Performing Rootedness in the Negev/Naqab: Possibilities and Perils of Competitive Planting

Abstract

Through ethnographic and historical analysis of the Negev region of Israel, this article examines competitive planting as a common tool in land conflicts. In a context of disputed land ownership, some Bedouin Arab residents plant crops in defiance of government policy. Government enforcers of land-use regulations destroy many of these crops and engage in counterinsurgent tree-planting. I suggest that planting is such a potent tactic because it draws on "environmental idioms" of agricultural labor, the rootedness of trees, and a fundamental Jewish-Arab opposition that have been central to the development of both Israeli and Palestinian nationalisms. For Bedouin Arabs, whose relationship to both nationalisms has long been contested, the multivalent symbolism of planting makes it a particularly promising tactic for asserting land claims. Further, I contend that these plantings demonstrate both the power of environmental idioms to structure land claims along ethnic lines and the creative potential of participants to challenge dominant environmental discourses by adding new connotations.

Spaces of sovereignty: A tale of an unrecognized Palestinian village in Israel

“…As such, the Israeli spatial project is essentially contradictory to the possibility of recognizing and legitimizing Palestinian spaces within its boundaries, since it is based on the idea of 'Judaisation' of space (Yacobi, 2009;Yiftachel, 2006 occupying property by legal orders, using the British emergency orders and passing laws meant to legally establish the occupation of territories. Demolition as the basic strategy of Israeli occupation recurs in both historical and geographical research (Shay, 2002;Alexandrovitch, 2013;Yacobi, 2009, McKee, 2014. 11 The nature of these actions of obliteration is of a sovereign decision about the formation of a new state of affairs, the legitimization of which does not stem from any source external to the decision itself.…”

“…This obliteration took place using a series of sovereign decision strategies, such as emergency regulations, occupying property by legal orders, using the British emergency orders and passing laws meant to legally establish the occupation of territories. Demolition as the basic strategy of Israeli occupation recurs in both historical and geographical research (Alexandrovitch, 2013; McKee, 2014; Shay, 2002; Yacobi, 2009). 11 The nature of these actions of obliteration is of a sovereign decision about the formation of a new state of affairs, the legitimization of which does not stem from any source external to the decision itself.…”

Environmental Framing and Its Limits: Campaigns in Palestine and Israel

“…20 For example, activists who protest the planting of trees over government-bulldozed Bedouin villages in the northern Negev highlight responsibilities and citizenship rights that are absent from the "reforestation" frame used by the project's proponents. 21 Because people forge projects within particular discursive genealogies and sociopolitical contexts, frame malleability has limits. Framing works through the cueing of existing schemas.…”

Race, Space, and Nature: An Introduction and Critique

“…In her article, “Performing rootedness in the Negev/Naqab: possibilities and perils of competitive planting”, Emily McKee () examines the tense relations between Arab, Bedouin, and Jewish inhabitants of the Negev region of Israel–Palestine. She argues that organized Bedouin tree plantings, in addition to explicitly resisting state mandates against plantings by non‐Jews in the region, also resist the naturalized relations and rights of both Jews and non‐Jews, attempting to challenge group boundaries and ethnic identities.…”