The Sinai: a strategic territory under tension
p. 26-27
Texte intégral
| 1869 | 1967-1982 | 1979 | 1996 | 2018 |
| Opening of the Suez Canal | Israeli occupation | Return of Taba to Egypt by the ICJ | Sharm al-Sheikh “Summit of Peacemakers” | Antiterrorist operations in the Sinai 2018 |
1The Sinai desert was historically the frontier territory between Egypt, Bilad al-Sham and Arabia, a transit zone which until the 19th century was crossed by the pilgrimage caravan route to Mecca: control by the central power was then only partial. All that would change with the opening of the Suez Canal, which invested the peninsula with strategic importance. The British explored the region, reinforced its administration and, in 1906, imposed a border with the Ottoman Empire between Taba and Rafah. These two lines, the canal and the frontier signalled the appropriation of the Sinai. In 1911, a law established the administrative and legal organisation of the peninsula. Roads were laid out, communication lines installed, localities and military posts developed. Links were made with the Bedouin through the recognition of customary laws.
2In 1917, the newly formed Frontier Districts Administration underlined Ottoman defeat and British ascendency. The Sinai maintained its role as the bridge between Africa and Asia with the Palestine railway line: during the inter-war period Haifa and Jerusalem could be reached from Cairo in one day.
Caught in the middle of the Arab-Israeli conflict
3The first Arab-Israeli war (1948-1949) highlighted the defensive role of the Sinai and served to reduce east-west lines of communication. Until 1967 Egypt administered the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians found refuge in the Sinai, especially in the Rafah camp. Although the Sinai was invaded in 1956 by the Israeli army, it was the Six Day War (1967) that really turned the region upside down with the military occupation, agricultural developments in the north-east, tourist villages on the Gulf of Aqaba, and Jewish settlements. Oil wells in the Gulf of Suez supplied Israeli needs. Part of the population of Sinai took refuge on the west bank of the canal. The Bedouins were expropriated: some of them found employment with the Israelis, which has led to ongoing lawsuits for disloyalty brought by the Egyptian State. Sovereignty was regained in 1982 after the Camp David Accords and the territory was partially demilitarised with a multinational force (MFO) being deployed to maintain the peace. In 1979, the governorates of North and South Sinai were established by decree.
1.8 Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin, Camp David, 1978

© Bibliotheca Alexandrina
A grey zone
4The return to the national fold was accompanied by nationalist rhetoric that elevated the Sinai into a sacred cause. An increase in population was seen as the best rampart against Israel, and development projects, especially tourist related, were launched. The boom in tourism in the 1990s and 2000s was supported by the migration of labour from the Nile Valley and was of little benefit to the natives of the region. The marginalisation of the locals and the worsening regional situation with the second intifada (2000) followed by the Israeli blockade of Gaza (2007) led to a rise in smuggling and a deterioration in security. A series of attacks on seaside resorts in the south since 2004 were followed by thousands of arrests and repressive measures that were felt like collective punishment. The economic consequences were dramatic for the Bedouin who had organised desert safaris. Alongside the cultivation of opium poppies and cannabis (bango), much prized by tourists at Dahab, the peninsula is home to trafficking of various types: arms, Sub-Saharan migrants to Israel, medicines and general consumer goods.
1.9 The geopolitics of Sinai

The intensification of violence
5Since 2011 the North Sinai gas pipeline running to Israel has been the target of attacks, which have extended to the Egyptian army and police. The insurrection is part of a wider international jihadist movement: in 2014 Ansar Beit al-Maqdis became Wilayat Sinai after swearing allegiance to the Islamic State group, and claimed responsibility for the 2014 bombing of a Russian charter flight. The insecurity led the Israelis to complete a border barrier. On the Egyptian side, a sort of stalemate prevailed in the face of an insurrection supplied with foreign fighters and military equipment from Libya and Iran.
6Since 2013, the “war on terrorism” decreed by President Sisi has been used to justify the repression of all opposition, and this has been answered by greatly increased violence on the part of the jihadist groups. The population, caught between a rock and a hard place, has had to suffer clashes and confrontations especially in North Sinai, with forced displacement and the demolition of houses around Rafah. The atmosphere of consensus that the peninsula embodied after 1979 has shattered. The Sinai is now the site of a civil war, is partly outside State control, under a news blackout, and a place where abuses are committed
Auteur
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Olivier Sanmartin
Olivier Sanmartin, lecturer in geography, department of information-communication, IUT / University of Tours, CITERES-EMAM
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