Israel from the Inside first introduced Desert Stars to our readers and listeners almost three years ago, when we hosted Matan Yaffe, who founded the program. As listeners may recall from our more recent conversation with Matan, in which he described his suing Harvard University and then his moving to a leadership role in the new political party El Ha-Degel, the idea for Desert Stars began when Matan was attacked in the Negev by a group of Bedouin who tried to rob him. But Matan was armed, pulled out a gun, and the incident ended.
Rather than let anger get the better of him, though, Matan was moved to create a program that would give young Bedouin in the Negev hope, the possibility of a different future. He founded Desert Stars, which has since grown tremendously and is about to move to a brand new campus.
Desert Stars is now run by Ariel Wiezel, who in our conversation today raises the sorts of complexities that many of us might not think about when we think about Israeli Jews teaching Israeli Bedouin. Most of the Bedouin youth, for example, have real family in Gaza. So when their Jewish teachers are called to reserve duty and then return to school, in the eyes of their students, they have just come from waging war on their family. It does not make for easy going.
But the leaders and funders of Desert Stars were never looking for easy—they are looking to make a difference. In today’s conversation, we hear about the dream that Jewish Israelis have for the Bedouin who live amongst them, and what they’re doing to help that dream come to fruition.
As the sign on the Desert Stars gate below says to its students as they arrive, “This house wouldn’t be complete without you.” Until Desert Stars, how many times had Bedouin in the Negev ever heard that sentiment from Jewish Israelis?
Change—and hope—are in the air, at a time when we need them both, urgently.
Ariel Wiezel was born on Kibbutz Netiv Halamed-Hey and currently lives in Kvutzat Shiller. He served in the Israeli Air Force. He has over 20 years of experience in education, non-profit organizations, and educational projects. Of these, 10 years were with the “Aharai!” organization in various roles. “Aharai!” is a youth movement dedicated to empowering young people from Israel’s social and geographic periphery, promoting equality, and expanding their opportunities. Afterwards, he worked at the Association for the Advancement of Education, developing projects in the Arab community. For the last six years he has been part of Desert Stars, serving in the last two years as CEO. Ariel is 45 and has three children.
The link at the top of this posting will take you to the full recording of our conversation; below you will find a transcript for those who prefer to read, prepared for our paid subscribers.
On a couple of occasions in Israel from the inside, we've had occasion to interview Matan Yaffe. Matan interviewed with us first a while back, maybe a year or two, when he was running a program called Kochabei HaMidbar, Desert Stars, which is a program that he founded after a fascinating incident, which he's shared with us several times, where a couple of few Bedouin kids went after him when he was on a motorcycle, but he had a weapon, he took it out, and he went home that night and says to us that he said to himself, This is ridiculous. Our relationship shouldn't be them attacking me and me having a weapon. We got to change their future. And over the course of time, he built a program called Kochabei HaMidbar Desert Stars, which was to take young Bedouin youth, where I'm actually situated right now talking to Ariel, to whom we'll get in a minute, where they take young Bedouin people to try to integrate them more into Israeli society and to give them a future. We're going to hear more about that program in just a second. As you may recall, if you heard the interview with Matan just a little while ago, he since went to Harvard, and like all good Harvard graduate students, ended up suing the university and then came back.
And now he's working with a group of other people to found this new Israeli political party called El Hadegel to the flag. But when Matan and I were talking, he mentioned with great praise, Ariel Wiezel, who's taken over for him at the head of the Desert Stars. And he mentioned that Desert Stars has actually got a new campus that's about to open about 10 minutes from where we're seated here in the Negev. And he suggested heartily that I reach out to Ariel and hear the story of Desert Stars as it has changed in the years since Matan was here. We're going to hear from Ariel today. Ariel, first of all, thanks for inviting us down here. Us is my wife came with me because she didn't want me driving all this way by myself.
Thank you for coming.
Tell us a little bit about yourself first before we get to talk about Kochabei HaMidbar.
Great. So thank you. I'm Ariel Wiezel. I'm 45 years old. I'm born and raised in a small kibbutz. Back then in the '80s, in the '90s, to born and raised in kibbutz means that you know only the people that I'm born with, 10 people in my age, and that's it.
How big is the kibbutz?
It was the Nativ Halamed Hey. Kibbutz in the Ela Valley.
How big was the kibbutz then?
It was really small. It's like 300 people, and that's it.
Where'd you go to school? Where's the high school there?
