Part of Israel's green space? On the contrary (5)
I believe the answer is:
negev
'part of israel's' is the definition.
('Negev' is part of 'israel')
'green space? on the contrary' is the wordplay.
'green' becomes 'veg' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'space?' becomes 'en'.
'on the contrary' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (letters in the opposite or contrary direction).
'veg'+'en'='vegen'
'vegen' reversed gives 'NEGEV'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for negev that I've seen before include "Wilderness" , "part of Israel" , "Southern Israeli desert" , "Israeli desert area abutting Sinai" , "Desert region in Israel" .)