Israel: When Working Hard Is No Longer Enough

Rahat

We can work for several hours every day without pause and realize a year later that neither professionally nor personally has much changed. The question, therefore, is not simply how much work has been done, but where the time invested creates the greatest value. In the Negev, this question takes on a deeper meaning: when will residents truly be able to invest their time in their future rather than in securing their safety and dignity?

The Arab community already has significant entrepreneurial energy: businesses, family enterprises, crafts, and initiatives led by young people. Yet these efforts often remain fragmented, with stability taking precedence over growth.

The lack of collective structures limits their potential. Project financing, local incubators, shared commercial networks, and cooperation between entrepreneurs could help turn individual initiatives into a more significant economic force.

The willingness to work and the resilience already exist. What is more often missing is an organizational framework capable of converting that energy into sustainable economic capital.

But this transformation requires a secure environment. An entrepreneur who is concerned about the safety of their business or family will devote more time to caution than to expansion.

Between Heritage and the Modern State

This situation reflects a deeper transformation of Bedouin society. The desert is no longer the desert, the tribe is no longer the tribe, and the city is no longer a large tent. These changes have fundamentally reshaped the way power, protection, and social relations are organized.

This reflection echoes the work of historian, geographer and genealogist Atiq bin Ghaith al-Baladi, who devoted much of his work to documenting traditional society in the Arabian Peninsula. In Bedouin Morality, the Saudi author explores the role of the tribe, customs, honor, chivalry and generosity.

Born in the Khulais region of Saudi Arabia, al-Baladi published more than forty books on the genealogies, territories, history and travels of the Arabian Peninsula. His work reflects an effort to preserve a social heritage at a time when that heritage was undergoing profound transformation.

Today, the challenge is to preserve the positive values of this heritage while making the law and modern institutions the common framework of society.

When Dignity Becomes Violence

Dignity, solidarity, generosity and loyalty are an essential part of this heritage. But these values lose their constructive function when they become justifications for violence or silence.

Dignity should not become revenge. Loyalty should not mean protecting a crime. Reconciliation should not mean silencing a victim.

At the same time, the modern state cannot ask individuals to abandon their traditional networks without guaranteeing them effective institutional protection.

In 2025, Israeli police recorded 309 homicide victims, 241 of them from the Arab community. The same year, 226 new orphans linked to criminal activity were added to a this sad list, according to numbers presented by the Knesset.

When people are afraid in their own neighborhoods, their behavior changes. They become more reluctant to invest, expand their businesses or take risks. When they lose trust in institutions, they look for alternative forms of protection.

Responsibility, however, cannot be attributed to a single actor. The state must ensure security and enforce the law, while society also bears responsibility for the proliferation of weapons, silence, and the protection of perpetrators.

The goal, therefore, is not to choose between heritage and modernity. It is to preserve from that heritage what strengthens society — dignity, generosity, solidarity and loyalty — while making the law the common framework for protection.

Kaid Abulatif