International Boundaries Research Unit

BOUNDARY &TERRITORYBRIEFING
Volume 1 Number 8

The Evolution of the Egypt-Israel
Boundary: From Colonial Foundations
to Peaceful Borders

Nurit Kliot

Boundary and Territory Briefing
Volume 1 Number 8ISBN 1-897643-17-9
1995

The Evolution of the Egypt-Israel Boundary:
From Colonial Foundations to Peaceful Borders
byNurit Kliot

Edited by

Clive Schofield

International Boundaries Research Unit
Department of Geography
University of DurhamSouth Road
Durham DH1 3LE
UK
Tel: UK + 44 (0) 191 334 1961 Fax: UK +44 (0) 191 334 1962
E-mail: ibru@durham.ac.uk
www: http://www-ibru.dur.ac.uk

The Author
N. Kliot is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Geography, University of Haifa,
and Head of the Centre for Natural Resources Studies at the University of Haifa. Her
specialistion is political geography, and she is a member of the International GeographicalUnion (IGU) Commission on Political Geography. She writes extensively on the Middle Eastand among her recent publications are: Water Resources and Conflict in the Middle East
(Routledge, 1994) and The Political Geography of Conflict and Peace (Belhaven, 1991)
which she edited with S. Waterman.

The opinions contained herein are those of the author and are not to beconstrued as those of IBRU

Contents
Page
1.

Introduction

1

2.

The Development of the Egypt-Palestine Border, 1906-1918

1

2.1

Background to delimitation

1

2.2

The Turco-Egyptian boundary agreement of 1906

4

2.3

The delimitation of the Egypt-Palestine boundary

7

2.4

The demarcation of the Egypt-Palestine boundary7

2.5

Concluding remarks on the development of the Egypt- Palestineborder of 1906

8

3.

The Development of the Egypt-Palestine Borders, 1918-1947

9

4.

Boundary developments, 1949-1982

10

5.

The Taba Dispute

14

6.

Other outcomes of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty

18

7.

Conclusions

18

References

20

List of Figures
Figure 1

Israeli-Egyptian Boundaries, 1906-1986

3

Figure 2

Israeli Occupation of the Sinai Peninsula

6

Figure 3

Demilitarisation Arrangement for the Sinai

13

Figure 4

An Aerial View of Taba

15

Figure 5

Taba and the newly demarcated border between Israel and Egypt

17

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries:
From Colonial Foundations to Peaceful Borders
Nurit Kliot1

1.

Introduction

The formation of the present Egyptian-Israeli border has taken place over a period of almost 80
years during which four wars have been fought between Israel and Egypt themselves as well as
two world wars involving the colonial powers which formerly ruled Egypt and Israel-Palestine.
The final border line thus reflects three major factors:•

The colonial struggle which took place between Great Britain and the Ottoman
Empire, with the participation of such by-standers as Russia, Germany, France andAustria.

•

The wars between Egypt and Israel, the most important being the 1948-9 war (theIsraeli War of Independence).

•

The Peace Treaty which was signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979 and which
provided the final formal recognition of the border line as a mutually recognised
permanent and peaceful border between the two nations.

This paper is divided into two main parts. The first (sections 2-3) examines the development of
the border between 1906 and 1948, whilst the latter deals with development in the period 1949
to 1982. In addition, a special section (section 5) is devoted to the Taba dispute and its
settlement.

2.

The Development of the Egypt-Palestine Border, 1906-1918

2.1

Background to delimitation

The first stage in the formation of the Israeli-Egyptian boundary was comprehensively
dominated by imperial colonial rivalry, mainly between the Ottoman Empire and a Great Britain
pushing to expand its influence in the Middle East.
The first map to indicate the location of the Egypt-Palestine border appeared in 1841 in the
Sultan's Firman2 which delineated the boundaries of the area under Muhammed Ali's (Egyptian)rule. The map showed that the boundary between Egypt on one hand and Hejaz and Palestineon the other ran from Suez to Rafah (Biger, 1978: 325). It also showed that th e Sinai peninsula
1

The author would like to express her appreciation and gratitude to Professor Moshe Brawer for his remarks and personalcommunication which contributed to this paper.

