The next morning I leave with Ghaliya for 'Arara. She is a social worker, has a car. The government office at 'Arara looks like a police station. It's on the main street which, unlike any Arab milieu I've ever seen, is totally without shops. The office staff are friendly, however: there's a director (male) from Hora, a secretary, Aysha, and another social worker, Myriam. But there aren't many clients. This could be because of lack of public transport, but Ghaliya tells me that the main problem with the social aid programme is that it's planned for Jewish Israelis, so that even if, as here, there's a post in a bedouin village, it doesn't offer people things they really need.

We chat a bit They say how isolated they feel, how they long to travel to Arab countries other than Jordan and Egypt. Just contact with someone from another Arab country is exciting. At the same time, they are aware of Arab hostility towards them, Israeli Arabs - as collaborators, spies, non-resisters, etc. Nagab is linked up to Internet now but only a very few Palestinians who work in offices, like Ghaliya, have email addresses.

It seems that everyone who lives in 'Arara is from somewhere else. Either they are from other parts of the Nagab (evicted or voluntary migrants); or they are people who came to Nagab before 1948 from other areas, who were protected by, and worked for, the Abu Grinat tribe. After 1948, the people from here were transferred to Tell al-Milleh. When Tell al-Milleh was taken over for a military airport (after the 1967 war), they were transferred again, this time to 'Arara. The transfer was sweetened by the promise that they would be allowed to work (though not own) the land to the east of 'Arara. In addition, when they first came, each family was given one dunum on which to build. But now if anyone wants land to build on, they have to buy it. Many young men can't afford to marry.

Aysha offers to take me to record with her mother, Umm Taleb, who is one of those displaced from Tell al-Milleh in 1967. I find a large compound with three solid houses built around it and a large black tented 'shigg' in the middle. Umm Taleb's sister-in-law, Umm Hatem, is visiting. She says she is also ready to record.

It's a jolly session. In spite of the 'chronicles of woe' that both mothers narrate, there is a certain sense of well-being here that has been lacking in every Nagab household I've entered up to now. Both mothers have quite a lot of gold on their hands, wrists, and necks.

Umm Taleb tells me as if in introduction, before we start recording, that her husband has just taken a second wife. Also that she's bringing up her daughter's daughter (probably this means that the daughter is divorced). When she finishes her story - one of Israeli deception rather than forcible migration - Umm Hatem records a similar story. Both talk about how good life was before, in tents, compared with now, when they have to pay for everything. It's the downside of colonial capitalism.

Umm Taleb speaks first:
"In the beginning, before we left, someone came who was a bit (bzekeen?) and grey-haired. He said, 'You are good people, we want to take you to the town'. We didn't know the difficulties we would face there. The water costs money, electricity costs money, there's the 'magrash' (municipal tax?)...[He said] 'They will make you schools and it will all be free, the schools will be free, medical treatment will be free' - this is what they were telling us at the beginning, when they moved us. At that time we didn't know what losses we would have in the town. So we moved. (When? What was the name of your village?) It was called Buhayra. We moved here thinking that everything would be free, as it used to be in our village. But when we moved here everything costs money. Medical treatment needs money, electricity needs money, for the kids to get educated we have to pay taxes. We came, we couldn't bear it - we're used to space, we're used to open land in our home. It was better than this. Here we are all on top of one another. Problems happen. Here a neighbour can't move away from his neighbour if a problem occurs between them. He's obliged to stay. He has to bear frustration, he has to bear the children and their noise. When

we were on our own land, before, when anyone in the family quarreled, we would leave, we would pull down the house. We'd take it down, we'd fold it and put it on camels"

Umm Hatem speaks:
"We were living in the home we had before this home, the home of our parents, and of our ancestors. They told us, 'You have to leave because we're going to make an airport'. They told us, 'Go to the town. You will develop, you will live in castles, you'll be going up in the world. You'll have everything - electricity, water'. Before we didn't have electricity or water. It's true that in the town we developed, but life is difficult. Water costs money, houses cost money. Electricity costs money, everything in life costs money. Our children got educated, but the cost of education was expensive. The land was expensive. They gave us one dunum of land, it wasn't enough to raise children. What shall I tell you? Life here is difficult. It's true that there's development, but it's hard. (What are your first memories?) The first thing I remember? I was small. We had sheep. We used to look after the sheep, we'd go with them so that they'd eat. We'd milk them, we made 'leban', we made 'semneh', milk. We had lambs. Life was good, everything was free. But now everything costs money. (You married there?) Yes, I got married there. (You had children when you came here?)Yes, I had two children. We had a house of iron, zinco. Before we were living in a tent. Here we built a hut made from zinco. My mother told me when she gave birth to me we were living in a tent. But then later we built a house of zinco. When I grew up and married, his family lived in a hut like us"

After recording is finished, it's nearly midday. I've had no coffee, no breakfast. Desperately I ask Aysha if there's somewhere nearby where I can buy a sandwich; Umm Taleb hears me and within minutes her daughters are serving up a brunch.

Ghaliya and Myriam come to fetch me around midday. As I get into the car, Umm Taleb's grand daughter tries to get in too. Umm Taleb snatches her away, and Umm Hatem hits her quite ferociously with a piece of cardboard. She's a waif of possibly six years old who looks uncared for and unhappy. It's a revealing sight that makes me realize why orphans are so pitied by Arabs generally.

I get back to Lakiya in the late afternoon, after more than an hour spent on the autoroute waiting for a 'transit' (minibus). By now I'm beginning to realize that my original aim of regional coverage is a complete delusion. Each Nagab locality is so specific and so complex in terms of internal heterogeneity, political status, and negotiating position vis--vis the authorities that there's no way I can 'represent' the whole. The nine days I've spent here have shown the success of the Israeli system in fragmenting the Nagab community more deeply than 'tribalism' ever did, through differentiating between groups in terms of calibrated deprivation of status, shelter rights, services, etc. Palestinian Israeli sociologist Andre Mazawi uses the term 'mincer' to describe what is being done to them. It would take me a year - maybe more - to construct a 'representative' sample of speakers.

I decide to make a last attempt to reach Fadhiya Abu Ghurood, and then move on to Jaffa and the rest of 'Israel'/'Palestine'.

Various plans are made and fall through, one of them being to meet Fadhiya at Bir Sabaa's Thursday market, and go back with her to her home in Bir Hadaj, in a part of Nagab where few outsiders ever penetrate. Finally a man Hassan knows from Bir Hadaj locality promises me that she will wait for me at home on Thursday. Hassan finds a driver in Lakiya who undertakes to drive me to Bir Hadaj, find Fadhiya's home, wait while we record, and then take me to Bir Sab'a bus station, all for 200 shekels ($50).