The high school was one hour from there in a bigger kibbutz called Givat Brener, which all the kibbutz then, back then went to that high school. Things, of course, changed from that. But this is how I'm born and raised. Then I went to the army and I serve in a small unit in the Air Force. I think I met until I was 24, 25 when I finished my military service, I met only people that looked like me in the kibbutz and also in the military and everyone looks like me and talking like me. I think the first time that I met something else was when I was 24 or 25 and started to volunteer in another NGO called Acharai, Follow Me, which worked then in youth to prepare them to military service.
What youth was that?
Exactly. It was from everywhere.
Jews and non-Jews? Jews and Arabs?
Yeah, Jews and Arabs. I worked, especially with Jews back then, but a youth with a bad and difficult background, and I started to do it in Bat Yam, not from Tel Aviv. Then I think I met for the first time, something else, that looking different than me, wearing clothes that are different, and talking different, and everything was different. Then I started my private journey in the Israeli society. I've been 10 years in that NGO, in several jobs. In the final job there, I was the VP, the Vice President of the Education Program for five years. Then I met everything. I met Haredim, and I met Secular, I met the Arabs, and I met Bedouin, and Jews and everyone, and in the Israeli society. It was my private journey to meet the Israeli society.
Were there Russians and Ethiopians there, too?
Yeah. I'm running a specific project of the Ethiopian all over the country. It was really interesting for me. Then it was also the first time that I met and started to know the Arabic society from inside. Then I'm running a few projects, and I arrived Desert Stars seven years ago from now. In the I met Matan and he told me, Come. I think from all over the thing that I saw in the Israeli society, in the education field, in the NGOs field, I think back then, seven years ago, I think in the Negev, it was the bigger challenge that I ever met.
The Bedouins and the Negev.
The Bedouin society, the Negev, the situation here, the feeling part of Israel, the angry, not much hope for the future. I think this is what makes me to understand that I I want to be here for a few years and to try to make things go better. Desert stars, the main issue, what you said before, Daniel, about Matan, he established a desert star together with Dr. Muhammad Al-Nabari. For the first time, it was Jew and Bedouin that running together. They understand and the establishment of Desert stars, I think the main issue was to understand that there are many problems and there are many questions about what the country did in the several years in the Bedouin society in the Negev, did they enough Didn't enough, or did the wrong thing. But I think main question was that there is not enough leadership from inside. Youth Bedouins, men and women that's supposed to take responsibility, and they take responsibility about themselves, about all the life, different fields, and to change the reality, and of course, to feel part of that place. This is, I think, was the main issue. This is the main goal of Desert Start. We want to make them to be leadership inside their community, inside the Bedouin community, and after that, the Negev, and after that, the whole Israeli society.
Before we go on, just give us, our listeners, some background about the situation of Bedouins in Israel in general. Where are they located? Obviously in the south and in the north. Then let's talk briefly. We don't have to go into a lot, but you know it infinite amounts. But just what is this whole recognized, unrecognized village thing? What's the implications of that for how young people grow up? Just so our listeners understand where these Bedouin young people are coming from.
It's really a good question because one of the main issue of Bedouin, a few of the many This decade was the situation of the living of the non-recognized villages. I would say that there are 300,000 Bedouins in the south. In the negative, we're talking only about the south. In the north, in the center of Israel, it's a different story. We leave it outside. We're talking only in the Negev. There are 300,000 Bedouins here. In the beginning, established over Israel, in 1948, it was after the war, it was here, only 10,000.
It's 30 times as much.
Exactly. This is one fact. The other fact is that besides seven, Israel established around the late '60s and the early '70s, established seven big villages, big cities. Raat is the biggest. Rahat, now we have more than 80,000 people that live there. Also, beside Raat, there are six more: Lakya, Hura, Ar'arat (an-Naqab), Kuseife and Segev Shalon (Shaqib Al-Salam), those are the main villages.
The government had hoped that they would build these cities, which look a lot like any old modern Israeli city, and that they hoped that the Bedouins would gradually leave their encampments from all around and move into the cities. That was the idea.
That was the idea. I will say also that what Israel did did after '48 was to make the, they call it the siege area. It's like a triangle from Beer Sheva to Dimona to Arad. Actually, most of the villages, most of the settlement of the Bedouins went inside to that area.
But that experiment didn't really work, right? It failed in a lot of ways. Explain to us what the Bedouins resisted about that experiment. Israel either did or did not do it out of the best of intentions. I have no idea. But why did the Bedouins so resist it?