2

A firman or edict is a royal government order issued by the Ottoman Sultans in the process of administering their Empire.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

2

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

remained under Hejaz (Turkish) administration and Palestine ended at the Rafah-Dead Sea line
(see Figure 1).
On the map, the Sinai boundary ran along a line from Suez to a point on the Mediterranean
between Rafah and Khan Yunis, both later attached to Palestine. It thus reduced Egypt’s
presence in Sinai to the northwest sector (Hurewitz, 1989: XII). The same Firman, authorised
the ruler of Egypt to act in the Sinai Peninsula even beyond the above border line to safeguard
the passage of Moslem pilgrims to Mecca (Brawer, 1988: 61).
It became apparent after Britain gained control of Egypt and the Suez Canal that the 1841
border line crossed the southern tip of the Suez Canal so that 3-4km of its southern entrance
were located within the Turkish territory of Sinai. This fact together with international
developments caused Lord Cromer, the Governor of Egypt, to establish a new border in Sinai
which would put Turkish forces at a greater distance from the Suez Canal.
The first two Turkish proposals for administrative borders for the Sinai were dated 1892 andwere made by the Ottoman representative in Cairo. He suggested, first, that Egypt would haveadministrative control of two areas: the northwest part of the Sinai Peninsula and the southern
mountain part whereas the Ottomans would continue to control the central part of Sinai (Figure1). When this proposal was not accepted by the British Government of Egypt, a second
proposal was presented: a division of Sinai by a north to south line, from El-Arish to Ras
Muhammad which would leave the western part of Sinai under Egyptian control and the easternpart under Ottoman Control (Heyd, 1963: 198) (see Figure 1). This proposal was also rejectedby Britain.
In 1892, the Sultan Abdulhamid II decided to re-establish his authority in Sinai on the basis ofadvice received from the German ambassador to Turkey. Heyd (1963) has suggested that the1906 British-Turkish dispute over the establishment of the Egyptian-Turkish (Palestine) border
was part of the Anglo-German competition for hegemony in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The particular considerations of both colonial or imperial forces should, however, be examinedin greater detail. The Ottomans, allied with Germany, wished to leave Sinai under Ottoman
control, in connection with their strategic interests in the Hejaz railway. In the fall of 1904, theHejaz railway line from Damascus to Ma’an was inaugurated. Ma’an, being only 120km from
Aqaba, enabled the Ottomans to transfer troops, relatively rapidly from Ma’an to Aqaba andfrom Aqaba to Yemen. Were Turkey able to implement her plan to connect Ma’an to Aqaba by
railway link, she would thus be able to free herself from her dependence on the British controlled
Suez Canal (Graves, quoted in Heyd, 1963: 263).
The British were concerned about this Turkish plan which would advance Ottoman power
dangerously close to the Suez Canal, and would endanger the sea-route from Suez to India.
Lord Cromer and the British Administration of Egypt considered a border line between Rafah
and Aqaba (i.e. the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba and not the site of Aqaba) to be a moresatisfactory line which would distance the Ottoman forces as far as possible from the Suez
Canal. This line would also guarantee that the Sinai desert would serve as a natural barrier andgood defence for the Canal. Control over the Sinai Peninsula also made possible British
supervision of any military forces positioned in Eastern Sinai or the Western Negev which could
endanger British supremacy in the region (Brawer, 1979: 369-370). Napoleon (quoted in Lord
Curzon, 1970: 16) specified that the Sinai Peninsula constituted a formidable obstacle to

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

Figure 1: Israeli-Egyptian Boundaries

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

3

4The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

any advancing army because of its total desolation and lack of settlements and sufficient logistic
bases (Curzon is quoted by Brawer, 1988: 62).

