The head of the Israeli Ranchers Association, Moshe Har-Shemesh, is convinced that, in any other country in the world, Shai Dromi "would be treated as a national hero." In Israel, Mr. Dromi, a 42-year-old Negev farmer who shot Bedouin intruders in what certainly looks like self defense, has been arrested. Although the original charge of murder has been downgraded to "manslaughter in grave circumstances," possession of an illegal weapon, and causing damage, he is still under house arrest at the home of a friend who lives far from Mr. Dromi’s desert homestead. The Dromi family faces growing mounds of legal bills they cannot afford and which, according to polls, 81 percent of Israelis say never should have been necessary.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have signed petitions demanding Mr. Dromi’s release, and large protests, attracting politicians, farmers, and other concerned citizens, have been held on his behalf. Many of the farmers have held signs proclaiming "We are all Shai Dromi."

Supporters of Mr. Dromi, who shot at Arabs who were clearly coming to rob him (and maybe worse), believe he is the victim of an over-zealous, politically left-wing minded prosecution.

"In fact, the future of all farming in the Negev rests on his fate with the Israeli justice system," said Mr. Dromi’s brother, Amir, who was in the US last month to raise money not only for his brother’s defense, but also to help him survive in the Negev once he is freed.

On January 13, 2007, at 3 am, four Bedouin thieves broke into Shai Dromi’s farm, located outside Meitar, northeast of Beersheva and just south of the southern border of Judea and the Hebron area. The farm is at the end of a long dirt road, just south of the Green Line on the pre-1967 side of the partition fence, in the area considered to be the heart of the Israeli and global consensus.

Led by Khaled Atrash, 31, one of the most notorious thieves in the region who just one month earlier had completed a four-year prison term for car and agricultural theft, the Arab intruders poisoned Mr. Dromi’s guard dogs before moving on his sheep pen.

According to Amir Dromi, who is also a farmer in a small valley in Judea, it was at least the eighth time in the past 20 years that his brother, Shai, had experienced a robbery. Just two weeks earlier, Bedouin thieves had broken into Shai Dromi’s farm, poisoned five of his dogs, and made off with a tractor.

To save his farm, Amir Dromi built a makeshift room in his sheep pen so that he could sleep there to prevent further thefts.

On Jan 13, he was awakened by the sound of his new guard dog’s dying howls. When he saw his dog vomiting and then spotted wire cutters, clearly intended to break the lock on his sheep pen, he understood what was happening.

"The robbers had heard him and were hiding. At that point, Shai didn’t know if they had run off or were still on his farm," said Amir Dromi.

According to Amir Dromi, his brother hid himself for 30 minutes, and then, once again, heard the wire cutters working on the lock. Having no idea whether or not the intruders were armed, Shai Dromi grabbed an old .22 caliber rifle his late father had brought with him when he immigrated from the US, and shot at the thieves’ legs.

Two of the would-be robbers escaped, and two were injured, one critically. Mr. Dromi had hit an artery in Mr. Atrash’s leg, and although the farmer immediately called for medical assistance as well as the police, and tried to administer first-aid himself, Mr. Atrash died of his wound.

"When the police came, Shai expected them to help him. Instead, to his disbelief, they arrested him," said Amir Dromi.

According to Israeli criminal law, no one can be held criminally liable for an act that was immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful attack involving clear danger to life, liberty, body harm, or property.

Shai Dromi’s supporters believe there is no clearer case of self-defense than his. In all the times he was robbed, the police never arrested any suspects, a situation duplicated throughout the Negev, according to the Israeli Cattle Breeders Association.

The association said that, in 2006, there was a 236 percent increase in cattle rustling over the previous year, most of it in the Negev. The overwhelming majority of the agricultural theft—of livestock, trees, greenhouses, and equipment—is carried out by Bedouin gangs.

Chaim Dayan, who heads the Association of Israeli Beef Cultivators, said that, in the last two years, 4,326 animals have been stolen from Israeli farmers by Arab thieves.

"Cows, heifers, and sheep—about $7.5 million worth of damage," he said, adding that most of the culprits have been Bedouins in the north and south of the country.

According to Pini Badash, head of the Omer Regional Council, if residents of Dimona travel to Beersheva after dark, they do so in five-car convoys, hoping in that way to avoid Bedouin highway robbers. During the day, he said, the Dimona residents travel in armored buses.

"While the Bedouin make up only 10-15 percent of the Negev’s population, they account for approximately 60 percent of the crime in the region," said Mr. Badash.