So now, out of that number, 300,000, we have a little bit more than 100,000 that living in non-recognized villages. It could be a small village of 300 people. It could be a big one of 4,000 people. Which lived in more than 40 non-recognized villages.
What does that mean if you're in an unrecognized village in terms of the reality of your life?
Okay. The larger number of the 40 and something villages don't get nothing from the government. They don't get electricity, don't get water, don't get roads, nothing. People there, youth there, and the children there, they're living without nothing.
Do they go to school?
They have schools.
That are run by the Bedouins or by the Israelis?
By the Israeli, the Ministry of Education. But it's, Then you can live in an unrecognized village and your closer school could be 15 km for there. You don't have a road.
Right, and there's no busses coming there.
Exactly, no busses. If there is rain, for example, so they cannot go out. That's the main issue.
I just want to compare it to your situation. Your high school was an hour away from where you grew up, but obviously, if it rained, you could still go to school. There were roads, there were busses, there was transportation.
Exactly. I have a bus for one hour.
These people live the same distance. They're just not going to school.
Exactly. I want to I say that during the years, especially the last 20 years, the government of Israel tried to solve it in many different solutions to give the people that want to take care of the ground a little bit part of the money, part of the ground, but it's never go to final agreement. Until now, when we're talking now in July 25, the main issue that bother most of the youth Bedouin in the Negev, it's not the war, it's not Iran, it's not the Hamas, it's not the It's the situation of the non-recognized villages. A lot of people, more than 100,000 people that they don't have nothing. They don't have shelters when they heard the sirens.
They've gotten killed.
Exactly. This is the main issue. I'm pretty sure, personally, that if, and you can blame the government, and also you can blame the Bedouin themselves. Again, we're going back to the less of a leadership. The people that take responsibility and say, Okay, we want to solve it. If there are enough people also in the Bedouin side, also in the government, there are political issues, of course, and they're almost only when in the early 2000, when Benny Bergen was on it, he almost solved it, and then the government fell down. I mean, always political issue is that they don't get the agreement, but it's really main issue. In our position of Desert Stars, when we are talking about leadership inside the Bedouin society, we're talking about multi-tribe because we want our guys, our stars, we want them to be leadership in all the Bedouin society, not just my village or my tribe.
But we have to explain the Hamulot thing. Hamulot are the tribes, and it sounds obvious to you, but I think our listeners would be interested in knowing. I think you said before you did this program when you were 24, Acharai, You'd never met anybody who wasn't like you. But I think it's the case, correct me if I'm wrong, that when a lot of these kids come to Desert Stars, they've never met any other Bedouins who are not part of their tribe. Is that right?
That's right, exactly. When we are talking about leadership of inside the Bedouin society, we're talking, of course, about relationship to knowing the Jewish people in the Negev in Israel. Of course, we're talking about the main issue of the multi-tribe inside the Bedouin society.
How many tribes are there?
There are more than 200. It's different how you count it.
And they marry inside their tribe?
Some of them, yes. During the last decade, they married. Much more. It's really different about how they live, what they believe in, how they're talking, how they're looking. Even their language is a little bit different. If I am Bedouin, and raised in Lakyia, for example, which is a medium village here.
And it's a recognized city.
And I meet people like me that are born and raised in Rahat, which is the biggest city. They look much different than me. It's different tribe, different family. And it's much more larger when I meet someone that's born and raised in an unrecognized village, far from the center, far from Beer Sheva.
So their religious life is different?
Exactly. Much more traditional, much more religion.
How does the role of, let's say, teenage girls, what's their life like, let's say, in Rahat, which is a big, recognized, but Bedouin city, versus, I don't know, either an unrecognized village or a much smaller town? Are they closer to the way teenage girls are, let's say, in Tel Aviv, or are they closer to the way the teenage girls are in some of these unrecognized villages? How modern has a place like Rahat?
Well, Rahat is modern. When you're looking in Rahat and you are going around, so it's still it doesn't look, it's far from a Beer Sheva, it's far from Omer, and definitely Tel Aviv because it's still also in Rahat, which is the biggest city here in the Negev, there's still a lack of everything. Just only the last few years started to build their public buildings of culture and the big stadium and things like that. Still, Rat is the modern city. When you see, for your question, if you see a young woman that walking there and born and raised there, so she's looking much more modern than youth that are born and raised in the non-recognized, especially because of, like I said before, because of the traditional, because of the religious.
Are they going to the university, young women from Rahat? They go to, let's say, Ben Gurion University?