2.2

The Turco-Egyptian boundary agreement of 1906

Allocation refers to a general political decision over the division of territory. The delimitation
process of the Egypt-Palestine border was imposed on the Turks by the British in 1906, but not
before the two were driven to the verge of war over the delimitation of the border. The
evolution of this particular boundary has been well documented in both Turkish and British
sources. Moreover, two of these sources are the accounts of the two men on the spot: Rushdi
Bey, the Turkish Commandant of Aqaba, and W.Jennings Bramly, the British frontieradministration officer in Sinai from 1902, who was in charge of the British Survey of Sinai
which prepared for the delimitation of the boundaries. Rushdi Bey wrote a detailed account of
the "Aqaba Messelhessi" (The Aqaba Problem) which was written in Turkish. W.JenningsBramly left his papers to the Royal Geographical Society in London and M.Brawer studied these
documents. A third source consists of the official correspondence with the British Foreign
Office and the Government papers of the years 1905-1907 regarding the frontier dispute. Thisavailability of varied sources has enabled several researchers to make detailed analyses of thehistorical development of this boundary (Brawer, 1970, 1979, 1988; Heyd, 1963; Warburg,1979).
Beyond the general motivation of the British to distance Turkish forces as far as possible fromthe Suez Canal, the British had three major motivations for the delimitation of the border on the
Rafah-Aqaba line:•

The Sinai peninsula served as a natural barrier which would give Egypt enough time toprepare its defences in case Turkish forces invaded Sinai.

•

The Rafah-Aqaba line also had several geographical advantages. It was the easternboundary of the Sinai peninsula and almost the shortest line between the Mediterranean
Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. As a result of W.Jennings’Bramly’s detailed survey of Sinai,
the British also knew that this line had the advantages of nearby water resources andcontrol over strategic routes (Brawer, 1988: 62-3).

•

Lord Cromer and some of his advisers also believed that the Rafah-Aqaba line followed
an ancient historical boundary which had been recognised as such since the first century.
Turkish and Egyptian officials, however, and some British scholars, rejected this claim as
false. Historical data pointed to the El-Arish stream (wadi) as the proper border
between Israel/Palestine and Egypt (Brawer, 1988: 64).

The Turkish position regarding the delimited border between Palestine and Egypt was one which
not only wished to preserve the status-quo but also insisted on the de facto, as well as de jure,implementation of their sovereignty over Sinai.
These conflicting positions brought Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire onto a collisioncourse and to confrontation in the year 1906. The 1906 incident took place on 10 January,1906. When Jennings-Bramly, a frontier administrative officer in Sinai, was ordered by Lord
Cromer, the Agent and Consul General in Cairo and later Governor of Egypt, to deploy

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

5

elements of his frontier police at Naqb al-A’qabah which commanded the approaches fromwestern Sinai to the northern end of the Gulf (Hurewitz, 1984: XV; a letter from Owen to
Jennings-Bramly, 2 January 1906, in Toye, 1989: 222). Bramly, accompanied by five Egyptian
policemen, told the Turkish officer at Aqaba that he had been ordered by the British
Government to establish border posts in the western parts of the Gulf of Aqaba, Kuntila andKusseima. Bramly claimed that all these parts belonged to Egypt and that he therefore had toorganise border guards for them (Heyd, 1963: 196; Warburg, 1979: 679). Rushdi Bey, the local
Turkish officer, went to Damascus in order to establish whether Umm Rashrash was within the
Turkish or Egyptian administrative jurisdiction. When he came back, he ordered Bramly and his
men to leave Umm Rashrash immediately (Heyd, 1963). Bramly returned to his headquarters in
Nakhl and the Turks established a Turkish border post in Umm-Rashrash.
The second stage of the incident began on 22 January, when a small Egyptian navy vessel under
British Command, the Nur al-Bahr, anchored near Jezirat Farun. Bramly himself was ordered toreturn to the Gulf of Aqaba. Bramly told Rushdi Bey that he had orders to post 50 Egyptiansoldiers in Taba and Umm-Rashrash (see Figures 1 and 2). Rushdi Bey who had succeeded in
posting Turkish troops at Taba the night before, told Bramly that he had been ordered by the
Ottoman Grand Vizier to oppose the Egyptian occupation of Taba by force if necessary (Heyd,
1963: 197).
In February 1906 the Turkish government sent a large reinforcement of troops to Aqaba raising
the number of Turkish troops there to 3,000 and more (Heyd, 1963: 197). The events ofsubsequent months brought about little change. A British gunboat, the Diana, was rushed to theGulf of Aqaba while Turkey further reinforced its troops in Aqaba. In April, a British attempt toland troops in Rafah, the northern tip of the Turco-Egyptian border, was opposed by the Turksand had to be abandoned (Warburg, 1979: 680; Hurewitz, 1989: XVI).
Britain now resorted to diplomacy backed by force. Egypt (governed by Great Britain),demanded a demarcated line between the Egyptian and Turkish territories but the Sultan
rejected this demand, claiming that Egypt was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire and that
there was, therefore, no need for a formal boundary such as a boundary which separates two
sovereign states.
These negotiations led to no agreement and on 3 May, 1906, Britain, supported by France andRussia, handed an ultimatum to the Sultan Abdulhamid II warning him that unless he agreed,
within 10 days, to the proposed boundary leading from Rafah to the Gulf of Aqaba - andevacuated Taba, His Majesty’s Government would be forced to take stiff measures (Gooch andTemperley, 1928: vol. V: 190-191). It is known today that at the same time Britain was making
preparations to capture several important Turkish islands in the Aegean Sea. On 14 May the
Sultan, realising that without German, Russian or French support he could not afford to resist,
accepted the British demand and ordered the withdrawal from Taba and the delimitation of an
administrative line between the Ottoman province of the Hejaz, the Governorate of Jerusalem
and the Sinai Peninsula (Warburg, 1979: 681). The Turco-Egyptian boundary agreement was
accordingly signed at Rafah on 1 October 1906. For the border dividing the Sinai Peninsulafrom the Vilayet of Hijaz and the Sancak3 of Jerusalem, the unique use of “administrative

