Word: bedouin
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...Egyptian is not a label with which Abu Daoud (not his real name) identifies. Many of the Bedouin tribes who populate this mountainous desert region of the northern Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt shares a tense border with Israel and the Gaza Strip, have long been at odds with their government in Cairo. (Watch a video on the tunnel smugglers of the Gaza Strip...
...Bedouin are a historically nomadic people who migrated to Egypt from the Arabian Peninsula centuries ago. Locked out of development projects and tourism investment along Sinai's southern coast, the long-marginalized Bedouin have often been forced to work outside the law to make a living. But over the past two years, some of the tribesmen have prospered as a result of Israel's blockade on Gaza, which has turned smuggling into the territory's economic lifeline - and also a source of weapons for militants...
...smuggling boom may soon be over, as Egypt constructs a subterranean steel wall along the border, designed to cut off the network of tunnels that have kept both Gaza and the Bedouin afloat - a move that will antagonize the tribes in a tinderbox region...
...Bedouin] have made a living out of smuggling between Sinai and Gaza," says Amr Hamzawy, an Egyptian political scientist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Now with the wall and different steps that the government is taking to crack down on tunnels and other smuggling methods, my guess is that [the Bedouin] are going to be impacted heavily, which will mean more tensions between them and the central government." (Read "Entering Gaza: The Hard Way in from Egypt...
...Tonight, we're cheering for Algeria," a smuggler announces as a dozen Bedouin men settle into an arms smuggler's desert mansion to watch Egypt's African Cup of Nations soccer showdown with its fiercest rival. "If a war ever happens between Egypt and Israel, you'll find us taking up arms against the Egyptians," adds another smuggler, Ibrahim. The others concur...