• Home
  • About MESH
  • Members
  • Papers
  • Contact

Middle East Strategy at Harvard

John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies :: Harvard University

Feed on
Posts
Comments

Land swaps for peace

Jan 29th, 2008 by MESH

From MESH Admin

At last week’s Herzliya Conference, Tel Aviv University geographer Gideon Biger presented a futuristic plan for land swaps and border alterations among Israel, the Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. Biger, author of The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947, proposes a map based on 1967—that is, each party would end up with the same net territory it possessed prior to the June 1967 Six-Day War. Biger has provided MESH with the map he displayed at the conference, illustrating the proposed swaps.

In Biger’s plan, parts of the West Bank where there are large Jewish settlement blocs, as well as part of the Jordan Valley, would be annexed to Israel. In exchange, the Palestinians would receive Israeli territory along the Green Line, and Egypt would relinquish territory between al-Arish and Rafah to the Palestinians. Israel would compensate Egypt with territory from Israel in the Paran Desert, as well as a corridor across the lower Negev to Jordan (a proposal revisited last week at MESH).

In the north, Biger also envisions a three-way swap. Israel would keep possession of a part of the Golan Heights. It would give Lebanon territory in the northern Galilee associated with the so-called “seven [Shiite] villages” abandoned in 1948. Lebanon, in turn, would relinquish territory to Syria, to compensate Syria for ceding part of the Golan Heights to Israel.

Comments by MESH invitation only.

Posted in David Schenker, Egypt, Geopolitics, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Maps, Palestinians | 1 Comment

One Response to “Land swaps for peace”

  1. on 30 Jan 2008 at 5:32 pm1 David Schenker

    I don’t know Gideon Biger and I wasn’t at the Herzliya Conference, so I can’t comment as to the spirit in which he recently proffered his “land swaps for peace” proposal. From where I sit in Washington, reading the MESH post brought me back to the good old days of Shimon Peres’ “New Middle East,” where friendly neighbors abound and regional peace is just around the corner.

    The first thing that strikes me is the comprehensive and inter-dependent nature of the proposal, which prima facie makes it destined to fail.

    Regarding the Palestinians, the notion of land swaps is not a new idea; Arafat agreed to a swap in 2000 at Camp David. No problem here, except the small matter that the Israelis will not find the prospect of providing more land to Hamas-controlled Gaza appealing. So Gaza—and Egypt—are out of the equation. Still, Israel could work out some arrangement with a future Palestinian state in the West Bank.

    The challenges for this proposal on the Syria and Lebanon fronts are even more daunting. Syria has traditionally demonstrated little interest in creative solutions to negotiations with Israel.

    Perhaps the best example of the phenomenon is how Syria responded to the spring 2007 Track II “Swiss Channel” talks between the Syrian-appointed (US-citizen) Abe Sulieman and former Israeli Foreign Ministry official Alon Liel. When it was publicized that the disposition of the Golan would ultimately be a nature reserve, the Syrians distanced themselves from Abe Suleiman, the brother of the former chief of internal security forces in Syria.

    Worse—for the map proposal and for the Lebanese—it’s unlikely that Damascus, under the Asad regime, would ever come around to the idea of Lebanon ceding territory to Syria as a “swap.” Indeed, the Asad regime already views Lebanon essentially as Syrian territory. According to a report issued by a Lebanese NGO, the International Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559, as of last summer, Syria was occupying at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil.

    And this grim assessment of the prospects for Prof. Biger’s map doesn’t even take into account the issue of the Lebanese-Syrian dispute over the Sheba’a Farms.

    I take no issue with the prospect of redefining Middle Eastern borders—I think this would be a discussion worth having. Prof. Biger’s map is interesting. But from a practical standpoint, it is hard to imagine the circumstances in which such an arrangement would be feasible.

    David Schenker is a member of MESH.