3

Term as used by Hurewitz.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

6The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

Figure 2: Israeli Occupation of the Sinai Peninsula

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

7

separating line” instead of boundary which conveyed an “international” or “quasiinternational” meaning was deliberate. It served as a conciliatory gesture to Ottoman
sensibilities (Hurewitz, 1989: XVI, letter from Owen to Mr Findlay, August 10, 1906, in Toye,
1989: 667).

2.3

The delimitation of the Egypt-Palestine boundary

Delimitation is defined as the final selection of a specific boundary within a broader zone. As
Bramly had already prepared a survey and map of the area in 1902, he had all necessary detailsof tribal territories and water resources as well as all the major routes - all based on information
provided by local Beduin tribes (Brawer, 1988: 65; Brawer, Personal communication, 14/12/93).
On the basis of all the information he gathered in 1902, Jennings-Bramly suggested theestablishment of a ‘natural boundary’ which would be founded on the geographical andtopographical features of the area (Figure 1).
The line suggested by Bramly began at the Mediterranean coast northwest of Rafah, continued
straight south for 16km then turned west up to wadi El-Arish (see Toye, 1989: 454, 594). Fromwadi El-Arish near Bir Lachfan, the boundary turned southeast along the wadi up to its
connection with Wadi Moilech and Wadi El-Ein. Because this line was founded on naturalfeatures it was meandering and was thus rejected by the British command in favour of a straight(geometric) boundary line. The British were not concerned about dividing tribal territories orabout the necessity for a boundary based on natural features but were preoccupied with theirneed for a boundary which would be short, easy to demarcate and defend (Brawer, 1979: 372).
Bramly’s natural boundary also included the extreme southwestern part of the Arava Valley(Wadi Araba) on the Egyptian side of the border - a major change to the border which the
British knew that the Turks would never agree to. Hurewitz concludes the delimitation processwith the following: “By ending the boundary not at Aqabah as Cromer had urged since 1892,
but six miles to its west at Taba, the British added yet another sweetener. It gave the unfolding
Hijaz Railway uncomplicated access to Aqabah.” (Hurewitz, 1989: XVI).
Consequently the final boundary ignored many of Jennings-Bramly’s proposals but still provided
the British with all the advantages they had been looking for and almost all the available water
resources were located on the Egyptian side of the border; all the major routes and importantjunctions in eastern Sinai remained on their side (Brawer, 1970: 131-2). The boundary did,
however, cut across tribal areas and later on, after World War I, many of the tribes had to moveto one side of the border or the other.

