Geographical Expressions of Peace Concepts in Israel

Shaping the future borders of Israel becomes a most central issue in every political and public debate within Israel and between Israel and other countries. However, a great deal of discussion is dedicated to political, moral, legal and military aspects of the issue, and very little is related to the geographical aspect. Only a few have tried to express their ideas in detailed geographical terms, and moreover, only a minority of these have done it by mapping out the schematic or specific issues. This fact is quite surprising, but nevertheless understandable. Surprising because most of the arguments raised are based on geographical facts and aspects like territory, topography, resources, demography, etc. Understandable, because none of the participants is ready to expose the real aims or to commit to any final position, before negotiations even start. It is worthwhile to point out that even research institutes, like the Jaffa Center for Strategic studies (1989) recently submitted a detailed research regarding this issue, without mapping the various alternatives of solving the conflict. A rather detailed work, from geographic point of view, had been done by Efrat (1982; 1988)--yet he dedicated most of his analysis only to the West Bank. Therefore, the aim of this article is to shed some light on the variety of current political concepts in Israel and apply them on a general and schematic map.