Sinai: The New Frontier of Conflict?

On November 16, 2011, Ehud Yaari and Normand St. Pierre addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Yaari is a Lafer international fellow with the Institute and a Middle East commentator for Israel's Channel Two television. Col. St. Pierre, a thirty-one-year veteran of the U.S. Army, retired recently after completing service as the Egypt representative of the director-general of the U.S.-led Multinational Force and Observers.

The Sinai Peninsula is becoming increasingly anarchic, endangering the fragile Egyptian-Israeli peace. There are no fences dividing Sinai from Israel's Negev region, nor the Negev from southern Jordan, and local Bedouin barely recognize sovereign borders.

Now, with the governing military council acting almost as an absentee landlord of the Sinai, the thirty or so Bedouin tribes in the central and northern regions have transformed into armed militias. From illicit drug smuggling and human trafficking to large-scale arms deals, these groups have developed elaborate supply networks.

Another new phenomenon that has emerged since the revolution is the proliferation of Salafi jihadist movements among the Bedouin population. Over the past few months, these groups -- as well as Palestinian organizations led by Hamas -- have increasingly engaged in terrorist activities, illicit smuggling through tunnels to Gaza, and attacks on the Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan.

If the current state of affairs in the peninsula is allowed to continue, the Sinai may soon devolve into a terrorist safe haven -- similar to what the Jordan Valley once was for Fatah, and what southern Lebanon currently is for Hizballah.

Watch the videos of the event here: Ehud Yaari Normand St. Pierre Q&A Session

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