Blueprint Negev Totally Explained

Everything about Blueprint Negev totally explained

"Blueprint Negev" is a $600 million project of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) whose stated aims are developing the Negev region of Israel by increasing its population by 250,000 immigrants in the next five years, improving transportation infrastructure, adding businesses and employment opportunities, preserving water resources and protecting its environment. The plan was announced in 2005 by JNF President, Ronald S. Lauder.

Background

According to the JNF, 92% of Israel's population resides on 40% of Israel's land, while only 8% of its population lives in the Negev, which represents 60% of Israel's landmass. Furthermore, 85% of the Negev is off-limits for civilian purposes, utilized by the military for training. This creates overcrowding, and a strain on resources, which the Blueprint Negev claims could be resolved by population redistribution.
Lauder argues that developing the Negev by bringing in new settlers to the region could lead to an influx of investment and thereby improve living standards in the Negev, a region struggling with a high disparity between rich and poor residents. There are an estimated 170,000 Bedouin in the Negev, who have poor access to educational and medical facilitiies and suffer unemployment hovering at 90%. In addition to extreme conditions of unemployment and accompanying social breakdown, Bedouin citizens are in disproportionate need of services; half of Bedouin citizens are denied access to electricity, water, or municipal waste disposal services by the Israeli government because they live in unrecognized villages.(External Link

) The Blueprint Negev as it stands doesn't conduct or suggest specific funding or projects to address the adverse conditions in which Bedouin citizens of Israel live.(External Link

)

Planned Projects

Population redistribution: The plan aims to bring 250,000 new people to the Negev over five years. Toward that goal, the project has compiled a database, currently containing some 10,000 names, of Israeli citizens interested in relocating to the Negev. Beer Sheva redevelopment: The plan aims to more than double the population of Be’er Sheva, the Negev’s largest city, to 500,000 by 2010. One of the main projects undertaken there's the Be’er Sheva River Walk – a plan to convert the current muddy trickle of water in the Beer Sheva stream into a 900-acre park inspired by San Antonio’s River Walk. New suburban communities: The plan envisions the creation of several new suburban communities, which will allow their residents to be “21st century pioneers”. The beginnings of seven such new communities have already been established: Sansana, Harouv, Shomria, Givot Bar, Be’er Milka, Kmehin and Merhav Am. Aleh Negev rehabilitative village: A 25-acre residential rehabilitative village is being built near Ofaqim. The Aleh Negev project will be a cost-effective home to 200-500 adults with mental and other disabilities, and will provide an additional 12,000 disabled children and young adults with outpatient care. This project will bring 3,000 new jobs to the area, which currently suffers form a 15% unemployment rate. A work in progress:
In 2005, Lauder introduced plans to attract 500,000 immigrants by 2010.A year later, the JNF's website changed; the JNF had revised the goal to 250,000 by 2010. In 2008 the JNF website stated they'd introduce 250,000 residents "in the next five years," with no specified starting date.
At the start of the PR campaign for the Blueprint Negev, the JNF public relations material discussed park and forest promotion in a general manner, and advertised plans for an artificial river in the desert (External Link

). JNF PR didn't discuss increased demand on regional water and energy resources as direct result of a dramatic influx in population in conjunction with development of planned industrial centers, high-tech firms, golf courses, swimming pools, roads, etc. After concerns over resource-exploitation caused by the Blueprint Negev's development were voiced by individuals such as Daniel Orenstein of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, the JNF's website began to reflect increased attention to green critiques.

Environmental and Social Critiques

Israeli and American environmental groups are concerned that the creation of isolated suburban communities in the Negev will lead to water and energy intensive suburban sprawl and strain Bedouin-Jewish relations. They argue that the Blueprint Negev's planned developments will require a tremendous amount of public investment per capita while benefiting a small number of comparatively well-off, or already wealthy, immigrants in a region suffering high poverty rates. In particular, the Blueprint Negev's planned river, swimming pools and golf courses raise concerns among environmentalists; according to the JNF itself, Israel is over-consuming its water resources by 25 percent. (External Link

) In particular, the Negev environmental justice organization Bustan is concerned that the Blueprint Negev's social gestures may be cosmetic and that its green rhetoric constitutes 'greenwashing.'
Bustan and religious Jewish organizations concerned with Jewish justice principles such as Neohasid (which has launched the "Save the Negev"

campaign) are concerned that if implemented, the plan’s rapid development will overbuild the last open spaces left in the 'Holy Land,' as well as eliminating the last vestiges of the Bedouin way of life. According to Bustan the Blueprint Negev's approach to addressing the disproportionate lack of services and infrastructure extended to Bedouin citizens residing in the desert appears to be 'trickle-down' in that the plan focuses explicitly on Jewish development. Bustan notes that as of 2008 the JNF didn't advertise any specific tangible plans to address the conditions in which Bedouin citizens live, and that on its website the only social project listed among its projects is Aleh Negev, a rehabilitation center for disabled children in the Jewish town of Ofakim; although Bedouin endure the highest infant mortality rate in Israel and one of the highest in the developed world, and suffer high rates of congenital birth defects, the Aleh Negev project makes no reference to disabled Bedouin children.
Orenstein agrees with the JNF that overpopulation is indeed a problem in Israel, but argues it hasn't been appropriately addressed for ideological reasons.(External Link

) Rebecca Manski, former Communications Director of Bustan, argues that the Blueprint Negev is an attempt by a wing of the American Jewish community to combat what they perceive as a "demographic threat" to Israel's Jewish majority, represented by the fast-growing Bedouin population in the Negev. Ohalah, the Association of Renewal Rabbis and Cantors expressed concern that through the Blueprint Negev the JNF-US may try to fund demolition of Bedouin homes or facilitate removal of Bedouin communities. Ohalah and other rabbinal organizations have asked that the "JNF-US inform potential donors about the distinctions between giving to Blueprint Negev and giving to KKL (JNF-Israel), and about the fact that Blueprint Negev is the JNF-US name for the development projects in the Negev run by different organizations."(External Link

) Together, the main thrust of critics' argument is that the appropriate response to overpopulation isn't to recruit hundreds of thousands of additional settlers, and the answer to overdevelopment in the north isn't to build up the last open spaces in the second most-densely crowded country in the developed world. Rather, there's a consensus among these critics, that 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.

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