The Poetics of Military Occupation : Mzeina Allegories of Bedouin Identity Under Israeli and Egyptian Rule

The romantic, nineteenth-century image of the Bedouin as fierce, independent nomads on camelback racing across an endless desert persists in the West. Yet since the era of Ottoman rule, the Mzeina Bedouin of the South Sinai desert have lived under foreign occupation. For the last forty years Bedouin land has been a political football, tossed back and forth between Israel and Egypt at least five times. CONTENTS NOTE TO TRANSLITERATION 1. THE POETICS OF MILITARY OCCUPATION 2. BEDOUIN IN LIMBO, OR DEVELOPERS OBSERVED 3. THE SHEIKH 4. THE MADWOMAN 5. THE EX-SMUGGLER 6. THE OLD WOMAN 7. THE FOOL 8. THE SYMBOLIC BATTLE COORDINATOR 9. THE ONE WHO WRITE! US INTERLUDE 10. WHEN IDENTITY BECOMES ALLEGORY NOTES GLOSSARY OF ARABIC TERMS REFERENCES ACKNOWLEDGMENT! INDEX