have a relationship with Abu-Basma? Why or why not? (Grunig 2002) 15. To what extent do you believe Abu-Basma listens to what you and your community say?] a. Why do you feel that way? 16. How do you feel your community’s needs are being articulated through Abu-Basma? [Control mutuality; responsiveness Healey 2007] a. Can you provide some examples of how they have or have not been considered? 2. Do you feel Abu-Basma has a long-term commitment to your village? What suggests this? [Commitment, Grunig 20024; Focus on the long-term, Healey 2007]

3. Would you describe anything that Abu-Basma has doen to treat you and/or your village fairly and justly, or unfairly and unjustly? [Integrity, Grunig 20025; Healey 2007]

4. Would you describe things that suggest that Abu-Basma can be relied on to keep its promises, or that it does not keep its promises? [Dependability, Grunig 20026]

5. How confident are you that Abu-Basma has the ability to accomplish what it says it will? Why? [Competence, Grunig 2002]7 6. How are your needs being articulated through Abu-Basma? a. Can you show me? 7. What are the current results of Abu-Basma? a. Within your family, friends or village? b. For other families and villages?

8. How satisfied are you with Abu-Basma? Why 17. How could Abu-Basma be improved? 18. What’s your vision (your ideal) for your community? [Hope Healey 2007; Fainstein 2000] a. How can you fulfill that vision? b. Do you think you will be able fulfil it? 19. What do you still need? 20. How have other groups been involved in the recognition of your village? How have other groups been involved in the recognition of your village? a. Other government ministries? b. Planners? c. Members of other villages in the Council? d. Members of your own village? e. NGOs 21. What do you believe are their goals? 22. What does recognition mean to you?

4 “The extent to which both parties believe and feel that the relationship is worth spending energy on to maintain and promote” (2: Grunig 2002) 5 “The belief that an organization is fair and just” (2: Grunig 2002). Integrity, dependability and competence are all dimensions of what Grunig defines as trust- “the level of confidence that both parties have in each other and their willingness to open themselves to the other parties” (2: 2002) 6 “The belief that an organization will do what it says it will do” (Grunig 2: 2002) 7 “The belief that an organization has the ability to do what it says it will do” (Grunig 2: 2002) E. Academic/NGO

1. What is your position here?

2. How long have you held this position?

3. What is your connection to Abu-Basma?

1. How satisfied are you with Abu-Basma?

2. What are its current results?

3. What do you believe needs to happen now?

4. Do you believe Abu-Basma to be significant? In other words, does it mark a departure from history?

5. What do you believe are the goals of Abu-Basma? a. Officially? b. Unofficially?

6. How do NGOs contribute to (or diverge from) the goals of Abu-Basma?

7. What do you see the role to be of _ NGO__ in the Council and/or village recognition process? a. Day-to-day involvement? (Who, what, when, where?) b. Long-term agenda/goals?

8. Why did __NGO__ get involved? [Inclusionary, Healey 2007]8 a. Self-motivated or Council-directed? b. Out of need or out of opportunity?

9. What was the implementation process for these activities?

10. What are the current results? [Goal-achieving Healey 2007]

11. Who will take responsibility once you have finished your work? [Sustainability Healey 2007]

12. How do you integrate the community into this process? [Inclusionary, accepting of multiple forms of knowledge and identities, Healey 2007]

a. Who wants to participate? b. Who has participated?

13. What challenges have you faced in whatever you have been trying to accomplish?9

8 While the participation of residents is essential, are NGOs being excluded? In Healey’s framework, “formal and informal structures” must be put in place to enable the “policing” of discourses and practices. Other stakeholders must be able to comment, thus “balancing local voice with measures to avoid exclusionary practices.” 9 Are they internal? External? Inevitable? 14. What has made things easier?

15. How do you perceive the involvement of other stakeholders in this process?

a. Government ministries/policymakers? b. Abu-Basma employees? c. Bedouin living within Abu-Basma? d. Other NGOs? e. Planners?