Yes. Let's say that it's around 10% of the youth that finish high school in the Negev, 10% going to the university.
So 10% of those who finish high school go to university, and what percent of them finish high school?
Exactly. It's a little bit less than 50% finish high school, and then only 10% go to Israeli Academies.
So 5% of the Bedouin end up going to university.
Yeah, let's say 5% to 8%. Even though If I take in that 8% or 10% that going to university or to academic studies, almost half of them, almost 50% of them are dropped out in the first year because it's difficult. Most of them don't speak Hebrew, don't speak English, don't know how to manage themselves. They don't know what they can go to academic and to study. They don't prepare themselves enough.
Do their parents want them to go to university or their parents prefer that they stay home and work? Because you hear, if you live where I live, you hear, I don't know if it's true, but the rumor on the street is, especially the parents of boys, want the boys to stay home and work in whatever business the family has. It's fine for the girl if she wants to go to the university, that's fine, but they want the boys to stay home. That's what we hear. Is that true?
Yes. So I can say that it's different. I think that now parents understand that this is the most normal way to get the children in the future and to get the future tools and the skills for the future. Most of the Bedouin students that are going to the academic are girls, are women.
What percent?
Almost 80%.
80% of those are more women.
And again, because of what you said, because I think things are different. Parents understand this is the only way for women to go out and to get the skills and to get a career in the future.
Now, those young women live at home, right? They don't stay over in Beer Sheva.
Yes, most of them live at home. Most of them will get married really early, at 20, 21, 22. The girls themselves, they really want to get the academic degree before that.
They can start at 18 because they're not going to the army.
Exactly. It's another problem because when I started at university, I was 24. After a military service, after I went around, most the Arabs here in the Bedouin, they start university at 19. They're really young. Then they come to the academic and they meet the Jewish student beside them. It's really big gap. That's why they have a lot of obstacles and a challenge to get the degree.
Okay, now We can talk about Desert Stars. We've given everybody the background, a little bit of a sociological introduction to the Bedouin. Desert Stars, who are the people? What age are they? What are you trying to accomplish? How many are there? Tell us the whole story of the story.
Okay. Like I said before, Desert Stars established, the main goal was to make here people, men and women, to get skills and responsibility to their self and to be leaders, to be a leadership in every field in their life. Of course, education, academic, media. We want them to be skilled and to take responsibility of the living in the Negev for the Bedouin society. This is the main issue. We have a lot of education programs in the Desert Stars. We have high school, which where we're sitting now, next to Kibbutz Lahav. The high school is here. This is the seventh year that we are here.
You have what? Three classes that graduated?
It's the seven graduates, seven cohorts.
Seventh cohort, okay. How many are in each year? How many are in each cohort?
We have it now for four grade, we have 220 students.
In all four years or for each year?
In all four years, 220 students, boys and girls from all over the Negev. They come from here every day, come and go. Part of them, they come from those non-recognized village because we want them to come from all over the Negev.
Do you go get them? How did they get here?
Yeah, in the first years, it was really reaching out to go and get them. Now, we have more demand and we can have the room here. The main issue here in high school, it's really a special high school. We're working like youth village, which means besides the high school, the pedagogic program and the bagrut and everything.
Bagrut is the SIT It's ACT's region's exam, just so people know what that is.
We have 20% of that, which is amazing because they're coming here in nine grade with a lot of gaps and they don't know,
So 20% get a bagrut? Or what Percent?
90%.
90% get a bagrut? That's unbelievable. That's higher than in most Israeli Jewish cities.
It's amazing. It's really amazing. We're really proud. Also, it's real. It's not like someone helped them. It's real.
Everybody knows that Israeli story. Now, they're 50/50, boys, girls, men, women?
Yeah.
And they're here for four years.
Yes. Here for four years. What I want to say that the unique thing of high school is that we want to establish a youth village. We want them to live in a campus for amazing and the most education way that we can give them. We established here, besides the pedagogic lessons and bagrut and everything,
In Hebrew or Arabic, the classes?
Arabic. But it's under the Ministry of Education. I mean, like a normal Arabic School.
But when they finish, can they speak Hebrew?
Yes, that's what I want to say. We have, besides the normal pedagogic lessons, we have here a lot of programs from the informal education, which the main issue that the counselor of that are a graduate of Desert Stars, which come back and they're doing here a lot of activities, and they meet here Jewish. We have a volunteers of of people doing national service. Before the military service that come and live here and they join everything. So young Bedouin that come here from anywhere here in the Negev, he meets another Bedouin from another tribe, another village, which he never met before. I mean, if I were born and raised in one village, I met, until I will be 20, the same tribe, the same family.
