In the region surrounding Beer Sheva, in the Negev desert of southern Israel, the Bedouin live a semi-nomadic lifestyle, farming and herding cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Nick Pretzlik, a freelance journalist writing for Islam Online, interviewed a Bedouin man named Khalil, who explained how he was evicted from his land a couple years ago and relocated to one of the seven Bedouin ghettos surrounding the city. After two years of living in a ghetto where there was no work, crime and poverty were rampant, and, on top of everything, the Bedouins had to pay for municipal services, Khalil and his family left the ghetto and are now living illegally back on their own land. The courts give him no protection and at any time the local Israeli militia may destroy his home. The Bedouin are among the 20 percent of the total population of Israel who are Palestinian and hold Israeli passports.
