2.5 Million Syrian Refugees in Saudi Arabia? A Question

I'm very busy with our Fall issue but want to address one question I haven't seen discussed very much.

There has been a lot of discussion about the fact (or factoid) that the GCC states have not accepted Syrian refugees, unlike other Arab neighbors. Some of the criticism has been fair, and some unfair, such as posting photos of the Saudi tent city for Hajj pilgrims and saying these tents are standing empty. Since the Hajj is next week I'm sure they're filling up fast.

Several days ago (on September 11 to be exact), the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs insisted that not only was it hosting Syrian refugees, but that it was hosting no fewer than 2.5 million. The statement, posted by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, can be found here.

Part of it reads:

1. The Kingdom has received around 2.5 million Syrians since the beginning of the conflict. In order to ensure their dignity and safety, the Kingdom adopted the policy not to treat them as refugees or place them in refugee camps. They have been given the freedom to move about the country, and those who wish to remain in Saudi Arabia (some hundreds of thousands) have been given legal residency status like the remaining residents. Their residency comes with the rights to receive free medical care, to join the labor market and to attend schools and universities. This was contained in a royal decree in 2012 that instructed public schools to accept Syrian students. According to government statistics, the public school system has accepted more than 100,000 Syrian students.

Pro-Saudi apologists have touted this and critics of the Kingdom have expressed questions, but hardly anyone has raised an issue of who, exactly, these Syrians may be.

Northwestern Saudi Arabia is still a largely tribal area, with significant portions of the non-urban population either true nomads or transhumants who shift their livestock between summer and winter pasture.  These tribes are trans-national and sometimes have dual nationality if their winter and summer camps are on opposite sides of the boundary lines drawn with a straightedge ruler at the end of World War I. Unless there is a suspicion of a security threat, the nation-states rarely interfere with the semi-nomadic lifestyle that has persisted since ancient times.

One of the best known of these is the large tribal confederation of the Shammar, who may number as many as four million and are found in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. The Arabian branch of the Shammar, under the Rashid ruling family, were once the main rivals to the House of Saud.

Other big tribes that transcend borders are the ‘Anayza confederation, with multiple large subtribes including the important Ruwalla in Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia,

The true nomadic and seasonal transhumant elements among these tribes have routinely crossed map boundaries with near impunity. So my question is: what proportion of the Syrian refugees in Saudi Arabia are Bedouin who simply moved across the border to escape the war in Syria by joining their tribal kin in Saudi Arabia, or perhaps even migrating to their seasonal grazing pastures?

I'm not sure it matters, and bravo to the Saudis for accepting them, but most of the responses to the Saudi statement haven't noted this aspect.

Sinai's Growing Anarchy: A Challenge for Both Egypt and Israel

On Sunday, person or persons unknown blew up the natural gas pipeline in northern Sinai that carries Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan. If that news sounds familiar, it's because this is the 12th time the same pipeline has been blown up since the fall of Husni Mubarak a year ago.

The supply of natural gas to Israel is controversial of course, though the attacks also disrupt Jordan's gas supply.

Also in the past month, we have seen Sinai bedouins take over a resort complex south of Taba, Aqua Sun,  (though there were no tourists present at the time) in a dispute over land: the Egyptian military,citing restrictions placed on the militarization of the border area in the peace treaty with Israel, did not act. Other bedouin groups kidnapped 25 Chinese workers, though they were released after a day; and two American tourists were briefly held, though they praised their captors' politeness and hospitality.

And that's just the past month. You may recall the serious border incident last August when raiders inside Egyptian Sinai attacked a bus inside Israel en route to Eilat; in an Israeli counterstroke Israel mistakenly killed several Egyptian policemen.

Israel, increasingly concerned about instability and lack of order in Sinai, has begun building a border fence along the border from the Gaza border to the Gulf of Aqaba, something never considered necessary before.

Some of the more heated commentary has tended to portray Sinai as increasingly anarchic, with Israelis worrying it could become a Gaza writ large, a sanctuary from which Hamas or other enemies could target Israel, then fade back into the Sinai desert. Egypt is also concerned of course, but also has a lot on its plate at the moment.

Some background may be in order here: smuggling has been an endemic problem, both smuggling of goods (including automobiles) and human trafficking, especially of African refugees trying to enter Israel. But while nuisances, those did not pose the kind of security challenges we are seeing now.

Many Sinai residents, especially the bedouin tribes, have long complained of neglect from Cairo. Outside of two tourist zones — Saint Catherine's Monastery/Mount Sinai and the strip of beach resorts from Taba to Sharm al-Sheikh — the peninsula is underdeveloped, and the bedouin claim they are mistreated. (The occupation of the Aqua Sun resort was based on a claim that the land on which the resort was built was illegally taken from the tribe.) The restrictions on military deployments in the peace treaty have further weakened security in the eastern strip of Sinai.

Add to this already explosive mix the disappearance of local police throughout much of Egypt during the revolution, including the release of many prisoners. That scandalous release is now generally seen as a last-gasp attempt of the Mubarak regime to create a sense of insecurity; it's believed that at least some of the escaped prisoners faded into Sinai. In addition, police forces have never come back to full strength, adding to the sense that Sinai is increasingly an almost unpoliced area. Although, except for the Aqua Sun occupation, this round of instability has not targeted the "Sinai Riviera" resort strip, it's likely to have an impact on Egypt's already-suffering tourist trade, especially since many Sinai tourists come from Israel, though not in such numbers as was once the case.

The Arabist: Could Sinai Bedouin be Behind Rockets?

First, Issandr at The Arabist gets my attention by linking to one of my headlines (yes, I'm vain), but then he offers some intriguing suggestions about the possible source of the Eilat/Aqaba rockets. (He also tosses in a video of William Shatner singing "Rocketman," which may appeal to those who think Shatner can sing, if they exist, though I gather he's not among them.

Anyway, his question is whether this could somehow be connected with the recent dissidence among the Sinai Bedouin. At first it seems unlikely (why would they attack Eilat and not one of the Egyptian resorts?) but then, this is a complex region and the issues have odd overlaps. He admits it's an "outlier" among possible explanations, but we've had more Bedouin dissent in the last few weeks than in recent memory. Could there be a connection?

Sinai Activist Released

Following the recent confrontations between Egyptian security forces and bedouin in Sinai, the government has released some 69 Sinai bedouin who had been detained, including activist Mosaad Abu Fagr, who had been held for 30 months. Al-Masry al-Youm English has an interview with him here. His description of life in Egyptian prisons is not a pretty one.

Abu Fagr has been the subject of international human rights criticism and the release suggests a new sensitivity to the growing tensions between the security forces (the Interior Ministry) and the Sinai bedouin.

Government-Bedouin Tensions in Egyptian Sinai

Since last weekend or earlier there have been a number of reports about troubles between Egyptian security forces and bedouin in the Sinai. Now Interior Ministry officials have met with bedouin leaders to defuse the tensions, but it's apparently not enough to satisfy the bedouin, who object to government crackdowns on what the government sees as smuggling and the tribes see as a heavy government hand.

I've held off on discussing this because the government-bedouin clashes occurred at the same time as (and perhaps related to) reports of an attempt to attack a gas pipeline to Israel, or perhaps a pipeline carrying gas to Jordan and Syria. The official version seems to be that someone set fire to vehicles near the pipeline, though other reports suggested it was actually blown up.

Relations with the Sinai bedouin have been rendered even touchier by the heavy Egyptian security effort to prevent terrorist infiltration aimed at attacking Israeli tourists visiting Egypt's "Sinai riviera."