In my high school, in my kindergarten, the teachers, the guard, everyone's the same family. Here in our small place, we want them to meet another Bedouin from Rahat, from Lakyia. This is one. The other thing, they meet the Jewish and the Israeli society. All the teachers, all the crew is together. We are working here Bedouin and Jewish. Like I said before, like Matan and Dr. Muhammad Al- Nabari established together Jewish and Bedouin. This is the main issue, to go together. We're talking about the multi-tribe. We're talking about formal and informal education to talking about we need to understand another background that most youth Bedouin in the villages, they don't have nothing about informal education. They don't have a youth movement. They don't have matnas. They don't have hugim, they don't have after-school. They almost don't have nothing.
So what do they get here, for example?
So they get here everything. They get here youth movement. They get here a lot of after-school in many different fields. I mean, they get here space and Hebrew and sports and soccer and volleyball for boys and girls. They get here even a surf. We take them to the sea to learn how to surf.
It's probably the first time they ever saw the sea, right?
Exactly. Part of them, And debate and English and Hebrew. They got here, everything just need to choose and to be serious. It's not easy to be here a student. But the main issue is to give them because they came here with a lot of gaps, we want to understand them to get the most professional education experience, and we want them to be a leadership. So this is the high school. Like you said before, we just built now a new campus for the high school. Then next September, September 25, we're going to open our new campus, Jusidman campus. It's going to be not far from here, 10 minutes next to Beit Kama. Then we're going to increase our high school from seven grades, and it will be 600 students, not just 200. Again, boys and girls from all over the area.
So the reason it's 200 now is because you don't have any more space.
We don't have space.
There's just a lot of demand, though. Just to give credit where credit is due, because I think it's always, as we say in Hebrew, to recognize the good things that people have done. Just say a couple sentences about why it's called the Jusidman campus and who this family So Jusidman family are Jewish-Mexican, and they are with Desert Start from the day one.
They are in our board, and they understand. They're doing a lot of amazing and good things.
There's an amazing philanthropic family.
Yeah, and they understand togetherness with our board that they want to lead the leadership in the Bedouin Society. From understanding, as I said before, this is the main issue here in the Negev. They are the main philanthrope for the campus. The campus will be a youth village with a dormitory.
They're going to sleep over some of them?
They're going to sleep there. 300 students from the 600 will sleep there.
Girls and boys?
In the beginning, it will be boys. I really hope it will be also relevant for girls. I really hope. And Jusidman with us, he understand really early. Before I was here, he saw the vision, and he understand that we need to build here a leadership lighthouse for the Bedouin society. Without the Jusidmans, it is never built. Also the Ministry of Education with us. We have a lot of partners. But they are the main issue of that thing. Next year, we're going to open there since the grade of seven. And later on, we started and build a dormitory because we wanted to be the first youth village in the Arab society in Israel, especially for the Bedouin society and for leadership in the Negev. This is the main issue.
That's amazing. So this is the high school program.
Exactly. This is the first stage of our theory of change. The next stage are the Gap year. We have two programs for youth that finish high school, not only Desert Stars High School, but also high school of the Bedouin society all over the Negev. We get them for one year. For the boys, it's dormitory already. They sleep like Mechina.
There's pre-army Gap year programs called Mechina.
But our main goal there, it's, again, to prepare them for academic, prepare them for leadership, for skills, for feeling themselves like they have the skills and the opportunity to change things from inside. They're learning a lot about how to build project, how to change things from inside. They learn here everything. They meet, again, they met all the Israeli different groups in Israel. They're going to the north, they're going to Jerusalem, they're going to Yafo and Lod and everything. They had a lot of, for the Boys Gap year, we have a lot of activities outside, training them outside. They started the gap here in one month in a row outside in the field, and they're going by foot from the Golan, from the Hermon, till here to the Negev.
They walk all the way from the Golan to the Negev?
Yeah, for one month, and they meet a lot of people in the way and learn about themselves, about how to, we believe that if we want them to be leaders and to be able to change things, they need to know, to believe about themselves. They need to get the skills and the opportunity to change things. The field is the best way.
How many people are in that program each year?
It's 40 each year, 40 boys and 40 girls. For the girls, it's really the same goal, the same purpose, but without the dormitory because of the tradition.
So they don't walk from the camp.
