Zin Valley in the Negev

Acacia tree in Makhtesh Gadol

The Negev (Hebrew: נֶּגֶב‎‎, Tiberian vocalization: Néḡeḇ; Arabic: النقب‎ al-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. 185,000), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin cities, including Rahat and Tel as-Sabi. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker; the latter became the home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, after his retirement from politics.

The desert is home to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose faculties include the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus adjacent to Sde Boker.

Etymology[link]

The origin of the word negev is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'. In the Bible the word Negev is also used for the direction 'south'. In Arabic, the Negev is known as al-Naqab, although it was created with the establishment of the Egypt-Palestine frontier in the 19th century and has no single traditional Arabic name. During the British Mandate it was called Beersheba sub-district.^[1]

Geography[link]

Nahal Paran, Negev

Wadi Akrabim, Negev

The Negev covers more than half of Israel, over some 13,000 km² (4,700 sq mi) or at least 55% of the country's land area. It forms an inverted triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, and whose eastern border is the Arabah valley. The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features. Among the latter are three enormous, craterlike makhteshim (box canyons), which are unique to the region; Makhtesh Ramon, Makhtesh Gadol, and Makhtesh Katan.

The Negev is a rocky desert. It is a melange of brown, rocky, dusty mountains interrupted by wadis (dry riverbeds that bloom briefly after rain) and deep craters. It can be split into five different ecological regions: northern, western, and central Negev, the high plateau and the Arabah Valley. The northern Negev, or Mediterranean zone, receives 300 mm of rain annually and has fairly fertile soils. The western Negev receives 250 mm of rain per year, with light and partially sandy soils. Sand dunes can reach heights of up to 30 metres here. Home to the city of Beersheba, the central Negev has an annual precipitation of 200 mm and is characterized by impervious soil, known as loess, allowing minimum penetration of water with greater soil erosion and water runoff. The high plateau area of Ramat HaNegev (Hebrew: רמת הנגב‎, The Negev Heights) stands between 370 metres and 520 metres above sea level with extreme temperatures in summer and winter. The area gets 100 mm of rain per year, with inferior and partially salty soils. The Arabah Valley along the Jordanian border stretches 180 km from Eilat in the south to the tip of the Dead Sea in the north. The Arabah Valley is very arid with barely 50 mm of rain annually. It has inferior soils in which little can grow without irrigation and special soil additives.

Climate[link]

The Negev region is arid (Eilat receives on average only 31 mm of rainfall a year), receiving very little rain due to its location to the east of the Sahara (as opposed to the Mediterranean which lies to the west of Israel), and extreme temperatures due to its location 31 degrees north. The usual rainfall total from June through October is zero.^[2]

History[link]

Of the three Acacia species growing in high plateaux of the Negev, Acacia pachyceras is the most cold-resistant

Nomads[link]

Spring blooms in the Negev

Nomadic life in the Negev dates back at least 4,000 years ^[5] and perhaps as much as 7,000 years.^[6] The first urbanized settlements were established by a combination of Canaanite, Amalekite, and Edomite groups circa 2000 BC.^[5] Pharaonic Egypt is credited with introducing copper mining and smelting in both the Negev and the Sinai between 1400 and 1300 BC.^[5][7]

Biblical[link]

According to the Book of Genesis chapter 20, Abraham lived for a while in the Negev near Kadesh after being banished from Egypt. Later the northern Negev was inhabited by the Tribe of Judah and the southern Negev by the Tribe of Shimon. The Negev was later part of the Kingdom of Solomon and then part of the Kingdom of Judah.

In the 9th century BC, development and expansion of mining in both the Negev and Edom (modern Jordan) coincided with the rise of the Assyrian Empire.^[5] Beersheba was the region's capital and a center for trade in the 8th century BC.^[5] Small settlements of Israelites in the areas around the capital existed between 1020 and 928 BC.^[5]

Nabateans[link]

Archaeological ruins in the Negev

The 4th century BC arrival of the Nabateans resulted in the development of irrigation systems that supported at least five new urban centers: Avdat, Mamshit, Shivta, Haluza (Elusa), and Nitzana.^[5] The Nabateans controlled the trade and spice route between their capital Petra and the Gazan seaports. Nabatean currency and the remains of red and orange potsherds, identified as a trademark of their civilization, have been found along the route, remnants of which are also still visible.^[5]Nabatean control of the Negev ended when the Roman empire annexed their lands in 106 AD.^[5] The population, largely made up of Arabian nomads and Nabateans, remained largely tribal and independent of Roman rule, with an animist belief system.^[5]

Byzantines and Romans[link]

Byzantine rule in the 4th century AD introduced Christianity to the population.^[5] Agricultural-based cities were established and the population grew exponentially.^[5]

Early Islamic period[link]

The southern Negev saw a flourishing of economic activity during the 8th to 10th or 11th centuries.^[8] Six Islamic settlements have been found in the vicinity of Eilat, along with copper and gold mines and stone quarries, and a sophisticated irrigation system and road network.^[8] The economic center was the port of Ayla (Aqaba).^[8]

Bedouin[link]