2.4

The demarcation of the Egypt-Palestine boundary

Demarcation is defined as the actual marking of a boundary location by posts and other markers.
As stated before, the boundary agreed upon between the Ottoman and British Empires wasmeant to be a straight line stretching from Rafah to the Gulf of Aqaba. In preparation for thedemarcation the British prepared a detailed map of the landscape features in a belt 10km wide
along the Rafah-Aqaba line. According to the original agreement the boundary was supposed to
begin at a point in the Gulf of Aqaba 3 miles (5km) west of the building of the Turkish military
post in Aqaba (Brawer, 1988: 67). The British suggested that the boundary should originate in
IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

8The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

Um Rashrash, 5.5km west of Aqaba. The two sides finally agreed that the border line would
originate at Ras Taba 10km directly west of Aqaba and 14km from Aqaba along the Gulf of
Aqaba. Thus, because the uncompromising Turkish refusal to give up access to the Arava
Valley (Wadi Araba), Palestine was left with a good 10.5km strip of the coast of the Gulf of
Aqaba (Brawer, 1988: 67). The final demarcated line deviated from the straight-geometricline in places where steep topography or deep canyons proved inaccessible to the surveyors.
The final demarcation of the Egypt-Palestine border took place during the summer months ofJune to October of 1906 with the British surveyors suffering from the heat and water and foodshortage and wishing only to complete their job as fast as possible. Brawer (1988) provides
excerpts from the diary of E.B.H. Wade, head of the surveying team, in which he describes all
the difficulties posed by the inaccessible topography which caused a change in the final locationof the demarcated line in Jabel Haruf (Mount Harif) (a deviation of 500 metres east from theproper border line) and in Mount Meara (Jabel Ma’ara) (Brawer, 1988: 69).
During the final stage of the demarcation process telegraph poles were located a distance of 12.5km apart so that they would be intervisible. According to Wade, the head surveyor, thelocations of the telegraph poles deviated only slightly from the original straight line but JenningsBramly believed otherwise, and stated that the poles’ final sites deviated several tens of metresfrom the original straight line (Jennings-Bramly quoted in Brawer 1988: 71). Near Eilat the final
post (called the ‘Parker stone’) was positioned on a small hill some 100 meters from the sea.
Brawer has suggested that this pole was not located on the beach itself because its exact site was
supposed to have been in Wadi Taba where winter floods could have uprooted it; therefore the
British positioned the telegraph pole on the hill near Wadi Taba where it is visible to the nextborder marker believing this to be a proper location. The question of the exact location of thisborder pole eventually became a matter of controversy between Israel and Egypt during thedemarcation of the Egyptian-Israeli border line following the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty(see section 5).
After a period of time the telegraph poles were replaced by stone markers 1.5 metres high(Brawer, 1988: 73). Brawer also investigated parts of the Egyptian-Israeli border in 1956 andfound that whilst some of the stone border markers were in good condition others had simply
disappeared.

2.5

Concluding remarks on the development of the Egypt-Palestine border of 1906

The process of allocation, delimitation and demarcation of the Egypt-Palestine borderclearly showed the British as well-prepared with professional surveyors, and broad surveys ofthe territories to be demarcated. The Turks, on the other hand, came to the process of boundary
demarcation with very poor knowledge and had to rely on British surveys and mapping, a factwhich made them totally dependent on British credibility being technically unable to review the
British work. The Turkish officials obeyed orders only from their government and were very
insistent over the exact location of the border in the Gulf of Aqaba, an issue over which they hadreceived clear-cut orders from Damascus (Brawer, 1988: 74). The Turkish authorities still
considered the new boundary to be an internal boundary and not an international one.
Eventually, Turkey lost its control over the Sinai peninsula because it failed to impose its
sovereignty there mainly between 1890 and 1905 - by not establishing any administration and by
not maintaining military forces there. The British filled this vacuum and took advantage of

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

9

Ottoman weakness. After the First World War the Rafah-Aqaba boundary which had once beenan Anglo-Turkish separating administrative line became a boundary between two territories
administered by Britain.

3.

