What to do with Egypt's wanderers

In recent years, a number of bombings have occurred at the resort towns of Sharm el Sheikh, Dahab, and Taba — which the government has blamed on Bedouin unrest.

There are more than 30 Bedouin tribes on the Sinai, Jaber Jawarky said, and they regularly squabble with each other over land, economic issues, and the scarcest of resources: water.

But relations between the Bedouins and the Mubarak regime have entered a new and potentially dangerous chapter that threatens not only domestic peace but also regional politics.

“Most recently, the Bedouins have developed interest around the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Kazziha said. “A kind of commercial relationship has flourished since the siege on Gaza.”

This commercial relationship has been the flourishing cross-border trade that the Bedouins have conducted through smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. With Egypt's Gaza border crossing officially closed, Gazans have relied on a network of smuggling tunnels to import food, water and fuel.

On the Egyptian side of the border, Bedouins have been largely spearheading the lucrative effort.

But Israel agreed to a cease-fire in its latest war with Hamas, in part because it received assurances from the Egyptian government that the tunnels, which are often used to import weapons, would be closed.

In its fight against the tunnels, the Egyptian government has taken a more active role in Bedouin politics, often imposing its own candidates for elected office or inserting itself in inter-tribal disputes.

“Bedouins are used to their own way of life,” Kazziha said, “and every once in a while, the government mismanages them. They send police and military to handle a problem that is cultural and political.”

The Egyptian government must make do with limited resources. The Camp David Accords dictated that the military may only have a troop presence of 350 soldiers along the Egypt-Israel border (that also includes Gaza). That number was later revised upwards to 750.

Some political analysts believe, more conspiratorially, that stirring up trouble with the Bedouins may be an Egyptian government ploy to make a case for more troops.

“The conflict with the Bedouins might become a pretext for the Egyptian government to send more troops in,” Kazziha said.

If this really is the aim of the Egyptian government, its conflict with the Bedouins may continue to grow in the coming months.

“Tension has always existed, but it was always manageable,” Kazziha said. “It's now starting to be threatening.”

More GlobalPost Dispatches on Egypt:

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