Moti Zena, the security officer for the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council, said the Bedouin smuggle weapons, drugs, women, and goods from Egypt. Some of the weapons, he said, are used by the Bedouin themselves, and the rest are smuggled to terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria.

Mr. Zena, who lives in Eshelim, recalled his trip to Beersheva erev Rosh Hashana with his family. On the way, he said, stones were hurled at his car, hitting the front windshield.

"These are daily incidents, and in the rural sections of the Negev, there are no police," he said.

He said there is no intersection in Ramat HaNegev from which streetlight cables have not been stolen. Major companies, such as the Mekorot Water Company, the Israel Electric Company, and the cellular firms, protect their property with private security guards. Even so, said Mr. Zena, the Bedouin manage to steal water, diesel fuel, generators, transformers, and antennas.

Recently, he said, a number of thieves who were apprehended by professional security officers were let off with a fine of less than $750.

According to Mr. Dayan, the Israeli government is hesitant to confront Bedouin crime families who often have political influence and connections in the IDF.

"They constitute what is openly referred to as a mafia in Beersheva and other southern areas," said Mr. Dayan.

And mafia-like, some of the Bedouin now charge private farmers "protection money," which some pay in order to survive.

Israeli police claim that a lack of manpower is responsible for their failure to protect the lives and property of the Negev farmers. But, according to Jerusalem Post columnist Carolyn Glick, many officers say they are afraid to enforce Israeli law for fear of being accused of anti-Bedouin or anti-Arab prejudice. Prosecutors and judges, she said, are wary of prosecuting or convicting Bedouin Arabs for fear of revenge attacks against themselves and their families.

"The powers-that-be in Israel simply don’t want the Bedouin to riot. They want quiet. It’s sick. Shai is a hero and they are persecuting him," said Amir Dromi.

David Raat, a farmer from Moshav Nir Bonim who is one of Shai Dromi’s many supporters, said the police have openly surrendered when it comes to Israeli-Arab criminals.

"They don’t come and don’t help. Nothing. Sometimes they file a report, but no more. And if we ourselves catch the thieves and take them to the police, they go through a revolving door and are immediately released," he said.

The indictment against Mr. Dromi seems to recognize the farmers’ situation. The indictment emphasizes that "the State Prosecution is not dealing with the obligations of the police regarding law enforcement in the area, nor with the [predicament] of the farmers in the Negev—but only with the circumstances of this specific case."

Shmulik Rifman, head of the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council, accused the police of "over-zealousness in order to cover up for their own failures in suppressing crime."

Amir Dromi’s characterization of his brother as a hero was endorsed by Mr. Badash, who announced last month that the level of crime against Jewish farmers in his region has been drastically reduced since the incident at the Dromi farm. He credited Shai Dromi’s act of self-defense and criticized police inaction.

"One man succeeded in doing more than the entire police force," said Mr. Badash.

The Israeli public seems to agree. According to a Dahaf poll published in Ha’aretz, 81 percent of Israeli Jews say Shai Dromi was correct to shoot at the burglars who broke into his home; 65 percent said the state was not justified to put Mr. Dromi on trial; and 87 percent said residents and farmers in the Negev cannot rely on the Israeli police to protect them from the area’s many incidents of crime.

Amir Dromi has no doubt that the case against his brother is politically motivated. The State Attorney in the case is Eran Shendar, the former treasurer of the radical left-wing Peace Now organization. The chief prosecutor in the southern region is Iska Leibowitz, daughter of the late Prof Yeshayahu Leibowitz, one of the ideological founders of the radical Left in Israel and the earliest prominent purveyor of the comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany.

Ms. Leibowitz’s nephew, attorney Shamai Leibowitz, defended Fatah terror chief Marwan Barghouti in his multiple murder trial. More recently, Mr. Leibowitz toured the US asking Americans to divest funds from Israel.

"Iska Leibowitz’s colleagues state forthrightly that she shares her family’s political views," said Ms. Glick.

Ms. Glick did not argue with Shai Dromi, who reportedly said at his remand hearing, "I think the writing was on the wall. The reality is in our country is known. We have no personal security here."

Mr. Dromi spent two months in jail before he was released to home arrest in March.

Among Mr. Dromi’s supporters is Likud MK Yisrael Katz, a former agricultural minister, who tried unsuccessfully to convince Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz not to indict Mr. Dromi.

Mr. Katz, supported by MKs Yitzhak Aharonovitch (Yisrael Beiteinu) and Zvi Hendel (NU/NRP), then submitted a new bill, which has already been passed by the Knesset in preliminary readings, stipulating that all opposition by a person against a criminal who breaks into his home or property will be considered self-defense, even if the would-be criminal is killed.