The Development of the Egypt-Palestine Borders 1918-1947

In the years 1918-1922 the British government held major discussions over the exact
demarcation of the 1906 border which had become the border between British-controlled Egypt
on the one hand, and British-controlled Palestine and Transjordan on the other. There were two
major trends in the varied proposals for a new boundary line between Palestine and Egypt. One
was to move the border north and east and to include parts of the Negev (or all of it) in Britishcontrolled Egypt. The other major trend was to change the location of the boundary in the
direction of the south-west so that it would rely on the natural features of Wadi El-Arish. In
addition to this there was also a proposal to establish a special British Administration for Sinai
and parts of the Negev (Brawer, 1988: 75).
It should be noted that the debate over possible changes in the border took place between the
British Administration of Palestine and the British Administration of Egypt with no consultation
being held with the local population. The final decision was to leave the 1906 administrative
separating line intact and to leave the question of Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai in abeyance.
Some British Foreign Office papers pointed to the fact that at least some officials regarded theold separating line of Rafah-Aqaba to effectively be an administrative division between the two
Ottoman provinces (Fischer-Williams 1926, quoted in Warburg 1979: 684).
In reality the British administrators of Palestine and Egypt imposed this border as aninternational border by exercising stricter control over crossings, especially over the 3,000 or so
Beduin of the frontier zone. Only in the mid-1930’s the British Administration of Palestineenhanced its control over the cross-border movement of the nomad Beduin of Sinai and the
Negev. The border area along the Rafah-Taba line began to shape the lives of the population
living on opposite sides of it (Brawer 1988: 374). Rafah evolved as a small boundary town
which functioned as a trade and services centre for the semi-settled Beduin population, andduring the Second World War it became an important British base (Brawer, 1988: 77). The
Rafah-Taba line remained a border until the establishment of the State of Israel.
Following the Second World War the question of the boundaries of Egypt in the Sinai peninsula
was once again raised in a letter to the Times by Jennings-Bramly. According to Bramly, the1906 agreement had not settled the legal question of the Egyptian boundary in Sinai. He
suggested that Great Britain should claim suzerainty in that area by right of conquest. He heldthat Sinai was either Turkish or ‘no man’s land’ - but in no way Egyptian. The Foreign Office
rejected Bramly’s proposal stating that, since the First World War, the whole of the Sinai
peninsula had been accepted by Britain and other states as Egyptian territory. In 1947 theBritish Foreign Office again took up the question of the legal ownership of Sinai and produced
two different views: one which claimed that there was no legal owner to Sinai and an opposed
view which acknowledged Egypt as a legal owner to Sinai (Howson, 1947, quoted in Warburg,
1979: 687). It seems that Warburg did not at that time have all the documents relating to thisissue.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

10

4.