Exactly. They walk a little bit less, but they're going outside in the meet and they're doing amazing. They're amazing. The girls are amazing because they understand, like I said before, this is the way for them to go out and to change things. We have also more demand than we can get for those two programs. After that, all of those, they got to our alumni program, which we helped them to continue themselves to the academic. If we said before, about 8% of the general situation of the Bedouin in the academic, so in this study, it's almost 80. It's 10 times more because we believe that they understand this is part of it. If they want to be leader, they have to go through the academic. Almost 80% of them, boys and girls, go to the academic and finish their degree. Then we continue with them to the next level, which means academic, which means career center, and we want them to be a leadership.
You're working with placement and all that stuff.
Exactly. We want them. Now, the most graduate that we have, they are 27, 28 years old. They're not yet mayors and they're not yet a principle of schools, but they are on the way. We want them to be there. This is the main issue. I can say another thing that there's a start in the last three years. We understand that we want to scaling and to get the door of bigger because we want, like a pyramid, we want them more and more to go and to be leaders. So beside our high school, that's going to be much more bigger. We're working again. We're running a few program in the villages outside. So we have Fawsan. Fawsan means like night, night of the desert, which means like a small youth movement. Our graduates, they're going to the neighborhoods around here, and they started to work with the youth, with the children, and they're talking about the values of about the start and about changing things and about taking responsibility. It's like a youth movement, really. We have a lot of programs that going outside because we want the scaling to be much more bigger because to get into that change role, much more people.
It's really fascinating. I have a bunch of questions because it's so interesting. Let's talk about the religious leadership in the Bedouin villages. Very often, higher education for young people raises questions for them as to whether or not the religious establishment that they grew up in is the one they want to live their lives in. And you see it in the Haredi world that they're very nervous about the young Haredi going off to university. You see it in classic Christian societies across the world that the local religious leadership has very mixed feelings. How is the religious leadership in the Bedouin villages, recognized and unrecognized, responded to you and your program? Do they see it as a huge step forward, or are they nervous that they're going to lose their hold over these young people?
I think all the Bedouin society are in a, period of transformation, because I think the young generation is really different. You understand that things change. All of them have, it doesn't matter if he lives in a non-recognized village, he have their smartphone, so he knows everything. And besides that, I think the generation of the old people, and especially the religious, are in a change. So they understand that things change not because of Desert Stars, because of the world, because of the reality. I think Desert Stars, what we try to get them, and I think most of the leadership inside the Bedouin society understand now that we want them to change because we want the good future for them and for the community itself. We want them to take responsibility. We want them to take the Bedouin society up in every field. We want them to be much more in relation with the Israeli society itself because we want them to feel part of it. In the beginning of Desert Start, there were a lot of questions about what we try to do. The Jewish come to the Negev, and what about the values of the traditional? I can say as a CEO here, that all the crew here, most of it is Bedouin, but we are working together, Jewish and Bedouin together. All of our decisions inside Desert Start will be always from the from the glass of the Bedouin society and for the Bedouin tradition and for the Bedouin and the Islam values. That's what we always will do. For example, if we are talking of leadership of women, we understand all of us is part of it, but we never will do it exactly the same like the leadership of the men. For example, the two gaps are a little bit different because for the women, it have to be traditional and much more careful. This is what we try to do. But I can say, generally, that people in the Bedouin society and also the older generation understand it's part of it. It's part of the change, and we just help them.
So there's not a lot of resistance from the religious leadership in the Bedouin communities.
No, I can say also that all of the Bedouins are talking and they have the connection with the religion, with the Islam. Part of them are much more religion than the other, but all of them are, it's really traditional community, so we cannot, and we don't want to to walk beside talking and feeling. All the education programs are in the tradition. We have our people from the traditional value that they are putting the values inside. They are writing the program. We don't invite them. Nothing. Also here, you can see the education model of the Desert Stars. You can see in the middle, respect of the Islam values. It's part of it. We don't want to change nothing. We don't want to raise nothing. Part of our model, of the education model is traditional, is leadership with the religious. It's not split, opposite.
The other question that I have, or another question that I have, has to do with how they respond internally, as we say in Hebrew, when they put their head on their pillow at the end of the day and they're thinking for a few minutes before they fall asleep. There's this category when you talk a lot about sociological change that people talk about, at least in the States a lot, called relative deprivation, meaning I didn't feel poor until I met the people who aren't poor. Then all of a sudden, I felt poor. I could see two different ways. Again, I can't get in their head. You can much better, and I want to hear what you have to say. But I could see a young Bedouin person This is my village. This is my family. This is my Hamula. It's life. It's good. I have my smartphone. I have my family. I'm happy. I could see one response is I get to Desert Stars, and all of a sudden, there's a whole Israeli world out there, and these people want to help me enter it. I feel even more welcomed, even more embraced. This is a whole huge opportunity. Or I could say, what? I've been excluded from all of this my whole life, and I feel actually more resentful than I did before I saw that it was there. Do you have both of those things?