The proposed statute is pretty much in line with Torah law which stipulates that if a thief, in the midst of a break-in, is "smitten that he die," the killer will not be liable. An exception would be only if it is "as clear as the sun" that the burglar means no physical harm. Mr. Katz’s bill says the very act of breaking-in is sufficient.

"Citizens feel threatened and insecure in their own homes while the criminals openly mock the law. This must be changed," said Mr. Katz, who resides who resides in Moshav Kfar Achim near Kiryat Malachi and Ashkelon. His area, too, has been subjected to a rash of agricultural thefts.

Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, who was appointed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last February, said he opposed the "language" of Mr. Katz’s bill because it does not require property owners to justify their response to burglars. Mr. Friedmann asked the legislators to postpone proposing the new bill, a request they promptly ignored.

Close to 100 mayors and local authority heads have signed petitions signaling their support for the bill.

According to Mr. Rifman, the bill is necessary because the situation has reached the point of "helplessness and frustration."

"These are Bedouin gangs, cooperating with terrorist gangs from the Southern Hebron Hills areas, such as Yata and Hebron, and they stop at nothing," he said, adding that Mr. Dromi’s case did not surprise him.

Mr. Rifman, who also chairs the regional councils’ umbrella organization, said he has spoken several times to Minister of Public Security Avi Dichter about the situation, but, he said, he has gotten nowhere.

Well before the Dromi incident occurred, Mr. Rifman warned Mr. Dichter that, by their neglect, Israeli officials were leading Negev residents to "a situation of loss of control."

Among Mr. Rifman’s recommendations was, in the absence of police or law enforcement, farmers should be officially enabled "to strike at those who trespass on their property to steal livestock and agricultural produce and equipment."

A resident of Kibbutz Revivim in the Negev, Mr. Rifman said that, on his kibbutz alone, Bedouin thieves have uprooted some 300 olive trees and stolen dozens of calves and pieces of agricultural equipment.

More than a decade ago, several Bedouin families set up tents near the kibbutz, and the Jews, apparently for humanitarian reasons, did not rush to expel them, assuming that, when the grazing season was over, the Arabs would move on. Instead, more Bedouin families came and, today, the encampment is a town with a population of more than 6,000.

Like other towns in the Negev that sprouted in similar fashion, the former encampment has developed a culture of poverty, drug use and trafficking, and theft.

If the situation continues, said Mr. Rifman, Israel will lose the Negev, an area to which many Jewish organizations have transferred funds that once went to settlement building in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

At one of the demonstrations on behalf of Shai Dromi, National Union MK Dr. Aryeh Eldad said he viewed the case with personal disappointment.

"I had hoped that a silver lining of the Disengagement/Expulsion-from-Gaza was that those who supported it would at least try to hold strong to other areas of the Land of Israel, such as the Negev and the Galilee, but I have been disappointed. We see that those who are willing to relinquish one part of the Land of Israel have no problem giving up other parts as well," he said.

Shai Dromi first became a farmer 25 years ago when Amir Dromi and his wife began their organic farm in the Judean Hills, raising goats, herbs, and fruit and olive trees.

After five years, Shai Dromi left Judea to begin his own farm in the Negev, where he raises sheep, fruit trees, and large fields of wheat.

While Amir Dromi said that, over the years, he has had some trouble with Arab thieves, the problem in Judea and Samaria pales when compared to the situation in the Negev. Mr. Dromi said the Bedouins have combined forces with Palestinian Arabs.

"The Bedouins steal from the farmers and then pass on their stolen goods and livestock to Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, where the animals are often slaughtered," said Amir Dromi.

According to Amir Dromi, the Arabs’ objective is two-fold: to realize easy money and to discourage Jews from even considering farming in the Negev.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Ms. Glick said that farmers such as Shai Dromi are the main obstacle preventing the Bedouin from taking over the Negev and connecting "a lawless, ungoverned southern Israel to Gaza, Sinai, and Judea."

"As a result, there is both an irredentist political motivation as well as a criminal intent to the constant harassment of Negev farmers," she wrote.

"They want the Jews to leave and allow the Bedouins to take over the land," said Amir Dromi.

Over the years, Shai Dromi has been robbed of more than 500 sheep and at least two tractors. Bedouins have stolen his horses and large flocks of geese.

"They come at night to steal the horses and geese, because geese do not fly at night," said Amir Dromi.

Amir Dromi said the Arabs who attacked his brother’s farm knew exactly where they were going and whom they intended to rob or kill. After Shai Dromi shot Mr. Atrash, the Bedouin thief called out to him by name. "Shai didn’t know Atrash, but Atrash must clearly have robbed from him before," said Amir Dromi.