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

Boundary developments 1949-1982

After three decades of continuous conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, in 1947 the UN
proposed a plan to partition the country into a Jewish and an Arab state. It is important to notethat during discussions over the future boundaries of the Jewish state the United States objectedto the inclusion of the greater part of the Negev in the areas allotted to the Jews. The real issue
was, of course, the traditional British colonial interest in control over the Suez Canal. The
British did not want anything separating their bases in the Suez Canal zone from those inTransjordan (Cohen, 1970: 388). Furthermore, they considered the Negev to be an alternative
base, were they ever forced to evacuate the canal zone. The Soviet Union, in contrast, opposed
the reduction in size of the proposed Jewish state and the exclusion of the Negev from its
territory.
In May 1948, one day following Israel’s declaration of independence, the armies of its Arabneighbours attacked Israel, including Jewish settlements in the Negev, and reached MigdalAshqelon, Isdud and progressed to Beer-Sheba. Many settlements in the Negev were under
total siege. Towards the end of the war, in March 1949, Israeli forces captured the whole
Negev, except for the Gaza Strip, by reaching Um-Rashrash. The Israelis’ pursuit of theEgyptian forces brought them into Sinai, and they captured a vast region between El-Arish andNitzana (Lorch, 1976: 75; Cohen, 1970: 401-402). Israel had to withdraw all its forces from
Sinai by 2 January 1949 and in the Armistice Agreement of 24 February 1949, Egypt
acknowledged Israel’s possession of the entire Negev with the Auja-al Hafir (Nitzana) area
being demilitarised and made into a headquarters of the mixed armistice commission.
Whereas the United Nations partition plan had allotted Israel an area of 15,850 sq km, (over9,500 sq km of this in the Negev) by the end of the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence Israel
held 20,770 sq km, with the Negev comprising two-thirds of the area of the state. The armisticeboundary line between Israel and Egypt coincided exactly with the Egypt-Palestine internationalboundary as demarcated in 1906, with the exception of the Gaza Strip. On the Israeli side of theborder a fence was constructed, and with frequent terrorist infiltration, from Gaza, this border
became a ‘frontier zone’ during the early 1950s. The Beduin population of the border zone
either moved to Egypt or to the Beer-Sheba region. Near Kerem-Shalom (Figure 2) the
boundary deviated from the original 1906 boundary in order to leave the Gaza Strip underEgyptian rule - a situation which was based on the military positions held by both sides at thetime of the ceasefire (Brawer, 1988: 129-30). The armistice line was de facto demarcated by thecommon Egyptian-Israeli military commission. The Gaza boundary passed along a line nearlyparallel to the main communication artery - the Gaza-Rafah road, and was located on small sandhills 100 metres high. As a result many Gaza residents were cut off from their grazing andagricultural lands which remained in Israel.
The boundary between Israel and Egypt did not become a peaceful boundary when the war
terminated and the armistice agreements were signed. From the time of the armistice up to the
Sinai Campaign (October 1956) there were 11,650 incidents on the Israeli-Egyptian border(Cohen, 1970: 467). In the period 1951-56 over 400 Israelis were killed and 900 injured as aresult of Arab infiltrations and attacks (Lorch, 1976: 83). Most of the incidents in the early
1950s occurred because of innocent activity such as Arab refugees trying to return to theirvillages, Beduin crossing the border with their animals, or accidental border crossing by both
Arabs and Israelis (Khouri 1968: 183). But acts of sabotage, theft, and terrorist activity against
IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

11

Israel increased in number and frequency, and Israel retaliated, especially when Fedayeen
attacks on Israel intensified in 1955 and 1956. Between 1 January 1955 and September 1958,
according to UNTSO sources, 496 Arabs were killed and 419 injured in such attacks (Khouri
1968: 188).
Another source of tension between the two states was the closing of the Straits of Tiran and the
Gulf of Aqaba (and the Suez Canal) to Israeli shipping. In 1956 Israel cooperated with France
and Britain in the Sinai Campaign - the last time when the strategic aim of maint aining control of
the Suez Canal guided British and French geopolitical policy. Britain and France felt threatened
by Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal, whilst Israel wanted a secure border with Egypt
and freedom of shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Suez Canal. Israeli gains from thiscampaign included freedom of shipping in the Straits of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba and a cessationof the Fedayeen attacks from the Gaza strip through the stationing of a UN force along theborder in Sinai as well as in the Sharm el-Sheikh area. But Israeli shipping was still denied theuse of the Suez Canal (Khouri, 1968: 218). Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula from 29 October
1956 until 22 January 1957, when it returned most of it, except the Gaza Strip and Sharm-el
Sheikh which were evacuated on 6-10 March 1957.
The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF I) was established on 4 November 1956 after a
UN General Assembly Resolution which called for the deployment of UN forces in the Sinai
immediately after the retreat of the Israeli forces. The UNEF forces numbered 6,000 soldiers in
1956 when it was founded and 4,500 in 1967. UNEF had armoured units and planes to assist it
in fulfilment of its tasks including patrolling the border. For 10 years relative calm prevailed
along the border and, as a result of freedom of navigation for Israeli shipping, Eilat became an
important port for Israeli trade with Africa and Asia (Downing and Herman, 1978: 75).
From 1965 on, however, attacks against Israel resumed and Israel retaliated. In 1967 Egypt
demanded the UN evacuate its peace-keeping forces from Sinai and announced the closing of
the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. This resulted in the Six Day War
which lasted from 5-10 June 1967, and led to Israeli occupation of Sinai, the Jordanian WestBank and the Syrian Golan Heights. Between 1968 and 1970 Israel and Egypt fought a war of
attrition along the Suez front for more than a 1,000 days, but there were no territorial changes
although both sides suffered heavy casualties.
In October 1973, the fourth war between Israel and Egypt began with a surprise attack on Israel
on both the Syrian and the Egyptian fronts. When the ceasefire agreement was signed on the
Egyptian front, Israel occupied 1,600 sq km west of the Suez Canal within Egypt, whereas
Egypt held about 1,100 sq km of Sinai previously held by Israel. There is general agreement
among most researchers that the outcome of the 1973 war, which ended with no clear-cut
victory, enabled Egypt and Israel to realise their parity thus encouraging their agreement to end
the state of war (Sobel, 1980: 7; Cantory, 1984: 173; Liska, 1982: 134; Mansur, 1985: 37).
The Israel-Egypt war termination process took place between 1973 and 1982 when the peace
treaty between the two countries was implemented. The first stage in this process was a seriesof military agreements made between the two parties. In March 1974 Israel withdrew to the
Mitla and Gidi passes, and in 1975, Sadat opened the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. In theInterim Agreement of 1975, Israel withdrew from large areas of Sinai and UN peacekeeping
troops (UNEF II) were deployed throughout a wide buffer zone. The UN peace-keeping forcesin Sinai consisted of 4,660 soldiers assigned with the task of controlling and supervising the
IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

