Identity and Nation: Comparing Egyptian and Israeli Bedouin Policy

Abstract

In many ways, the Egyptian and Israeli states fail to ‘see’ the Bedouin and therefore situate them as a group “in but not of the global order,” an order where nations and states represent contingent identities and socio-political organizations. However, the Bedouin are not legally recognized as a distinct nation nor as indigenous peoples in neither Egypt nor Israel, and Egyptian Nationalism and Zionism reject the Bedouin as part of their nation, or ‘imagined community.’ This concept of nationalism strongly influences policy, and as a result, leads to the discrimination of the Bedouin through internal colonial policies, land seizure, suspension of human rights, and exclusionary economic policy. Despite Egypt and Israel’s different political systems, the outcome for the Bedouin in both countries is remarkably similar.