Born of American parents who immigrated to Israel as teenagers, Amir Dromi was born in Beersheva, where his parents resided on a kibbutz. His brother, Shai, was born in New York when his parents returned for a short while to the US.

Besides their profession, the two brothers are quite different. Amir Dromi is observant, married, and the father of seven children. Shai Dromi is secular and, with his girlfriend who resides on a neighboring kibbutz, the parent of a one-year-old boy.

After Shai Dromi’s arrest, the entire family rallied together to save the farm. Their 75-year-old mother, Mira Dromi, who has lived for many years on the farm with her son, Shai, gave up working in her clothing and gift shop in Beersheva to run the farm along with three young men who had been sent by Israeli social workers. According to Amir Dromi, his brother volunteers to help at-risk Israeli teenagers escape poor environments, especially in the cities, to work on the farm.

Amir Dromi’s 15-year-old daughter, Hadas, also came to help out.

"The real surprise has been my mother. We’d been treating her like an old lady, but she has really come through and shown her stripes," said Amir Dromi.

Mrs. Dromi said her son’s arrest did not surprise her, but the ""rigor with which they tried to make a case of it" did.

"They said he is dangerous when the real issue seems to be the impotency of the government and its various arms in dealing with the reality here," she said.

She recalled that when her son, Shai, first built the farm, he was without electricity, telephones, decent roads, or subsidies. "He came out here in order to live in harmony with nature," she said, calling his life on the farm "a slow painful process where you forego simple comforts in order to buy just one more sheep and then one more sheep after that."

Each robbery, she said, was a severe blow. When he was robbed six years ago, he had finally managed to amass a good-sized herd of 300 sheep, the number which she said was necessary for the farm to be financially viable.

When the whole herd was stolen, Mrs. Dromi thought her son would be broken. "But he just started again," she said.

On another occasion, she said, when fortunately her son was in Beersheva for the night, Bedouins burned his entire house "to a cinder, with everything in it."

Now the herd totals 150 sheep, all striped blue to help identify them in case of theft.

And the farm finally has electricity because a resident from the Jordan Valley who heard about the family’s current troubles looked them up in the phone book, asked what he could do to help, and brought over a generator.

Other volunteers have come to the farm to shoulder the responsibility of guard duty and other farm chores. Right after the arrest, the police stationed an officer at the farm, but, after a few weeks, cut it back sharply.

But the Dromis are not too worried about retribution. Mrs. Dromi said local Bedouin have told her they believe the thief "got what he had coming."

According to Mrs. Dromi and her son, Amir, the family has received expressions of support from throughout the country. "From kibbutzim, city dwellers, people from the Golan—really all over," said Mrs. Dromi.

Some of the support has been financial. The Shaar HaNegev Regional Council along with associations representing Israeli farmers, ranchers, and livestock breeders are all raising money, a campaign which opened with a booth at the annual breeding-cow auction held in the Jezreel Valley.

Amir Dromi has arranged with the Honenu organization to collect tax-deductible funds in the US. He is hoping donations will cover not only legal expenses, but some help for the farm once his brother is released. Chief on his list is electric fencing and a salary for guards so that his brother will not have to stay up every night by himself.

Those wishing to donate can send checks, payable to Honenu and earmarked "For the Shai Dromi Defense Fund," to Honenu, 8204 Lefferts Blvd, Suite 381, Kew Gardens, NY 11415. The phone number is 718-441-7300.

The Dromis said Shai Dromi is doing well considering the circumstances. "He believes in himself," said his mother. "The most frustrating part for him is that he is not involved in running the farm. We can’t call him to consult on where we should put this tree or what we should to that sheep."

Mrs. Dromi said she recognizes that her son has become a symbol, especially in light of the many members of government who are under investigation for real criminal activity and corruption. "For many people, Shai’s case is the litmus test of the Israeli justice system," said his mother.

She said whatever happens, neither she nor her family will leave the country or give up hope for eventual justice.

"It will still be my Israel, for better or worse, but they would be missing the mark. When the victim has to pay the price, the criminals will soon be out to operate again," said Mrs. Dromi.

Amir Dromi agreed, saying that despite the troubles, he was determined to fight for the land he loves and thankful that his brother had shot the thieves.

"If Shai had not been armed, I would have been attending funerals instead of protests. It is better to pay $100,000 for a lawyer to defend my brother than $50 to put flowers on his grave. He did the best he could to save his and my mother’s lives," said Amir Dromi.