Hopewell News · 8 April 1954

CP-1954-018

Israel Uses Films In Effort To Keep Bedouins Settled

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Transcribed from the clipping

BEERSHEBA — (U.P.) — With their camels parked outside to chew contentedly on orange peel, Bedouin tribesmen are packing the motion picture theater in this ancient town of Israel, to watch and shout their approval of the antics of Mickey Mouse.

Mickey Mouse, Bob Hope and Tarzan are all part of Israel’s campaign to get some 15,000 primitive — though romantic — tribesmen to settle down in civilization. Whatever the tribesmen may think of the program, they like the movies, and the Negev military governor has relaxed movement restrictions so they can come here once a week.

Politics have cut across the Bedouins’ freedom to roam the desert wilderness in search of pasture for their goats. Bedouins in Israel are now limited to the Negev, which thrusts a wedge between Jordan and the Sinai Desert.

Parts of the same tribes wander through Israel, Jordan and Egypt, disregarding frontiers and sometimes smuggling arms or hasheesh or stealing each other’s herds. But rigid frontiers are forcing the Bedouin slowly to abandon the nomadic life. With an eye to peace and security, Israel wants them to settle down.

A pipeline running from Beersheba into the parched hills has enabled some tribes to pitch permanent camp The only fixed encampment north of here is quite “tame.” In fact, it is already well on the way to being spoiled by tourists, who come to buy silver-hilted daggers rather than the modern souvenirs available in cities.

Sheik Suleiman, the best-known Negev chieftain, has bought himself an American car for trips to town, although he still uses a camel for jaunts to see the children of his 49 wives.

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan by a machine looking at the image of the page, not by optical character recognition and not by a person. The clipping carries no masthead or date line, so its date and newspaper rest on the record it arrived with, not on anything visible in the scan.

Context added by this archive

Date check: No masthead, folio line or page date is on this clipping — it is a two-column cut from an inside page (the adjacent column carries a “Boxwood Shrubs Hard To Grow In North Climes” feature and a “LESCO’S HERE! See Friday’s NEWS” advertisement).

The story is undated United Press copy with only a “BEERSHEBA” place line, so neither 1954-04-08 nor the Hopewell News attribution can be confirmed from the image.

Cite this clipping

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