16. What are their jobs?

17. What are their aims?

18. What is your ideal? [Hope Healey 2007; Fainstein 2000]10

a. How can this be achieved? b. Do you think it will be? When?

10 Transformative goals in planning are characterized by expressions of hope (Healey 2007). Appendix C

“New Bedouin Villages of the Negev”. Nahum Dunsky, Urban and Regional Planning

Appendix D

Umm Batin Master Plan (108/02/29)

Appendix E

“Questionnaire Designed to Gather Information on Population” Rassem Khamaisi, Social consultant (Arabic)

Questionnaire (Hebrew)

ר אתמ/ ב א תינכת תנכהל עדימ ףוסיא ןולאש ב לוס ובאו יבהשלא - לולת ובא בושייל

בושיי םיקהלו לולת ובא רפכב ריכהל הלשממה תטלחה יפלו ,ה מסב ובא תירוזא הצעומ לש המזויב ונא ,ן נכותמ הייסולכואה יכרוצל הנעת רשא תינכת ןיכהל ידכב .ב ושייל ראתמ/ ב א תינכת ןיכהל םילעופ םייוושכעה תולאש רפסמ ןלהל .ן ונכת יכרוצל קרו ךא שמשי רשא עדימ תלבקל םיקוקז ונא םיידיתעהו םכמ םישקבמש . ת ורעהב ףיסוהל םישקבמ ףסונ עדימ םייק םא .ן הילע תונעל ______(ת רדס) תיב 'ס מ ______( ם ושרל הצורש ימל) תיבה קשמ שאר םש ק וור .2 ( ע ברא .ד השולש .ג םייתש .ב תחא .א :ם ישנ 'ס מ) ןכ .1 :י ושנ התא םאה ______לוכה ךס : ליג תוצובק יפל םתוגלפתהו תיבה קשמב םידלי 'ס מ ת ובקנ .ב ם ירכז .א 4 השיא 3 השיא 2 השיא 1 השיא ליג ת ובקנ םירכז תובקנ םירכז תובקנ םירכז תובקנ םירכז ל כה ךס תיבב םירג ______ת יקלח הרשמב דבוע .ג אל .ב ןכ .א : דבוע התא םאה ______(ב ותכ) די חולשמ – דבוע התא המב : ישארה ךתדובע םוקמ הפיא רחא .ג ר יכש .ב י אמצע .א : ריכש וא יאמצע התא םאה ______( ם וקמה ןייצ) רפכל ץוחמ .ב ר פכב .א י נמז .ב ע ובק הדובע םוקמ יל שי .א : ינמז וא עובק םוקמב קסעומ התא םאה ______(ם ינש רפסמ) יתדמל .ב י תדמל אל .א : תדמל םינש המכ 'ס מ) הדמל .ב ה דמל אל .א (ת חאמ רתוי שי םא השיא לכ טרפל) ךתשיא הדמל םינש המכ ______(ם ינש רחא .3 ____ם ילג . 3 ____ם יזע .2 _ _ם ישבכ .1 רפסמ) ןכ .ב אל .א : םייח ילעב ךתולעבב םאה ______) . . ר " מ ______םויכ וב רג רתאו יונבה תיבה חטש המ . ם נוד______וב רג התאש תיבה תא הפיקמה תרדוגמה עקרקה חטש המ (______םילודיגה המ) ןכ .ב א ל .א : ךתיב הביבס םילודיג עטונ התא םאה ?רפכב ךתיא רוגל םיניינועמה רפכל ץוחמ םיבורק ךל שי םאה ______-ב םויכ םירג םהו ןכ .ב ן יא .א ינניא .2 ______תיב יקשמ 'ס מ ;ם רובע םירוגמל עקרק תוצקהל שיו רפכב יתיא ורוגיש ןיינועמ .1 ןיינועמ י תיא ורוגיש : ת ונורתפ םהל קפסל תשרדנ תינכתהש האור התאו ןהמ לבוס התאש תוישארה תויעבה םה המ ______( ך חור לע הלועש המ לכ בותכ) םכבושייל ינונכתה ןורתפה תא האור התא ךיא ______? ך נוצרו ךלש ךרוצה תא קפסת רשא תינכתמ ךיתויפיצ םה המ ______ם ימיאתמ םכל םיארנה תופסות ,ת ורעה ה בר הדות

