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lost the January 2006 elections to Hamas, which seized the territory completely in June 2007
and expelled the PA. Israel also dismantled several settlements in the northern West Bank as
part of its August 2005 peace gesture.
Given the failure of negotiations, Israel was left in control of the Golan Heights, east Jeru-
salem, and part of the West Bank.
Borders in Israeli Life, Politics, and Society
Since the 1967 war, border questions have played an important role in Israeli debates over
the Israeli-Arab and Israel-Palestinian confl icts and any possible solutions. The proposals and
arguments have shifted over time. Prior to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, for example, Minister
of Defense Moshe Dayan said that control over Sharm al-Shaykh — the area of Egyptian Sinai
territory on the Red Sea coast where Egypt had blocked shipping to Eilat —was more impor-
tant than peace with Egypt. But when Egypt actually offered a deal in 1979, Dayan quickly
supported it.
The basic strategic argument was between those from the center to the left, who argued
that trading land for peace could end the confl ict, and those from the center to the right, who
said that the Palestinians would not make peace at all. This exchange remained abstract until
the 1993 -2000 peace process put it to the test. After the 1967 war and before the 1993 start of
the Oslo peace process, east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and small parts of the West Bank
topped the keep-it list for those left of center; those right of center added much of the West
Bank. At the bottom of both lists were the Gaza Strip — from which Israel withdrew partly in
1994 and completely in 2005 — and, last of all, the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel left in the 1979
peace agreement with Egypt. Meanwhile, during the 1970s and 1980s, those in the right-wing
Gush Emunim movement argued that settling the West Bank would bring religious redemp-
tion as well as enhance Israel's security.
A common view was that the 1967 frontiers were inherently indefensible. The Golan Heights
gave Syria a huge strategic advantage; the West Bank hill country gave Jordan or any Palestin-
ian state established there a similar advantage. The narrowness of the country meant that it
could easily be sliced in two, and the narrowness of the Jerusalem Corridor made it easy to cut
off that city from the rest of the country. With full peace and no confl ict, these issues would not
matter, but what if stability and peace did not prevail?
Another relevant factor was that virtually all of the largest post-1967 settlements were at
strategic locations very close to Israel's Green Line — like the Gush Etzion bloc, a group of
reestablished pre-1948 Jewish villages, and Ma'ale Adumim, a large town just outside Jerusa-
lem. This led to the argument for minor border modifi cations, land swaps, and “settlement
blocs”— in short, a solution in which most of the West Bank would become part of a Palestin-
ian state in a comprehensive peace agreement in exchange for which the PA would cede these
particular areas of concentrated settlement, around 4 percent of the West Bank. Some even
proposed swapping Israeli land in exchange for these parcels.
The overwhelming majority of Israelis, well over 90 percent, live within the Green Line and
rarely visit the various disputed areas. These places are not essential for Israel's economy since
they have no useful resources. The Palestinian laborers — large numbers of whom worked in