  • This Site

    Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH) is a project of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.
    • Read about MESH
    • MESH blog
    • Download entire blog (pdf)
  • Last Post

    • MESH in hibernation
  • Subscribe

    Subscribe to MESH by email Posts+Comments
    Feed Posts+Comments
    Twitter Posts+Comments
    Posts+Comments
    AddThis Feed Button
  • Search MESH

  • Posts by Category

    • Administration (5)
    • Announcements (24)
    • Countries (248)
      • Afghanistan (11)
      • Arab Gulf (11)
      • Bahrain (1)
      • Caucasus (5)
      • Central Asia (2)
      • China (3)
      • Egypt (25)
      • France (2)
      • India (1)
      • Iran (79)
      • Iraq (36)
      • Israel (95)
      • Jordan (9)
      • Lebanon (28)
      • Pakistan (8)
      • Palestinians (52)
      • Qatar (1)
      • Russia (13)
      • Saudi Arabia (14)
      • Syria (18)
      • Turkey (15)
      • United Kingdom (3)
      • Yemen (5)
    • Members (270)
      • Adam Garfinkle (22)
      • Alan Dowty (19)
      • Andrew Exum (11)
      • Barry Rubin (14)
      • Bernard Haykel (9)
      • Bruce Jentleson (6)
      • Charles Hill (3)
      • Chuck Freilich (15)
      • Daniel Byman (17)
      • David Schenker (16)
      • Gal Luft (9)
      • Harvey Sicherman (11)
      • Hillel Fradkin (8)
      • J. Scott Carpenter (15)
      • Jacqueline Newmyer (6)
      • Jon Alterman (13)
      • Josef Joffe (17)
      • Joshua Muravchik (10)
      • Mark N. Katz (22)
      • Mark T. Clark (15)
      • Mark T. Kimmitt (6)
      • Martin Kramer (25)
      • Matthew Levitt (15)
      • Michael Doran (4)
      • Michael Horowitz (9)
      • Michael Mandelbaum (12)
      • Michael Reynolds (14)
      • Michael Rubin (8)
      • Michael Young (16)
      • Michele Dunne (16)
      • Philip Carl Salzman (32)
      • Raymond Tanter (17)
      • Robert O. Freedman (20)
      • Robert Satloff (17)
      • Soner Cagaptay (4)
      • Stephen Peter Rosen (13)
      • Steven A. Cook (14)
      • Tamara Cofman Wittes (18)
      • Walter Laqueur (21)
      • Walter Reich (11)
    • Subjects (274)
      • Academe (4)
      • Books (40)
      • Counterinsurgency (14)
      • Culture (21)
      • Democracy (16)
      • Demography (5)
      • Diplomacy (20)
      • Economics (1)
      • European Union (3)
      • Geopolitics (42)
      • Hamas (21)
      • Hezbollah (25)
      • Intelligence (10)
      • Islam in West (5)
      • Islamism (16)
      • Maps (27)
      • Media (5)
      • Military (19)
      • Nuclear (27)
      • Oil and Gas (14)
      • Public Diplomacy (10)
      • Qaeda (23)
      • Sanctions (8)
      • Taliban (3)
      • Technology (2)
      • Terminology (9)
      • Terrorism (30)
      • United Nations (7)
  • Archives

    • December 2009 (5)
    • November 2009 (13)
    • October 2009 (8)
    • September 2009 (9)
    • August 2009 (9)
    • July 2009 (9)
    • June 2009 (12)
    • May 2009 (16)
    • April 2009 (11)
    • March 2009 (16)
    • February 2009 (11)
    • January 2009 (10)
    • December 2008 (12)
    • November 2008 (11)
    • October 2008 (19)
    • September 2008 (15)
    • August 2008 (17)
    • July 2008 (18)
    • June 2008 (12)
    • May 2008 (17)
    • April 2008 (20)
    • March 2008 (27)
    • February 2008 (19)
    • January 2008 (18)
    • December 2007 (19)
  • Harvard Events

    Check upcoming events from the calendars of...
    • Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
    • Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)
    • Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
  • Rights

    Copyright © 2007-2009 President and Fellows of Harvard College
    Site Meter

Theme: MistyLook by Sadish


Protected by Akismet • Blog with WordPress