Bedouin lawmaker seeks change through new Israeli government

Saeed Alkhrumi's party made history by becoming the first Arab faction to sit in an Israeli government

JERUSALEM -- In the weeks before his Arab party made history in Israel by joining the ruling coalition, Saeed Alkhrumi says his relatives and neighbors were notified that their homes would be demolished. It was a stark illustration of the challenge ahead for the United Arab List, a small Islamist party that played a key role in forming Israel's fragile new government and now hopes to secure gains for the Arab minority, including the impoverished Bedouin community in the south. Alkhrumi, 49, hails from the Bedouin heartland in the Negev Desert, where tens of thousands of people live in unrecognized villages that are largely cut off from basic services and where homes and other structures have been built without legal permits, putting them at risk of demolition by Israeli authorities. In recent years, Israel has sought to relocate the Bedouin to established towns, saying it would allow the state to provide modern services and improve their quality of life. The Bedouin view such efforts as a way of uprooting them from their ancestral lands, disrupting their traditional way of life and confining them to impoverished, crime-ridden communities.