Nomadic tribes ruled the Negev largely independently and with a relative lack of interference for the next thousand years.^[5] What is known of this time is largely derived from oral histories and folk tales of tribes from the Wadi Musa and Petra areas in present-day Jordan.^[5] The Bedouins of the Negev historically survived chiefly on sheep and goat husbandry. Scarcity of water and of permanent pastoral land required them to move constantly. The Bedouin in years past established few permanent settlements, although some were built, leaving behind remnants of stone houses called 'baika.'^[6] In 1900 the Ottoman Empire established an administrative center for southern Palestine at Beersheba including schools and a railway station.^[5] The authority of the tribal chiefs over the region was recognized by the Ottomans.^[5] A railroad connected it to the port of Rafah. In 1914 the Turkish authorities estimated the nomadic population at 55,000,^[9] The Bedouin component of the population was estimated at 72,898 out of a total of 75,254 for the Beersheba sub-district.^[9] The 1931 census estimated that the population of the Beersheba sub-district was 51,082.^[10] This large decrease was considered to be an artifact of incorrect enumeration methods used in 1922.^[9] An Arabic history of tribes around Beersheba, published in 1934 records 23 tribal groups.^[11] Prior to 1948 censuses mentioned five major tribes in the Negev: the Tayaha, Tarabin, Azazma, Jabarat and Hanajra.

Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in the Negev

In 1979, Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon declared a 1,500 square kilometer area in the Negev a protected nature reserve, rendering a major portion of the Negev almost entirely out of bounds for Bedouin herders.

Demography[link]

Today, the Negev is home to many of the Israel Defense Forces major bases. As of 2010 the Negev was home to some 630,000 people (or 8.2% of Israel's population), even though it comprises over 55% of the country's landmass. 470,000 Negev residents or 75% of the population of the Negev are Jews while 160,000 or 25% are Bedouin.^[12] Of the Bedouin population, half live in unrecognized villages, and half live in towns built for them by the government between the 1960 and 1980s; the largest of these is Rahat.

Environmental issues[link]

The Negev is home to hazardous infrastructures that include a nuclear reactor, 22 agro and petrochemical factories, an oil terminal, closed military zones, quarries, a toxic waste incinerator Ramat Hovav, cell towers, a power plant, several airports, a prison, and 2 rivers of open sewage.^[13]

Campus of Midreshet Ben Gurion

In 2005, the Tel Aviv municipality was accused of dumping waste in the Negev at the Dudaim dump.^[14]The Manufacturers Association of Israel established an authority in 2005 to move 60 industrial enterprises active in the Tel Aviv region to the Negev.^[15]

In 1979, the Ramat Hovav toxic waste facility was established in Wadi el-Na'am because the area was perceived as invulnerable to leakage. However, within a decade, cracks were found in the rock beneath Ramat Hovav.^[13] In 2004, the Israeli Ministry of Health released Ben Gurion University research findings describing the health problems in a 20 km vicinity of Ramat Hovav. The study, funded in large part by Ramat Hovav, found higher rates of cancer and mortality for the 350,000 people in the area. Prematurely released to the media by an unknown source, the preliminary study was publicly discredited;^[16] However, its final conclusions – that Bedouin and Jewish residents near Ramat Hovav are significantly more susceptible than the rest of the population to miscarriages, severe birth defects, and respiratory diseases – passed a peer review several months later.^[17]

A community of Blueprint Negev mobile homes

Blueprint Negev[link]

The Jewish National Fund introduced its Blueprint Negev in 2005, a $600 million project aimed at attracting 500,000 new settlers to the Negev and constructing new settlements to accommodate them. The project says it will increase the Negev's population by 250,000 new residents by 2013, improving transportation infrastructure, adding businesses and employment opportunities, preserving water resources and protecting the environment.^[18] The Blueprint Negev's planned artificial desert river, swimming pools and golf courses raise concerns among environmentalists given Israel's water shortage.^[19][20] The main thrust of critics' argument is that the appropriate response to overpopulation is not to recruit hundreds of thousands of additional settlers, and the answer to over-development in the north is not to build up the last open spaces in the second most-densely crowded country in the developed world; rather, what is required is an inclusive plan for the green vitalization of existing population centers in the Negev, investment in long-awaited service-provision in Bedouin villages, clean-up of its many toxic industries (such as Ramat Hovav), and the development of a viable economic plan focusing on creating job options for the unemployed rather than promoting an influx of new immigrants and creating jobs for them.^{[21][22][23][24]}

Solar power[link]

Solar troughs in the Negev

The Negev Desert and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley, are the sunniest parts of Israel and little of this land is arable, which is why it has become the center of the Israeli solar industry.^[25] David Faiman, an expert on solar energy, feels the energy needs of Israel's future could be met by building solar energy plants in the Negev. As director of Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, he operates one of the largest solar dishes in the world.^[26] Technically, however, the Aravah is a separate desert with its own unique climate and ecology.

A 250 MW solar park in Ashalim, an area in the northern Negev, was in the planning stages for over five years, but it is not expected to produce power before 2013.^[27] In 2008 construction began on three solar power plants near the city; two thermal and one photovoltaic.^[28]

The Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, Israel, has dozens of solar mirrors that focus the sun's rays on a tower that in turn heats a water boiler to create steam, turning a turbine to create electricity. Luz II, Ltd., plans to use the solar array to test new technology for the three new solar plants to be built in California for Pacific Gas and Electric Company.^[29][30][31]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Negev

• Sde Boker archive of articles on the Negev
• Israel's Negev Information Site

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Coordinates: 30°30′00″N 34°55′01″E / 30.500°N 34.917°E / 30.500; 34.917