Now, I am a big tree-hugger - but it seems to me that people's homes and livelihoods do take precedence over building a forest in the desert, especially since there are so many other patches of the Israeli desert that can be used. The land may or may not legally be the State of Israel's. It does not matter. If Bedouins are living there, then Israel should continue to allow them to live there, seeing as how it does not currently use the land for anything productive anyway.
This dispute however, speaks to a larger issue: Israel's failure to develop its south desert region (the Negev). It crammed Bedouins into cities that are plagued by poverty, inadequate employment opportunities and inadequate government services. It crammed Sephardi, Ethiopian, and Russian immigrants into cities that are plagued by those same problems, though perhaps on a slightly lesser scale. Israel can not continue to ignore and neglect its Bedouin population, which serves in the army and has proved itself loyal to the State. Nor can it continue to neglect its Sephardi, Ethiopian, and Russian immigrant groups. (For these groups however, the inequality gap is closing slightly, and there has been some progress. Not as much so for the Bedouins.)
So Israel can choose: It can disenfranchise and neglect is Bedouins, and kick them out of their homes, but be within its legal rights. Or it can forgo its legal rights, and instead, take responsibility for the well-being of its Bedouin citizens, and allow them to keep their homes in an unused patch of desert. But whatever it decides, Israel should be asking itself: Does it really need more disenfranchised Arab youths? When will Israel understand that providing social services and employment is in its own self-interest, and the best way to provide security. What is needed is not to force Arabs to take loyalty oaths to Israel - it is to give them a reason to be loyal to Israel by ending discrimination and providing them with employment opportunities and social services.