I think it's both. I think that part of them, I'll just say you cannot say them. We cannot include all the Bedouins. There are 300,000. It's many different interest and opinions. But I think there are two different opinion, exactly what you say. Part of their opinion will say, We are okay, leave us alone. We want to live our life. I think, but it's less and less during last year. And I think, again, the modernization process and people that go outside, let's say that they're going to Beer Sheva to do shopping. So they see everything. They know how people live.
They were doing that already anyway, right?
Yeah. So there is already coexistent. There is share society in the Negev. So people know. So I think then, and this is what we try to get them in their mind. One, you are a citizen of Israel, you're equal. You need to get your rights and of course, your duties, but you are equal. This is the first thing. And I think much more of our stars think about it. They want to get their rights and they want to be equally civilian. I think, again, that it's another complicated that we need to talk about. It's the relationship with the main Israeli society, let's say. Again, especially our younger staff, they understand and I think they really want to be part of it and they see the future here and they want to be a part of the Israeli society. It's not a question about that. The question is how to do it and how the Israel states get them. This is the main issue, I think, especially the last three or four years, everything that happened during May '21, Shomer Homot in all the cities in the Israeli especially.
Just to reminder everybody. It was a war that we had with Hamas back in '21, but there was also a lot of Jewish-Arab violence inside some Israeli cities, especially mixed cities.
Exactly. In the mixed cities, also in the Negev. So after that, in the Corona years, so again, when they are bad and the obstacle in children, so they feel it. They feel they don't have nothing here. And of course, the last two, almost two years after October 7th, we can talk about it specific, but I think they feel that definitely, I believe it. They definitely want to feel part and to be part of that place, but they need to feel that the Israeli state see them equally. That's not always the situation. This is the main issue that we say before about the non-recognized. Without talking I'm not talking about who is right and who is wrong. It's different opinions, but Israel State could finish that issue. Yeah, for a long time ago, and it doesn't happen. People that are born and raised here, 10 years old, you see his village destroyed. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, but this is what he sees.
You guys bring MKs? You bring members of Knesset here to see what's going on?
Yeah.
Does it change their view about what the Knesset should do?
I want to say yes. It's always not enough. But I think that people, like you said before, most of the people, my friends in the middle of Israel that are liberal and know everything, when they heard about Bedouin society, they have a lot of stereotype from the news, from the media. When people, it doesn't matter who, come to the Negev and meet our stars and meet our people that can speak Hebrew, can't talk about what I just say about the narrative of the Bedouin, how I'm born in ways, I want to be part, I want to be equal, everything is changed. Most of the Israeli mainstream don't know it. We try to do it. After the seventh of October, one of the important things that we understand that part of our job, it's not just that leadership, this is the main issue, but another issue is to make that bridge from the Israeli mainstream to the Negev, and to meet the Bedouin society, to meet the stories, to understand that they're part of it. In the seventh of October, as you know, there are a lot of injured and killed here and got kidnapped. So just so people understand the background, there were a lot of Bedouins who were working in the kibbutzim.
They were either killed and some were kidnapped.
Exactly. And still kidnapped. And, of course, they got killed.
So they feel like, did this make them, in some strange, crazy way, feel more part of Israeli society?
I think in the first month of the war, yeah, definitely, yeah. But I think after that, really fast, it come back to be again, like fighting. We need to understand that most of the Bedouin here in the Negev, almost 70% of the families in the Negev, they have relatives in Gaza. Relatives, cousins. So if people are talking about, all the Gaza are criminal, all the Gaza are Hamas. People here in the Negev, people here, people that I work with, what they can do about it when you're talking about, Let's finish Gaza. I have family there. So it's really complicated. I can say personally that also for us in the share crew in Desert Stars, it was really a challenge and really a different month in the beginning of the war because all the Jewish, including me, we went to the military service. I did almost 200 military service days, and I wasn't here. I finished my shift there. I came back to running the organization. The Bedouins, like I said before, in part of it, they're feeling part of that disaster. But Everyone blame them because there are Arabs.
