Everyone knows what a “total loss” is: the general loss of a vehicle’s value as the result of an accident, when the vehicle becomes either impossible or impractical to repair and is sent for scrap metal.

It seems that Egypt’s situation today very much resembles a “total loss” situation following a series of accidents and misfortunes that it has experienced over the past two years, since Mubarak was sent to the defendant’s cage. As long as he was in power, the country was functional. And although it did not function well, there was a sort of dictatorial stability. But since he was overthrown nothing works in that dismal country, whose residents number today ninety million. Egypt is like a car with ninety million problems, and to describe it as a “total loss” is to understate the situation.

The problems began on November 11, 2011, with the resignation of President Mubarak after the demonstrations against him degenerated into a state of general chaos, prompting the minister of defense, General Tantawi, to demand that Mubarak step down in order to calm the raging street. Tantawi took the reins of power for half a year, to stabilize the governmental system and then transfer it to the civilian branch, the dictatorial stability of the Mubarak era turned into public chaos with increasingly anarchistic characteristics, despite the fact that the group in power had won the right to rule democratically. It seems that the governmental situation in Egypt will become a new concept in the field of political science: “democratic anarchy” or “anarchistic democracy”.

Despite Egypt’s having a president, an army, police and judicial system, it seems that these components of government do not all function as one system, but rather each one behaves according to it’s own private agenda, as if it exists as a separate country: the public elects a parliament and the court disperses it, the president issues edicts overriding the laws of parliament and the court cancels his edicts, the majority of the public elects a president but large sectors of the public want to get rid of him, an Islamist president is elected but he is forced to manage the state according to laws that contradict Shari’a, the Bedouins in Sinai are citizens of Egypt, but they behave as if Egypt is their enemy.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when seven soldiers were kidnapped in Sinai. The Bedouins kidnapped them in order to pressure the government into freeing some imprisoned Bedouins, and Morsi found himself between a rock and a hard place: if had given in to the Bedouins, thus freeing the soldiers this would have been interpreted – and rightly so – as the state surrendering to a violent group of criminals, and this surrender would have encouraged them as well as other groups to take similar steps to achieve their ends.

In such a situation, when every law breaker can pressure the government to submit to his demands, there is no state. So what can be done? Attack the Bedouins with a large military force? This is problematic because the present government claims to have a religious basis, and how can such a regime kill Muslims?

On Wednesday of this week the seven soldiers were freed healthy and whole after representatives of the army met with heads of the Jabal Halal tribes and warned them that the army would destroy anything that moved in the area. What was promised to the heads of the tribes in exchange for freeing the soldiers was not divulged, but the fact that the government was forced to appease the heads of the tribes proves who is in charge in Sinai.

The government again had to play according to the rules of the desert, where anyone who has a request must close the deal with the tribal heads. The struggle between the state and the Bedouins will continue in the next round, which is just a matter of time. Because the state has not yet freed the Bedouin prisoners accused of terrorist activity, and their liberation was the original reason for kidnapping the seven soldiers.

And this was not the first time that the Bedouins have challenged Morsi’s government: last August they murdered 16 soldiers, and during the past year they attacked a police station and security patrols, and sabotaged the gas pipe that provides Egypt with its livelihood. The Bedouins collaborate with Hamas and there were rumors that the kidnapped soldiers were already in Gaza. The families of the kidnapped soldiers appeared in the media and put pressure on the government to submit to the kidnappers demands, and Morsi had already requested and received religious permission to fight the Bedouins from the Mufti of Egypt. The army wanted to seal the tunnels that connect Sinai with the Gaza Strip, and Morsi feared Hamas’ negative propaganda and Hamas’ big brother, the Emir of Qatar.

Israel’s government on Sunday approved the recommendations of Minister without portfolio Benny Begin to change the program regulating Bedouin settlements in the Negev. The reform is aimed at solving definitively the issue of Bedouin ownership claims on Negev lands, including a compromise proposal of relocation and financial compensation, bringing an end to illegal Bedouin outposts.

In September 2011 the government approved the Praver Report, which determined a layout for regulating Bedouin settlement in the Negev, facilitating expansion of existing settlements and absorption of some communities within Regional Council Abu-Basma, south and west of the “green line.”

Additional settlements will be established as part of the regional master plan for Beer-Sheva.

According to the plan, each settlement will be adjusted to the nature and character of the local population and its needs, and will be executed in cooperation with it.