Appendix F

“Dueling rationalizations” over planning and landownership policies

Policy Rationality 1: “People, not Rationality 2: “Within the politics” rules of the game”

Land ownership Private ownership Facilitates expropriation of disadvantageous for service Bedouin land provision Bedouin believe they own Bedouin entitled to lease all land in the Negev land like all other citizens

Given special privileges because being given plots in townships

Village recognition Sedentarize and modernize New Jewish settlements the Bedouin being planned in periphery

Serve imminent citizen Selected according to needs for services security priorities

Plan a town which Restrict growth of Bedouin recognizes Bedouin culture, population and settlements and residents can pay for and maintain Deny recognition to traditional settlements “Less is more” Legal area of the Abu- Territory limited to Could have given disputed Basma Regional Council settlements so that Abu- lands to regional council, Basma can focus its efforts but government chose not on their development to

“Spots” give Bedouin Separate Arab and Jewish flexibility in location of municipalities where to settle Deprive Arab Other areas previously municipalities of economic allocated to other regional resources councils

Appendix G

Document granting recognition to the Local Committee of Umm Batin Appendix H “Our Mission” and “Our Policy”. Abu-Basma Regional Council, 2010.

Abu Basma Regional Council a) Abu Basma Regional Council

The establishment of the Abu Basma Regional Council 6 years ago, incorporating 10 formerly unrecognized Arab Bedouin townships in the Israeli Negev, with a total population of some 30,000 inhabitants, presents both new challenges and new opportunities for the Regional Council, to provide the local leadership and community of these townships with the know-how, skills and confidence to define their own needs and priorities and design ways for meeting these in a democratic, participatory manner.

Our Mission:  To improve trust between the Bedouins and the State of Israel  To improve the standard of living of the Bedouins  To integrate the Bedouin community within the framework of the regional development  To Improve municipal services with emphasize on education and welfare.  To improve the attractiveness of the new Bedouin settlements by providing the best infrastructure, services and employment opportunities, focusing on women.  To improve community participation in decision making, planning and implementation.  Community empowerment.

b) Background; the Bedouins of the Negev

 Some 200,000 Bedouins live in the Negev  The Bedouin population doubles every 13 years  60% of the population is under the age of 18  60% of the population lives in 7 townships  The Bedouins claim 70% of the north eastern Negev lands; some 70,000 hectars  Some 50,000 illegal buildings are dispersed throughout this area.  The rate of unemployment goes beyond 50% and is significantly high among women.  Infant mortality among the Bedouins is 17/1000 compared to 4/1000 among Jews and 7/1000 among Israeli Arabs. The Bedouins of the Negev are, by far, the poorest sector of the Israeli society; they are facing the most acute socio-economic situation inc. poverty, the highest rates of unemployment, very high rates of crime and lack of infrastructure (some 50% of the Bedouins don't have access to running water and electricity). c) Main Constraints

 Abu Basma is not equipped with sufficient means and budget for implementing its policy  The vast majority of lands within the settlements is not available for development  Mistrust between the population and the establishment  Resistance to suggested solutions  Complex social structure and lack of leadership  Difficult socio economic situation  Disagreement over the policy and its implementation among the authorities.

d) Our Policy

 Bedouin participation in decision making  Enhancement of formal and informal education  Generate jobs in the fields of industry, services, agriculture and tourism  Advancement of excellence  Leadership empowerment  Women empowerment  Empowerment of the welfare system  Creation of advanced physical and community services  Raising the standard of living of the population  Environmental protection Appendix I

Interaction of planners’ “communicative infrastructures” in public participation

“Open door policy” Local representation through the Local Committee

Abu-Basma Regional Council Planners

Head of local committee

Planners Local committee

Everyone

Planning committee

1 educated son

Family

Everyone else