So you've just come back from war and you're fighting people in Gaza, and people in Gaza are their family, and then you're here at the school trying to help them. It's really complicated.
I think we did two things that help us to understand this is the only way, I think, to continue and to be good in what we try to do. The first thing was to continue. We never stopped our program activities. We continue whatever we could able in the high school, in the pedagogy programs, in the gap year is that they understand that they have to continue. They did everything. A lot of volunteers inside the Bedouin and the Israeli society here inside the Negev. So we continue. We never stopped. And the other thing we did was to talk about the complicated, like you just said, I did Zoom in the seventh of October in the evening for all the management here in the organization, Jewish and Arabs. And also already in the Zoom, I have there one that he's from one of the kibbutzim from the envelope and one from the Sderot, and part of them was on uniform already and the way to the military.
The Bedouin colleagues was, again, in the Mamad, in the Miklat, talking about a disaster. We were together in this. We're talking about the complicated situation about Gaza, about the reality, about how we continue, about hope. We did it many times during those months. This was the only way that helped us to understand that we are together. We are together in that. We have to talk about the future. It's not easy.
I'm sure it's not easy.
But this is the only way.
I'm going to ask you one last question. When I drove in this morning, you drive off the highway and you come up the little road, and then you said that there's a kibbutz right across the fence. There's a big Israeli flag when you drive in. And as I drove in, I asked myself, I wonder what these Bedouin kids feel, as you say in Yiddish, their kishkas, their bus or their car or their bicycle or whatever they come in on, they go by that flag. What would you say is their reaction to that flag at the beginning of ninth grade? And what would you think the reaction to that flag is towards the end of 12th grade?
Good question. I can say that I don't need to imagine because we measure it. We measure ourselves in all our programs. We measure every year the big and the complicated questions about themselves, about about their hope, about their feeling, about the Bedouin society, about the Israeli society we ask. We have the results. I can say that it's not always easy, especially those last two, almost two years, about that situation. But I think I will give you an example. That kibbutz that we're just talking about, it's kibbutz Lahav. Our high school, we have the same fence of the kibbutz Lahav. In normal year of activity, three times a week, our students from our high school here, they cross the road, cross the fence, and go inside the kibbutz for the sport court. All the sport activities, all the sport lessons are inside the kibbutz. Kibbutz Lahav told us in the beginning, please come in. And we continue already since the seventh of October, we continue, we never stopped. What I want to say that the students here, they understand it's much higher than just talking about Jewish and Arabs and about, let's see. We need and we have to see different the narrative.
There are different stories here, from the history until now. But the future is togetherness. There are no question. I think that when they see the flag, most of them doesn't feel comfortable because what I said before, because of the challenges, because of what they hear about the police and about the non-recognized and about the government and about things that doesn't go, it's never simple. But when they meet me and when they meet our Jewish volunteers that live here and speak with them in the beginning with their hands, and then they learn a little bit Arabic, they know Hebrew, this is the main issue. So all the students that finish here high school, they know Hebrew, they know me, they know my Jewish volunteers, they know their colleagues from the other tribe families, Bedouins. And I think this is the main issue. They can look into the future. They have hope. We ask them specific about hope. They have hope that the future will be much better for them. They want to go to academic, to Israel academic, and not to go abroad to learn here, to study here. They want to come back to their villages to change things. Their villages next to Kibbutz Lahav, next to Beer Sheva, next to Omer, we are here, togetherness. I think this is the main issue. It's never easy, but this is the only way, talking about the complicated and to walking together. This is what we try to do.
It's the hope that we all need. I think this is a period of Israeli history when hope is a resource that's hard to come by. I keep thinking as I'm listening to you, somebody should do this for different Jewish groups within Israeli society. Somebody should do this for Haredim, somebody should do this for some groups of Ethiopians who have not yet made their way in. It's really, as you said, we have different narratives, we have different stories, and talking about the complexities and talking about it is the only way we're going to build a future together. Exactly. To hear what you've accomplished and to see that you're about to move into a new campus, it's really an extraordinary accomplishment. So thank you for taking the time and telling us about a part of the Israeli story that we really don't hear about nearly often enough. And wish you and all of your colleagues continued success in what's really critically important work for Israel.
Thank you very much, Daniel. Thank you for the opportunity. And I invite you all the listeners to come and visit us in our new campus in the Negev and to see leadership in Bedouin society and education. And please come.
Well, we'll put information how they can get in touch, and hopefully people will follow up. Ariel Weizel, thank you so much once again.
Thank you very much.