The plan was accepted with mixed feelings among the Bedouin as well as among right wing critics.

Kalman Libeskind wrote in Ma’ariv about Benny Begin’s “stinking maneuver,” accusing him and Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein of not just confirming through legal registration what has been essentially an illegal land grab of many thousands of acres by the Bedouins over several decades, but also promising them many new settlements to boot.

Libeskind pointed out that while the Weinstein refused to permit the application of the Levy Committee recommendations to apply Israeli law in Judea and Samaria because the government is in a lame duck period – has no duck issue when it comes to giving away enormous swaths of Jewish land to the Bedouins.

The Regavim movement on Friday petitioned the High Court to forbid the government from approving the proposed program at its meeting on Sunday, arguing that Minister Benny Begin will not serve in the next Knesset and so his proposal is a serious case of a last minute grab that should not be sanctioned.

See the related cartoon.

There are Israeli voters making some surprising and rather unexpected choices for political candidates on Tuesday, January 22.

Yair Hizni, who grew up in a settler family in Hebron, is casting his vote for Shelly Yachimovich, the leader of Israel’s Labor Party. Hizni, a teacher who lived in the settlement community of Nokdim in Judea before recently moving to Jerusalem, spoke with Tazpit News Agency about his decision to support Yachimovich.

“It’s less about the political parties and more about who Shelley is for me,” said Hizni.

“I believe that Shelly speaks a language that people can respect – she is a very ethical and honest person,” Hizni told Tazpit News Agency.

“Shelly doesn’t take the typical left-wing stance on certain issues and has the ability to bridge between the different sectors of Israeli society and solve the problems of this country,” he said.

“Take for example, the settlers,” said Hizni. “Shelly is probably one of the few politicians on the left who doesn’t speak with hate against the settlers – as well as the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel – she is someone who wants to talk with these groups. She doesn’t speak with the hatred that has characterized many leftist politicians over the years against the settlers.”

In an interview with Ha’aretz last year, Yachimovich stated that seeing the settlers join Israel’s summer social justice protests made her “unequivocally” happy. “There is a new language, a unifying language, a uniting language,” she stated in the interview.

“But for me,” said Hizni, “Shelly’s stances on economic and domestic issues are just as important. The economy, the weaker sectors of our society – for example, the elderly, Holocaust survivors – also need to be addressed.”

In a country where politics is taken very seriously, Hizni says that his parents, who live in Hebron, found it difficult in the beginning to accept his more liberal perspective.

“In the beginning, they were shocked,” he said laughing. “Politics is very important to them. But now we talk freely about politics and I love the dialogue – even with their right-wing neighbors.”

Another Israeli citizen, Khaled Mazared of Beit Zarzir, in northern Israel, is also looking for an “honest” politician. Mazared is casting his vote for the religious Zionist party, Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home.

A Bedouin who served as Captain in the IDF’s Givati brigade, Mazared believes that Bennett’s “stand on Israel’s security and his commitment to the spirit of the IDF and values of the army and soldiers’ moral is critical.”

For Mazared, who is Muslim, the fact that Bennett is religious and wears a kippa makes him trustworthy. “In the army, I served with men like Bennett, who were religious and had values. I know their word is good, and, based on my army experience, I trust Bennett,” Marazed told Tazpit.

“Bennett speaks in a simple and real way. He says that whoever is loyal to the country deserves to be acknowledged for their service and to be addressed. As a Bedouin, politicians have always made us promises and in the end, they didn’t do anything,” Mazared said.

Bedouin citizens are a minority within the Arab minority in Israel, and make up three percent of Israel’s population. Considered to be semi-nomadic tribes, most Bedouins originally came from Hejaz, a region in the northern Arabian peninsula, and immigrated to Israel between the 14th and 18th century. Some also arrived in Israel from the Syrian desert. Today Israel’s Bedouin tribes are found in the southern, central and northern regions of the country, with a significant number, especially those from northern Israel, serving in the IDF and identifying with the Jewish state.

“Most of my community want to give Bennett a chance – he is new and it seems that he will be able to appreciate the Bedouin people and help us, especially with education, government employment and public transportation. My Bedouin community has always supported politicians like General Raful Eitan and Rehavam Ze’evi in the past, and Bennett seems to follow their path.”

“I hope that Bennett does well on Tuesday,” concluded Marazed. “ I’ve done everything I can to encourage other Bedouins to vote for him.”