12The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

cease-fire agreement and regular check-ups on the size and type of forces and weapons in thedemilitarised zones.4
Sadat’s visit to Israel in 1977 was a major breakthrough in the Jewish-Arab conflict and the1978 Camp David Accords set the framework for peace. The Accords outlined provisions forfull Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, the level of Egyptian force deployments there after
withdrawal, and the right of free passage for Israeli ships through the Suez Canal. It also
specified that full normal relations were to be established between the states. The Peace Treaty
between Israel and Egypt was signed on 26 March 1979. By January 1980, Israel had
withdrawn from two-thirds of the Sinai Peninsula, and the final eastern part of Sinai wasreturned to Egypt in April 1982 (Figure 3).
Article I of the Peace Treaty states that Israel would withdraw her military and civilian personnel
behind the international boundaries between Egypt and mandated Palestine. Article II stipulated
that the parties would recognise this boundary as inviolable but without prejudice to the issue ofthe status of the Gaza Strip which was to remain under Israeli control, at least until theimplementation of the Palestinian Autonomy agreed to by the parties in the Camp David
Accords. Article IV of the Peace Treaty stated that, in order to provide maximal security forboth parties, UN personnel were to be stationed in specific areas in Sinai and zones of limited
military presence were to be defined on both the Israeli and Egyptian sides of the border.
Because of Soviet opposition to the deployment of UN forces in Sinai, an American supported
Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) was established to fulfil the mission. Egypt could
maintain very limited forces in Sinai, and the MFO, mainly based on American units, wasstationed in Sinai to monitor the peace.
Sinai was divided into three zones: Zone C ran parallel to the international border and the
Egyptian share of the Gulf of Aqaba, and no Egyptian forces were to be stationed there (Figure3); the central zone, B, was to contain no more than 4,000 lightly armed Egyptian troops; in thewesternmost zone, A, Egypt was limited to 22,000 armed men and specified numbers of
weapons and armoured vehicles. As a reciprocal measure a narrow zone D, extending
approximately 5km was established on the Israeli side of the international boundary in which
Israel was to have a limited force of 4,000 personnel, with further limitations on the number andnature of their weapons and vehicles (James, 1981: 225; Sobel, 1980: 257). The Multi -National
Force and Observers comprising 2,600 military personnel from ten countries were to supervise
the implementation of the demilitarisation arrangement in Sinai and free navigation through theStraits of Tiran.
The Treaty also called for the establishment of normal relationships between the two states
including full recognition, full diplomatic economic and cultural relations, the termination ofboth economic boycotts and discriminatory barriers to the free movement of people and goods.
Adjustment of future disputes arising out of the application or interpretation of the Treaty were
to be resolved by negotiations and conciliation or be submitted to arbitration. The Taba dispute,for instance, was resolved in this manner (see section 5).

4

The deployment of UN peacekeeping forces after the 1973 War was established by UN Security Council Resolutions 340 and 341
on 25 October 1973.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

Figure 3: Demilitarisation Arrangements for the Sinai

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

13

14

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

The current realisation of the Peace Treaty has disappointed both sides. Egypt has been
disappointed with Israel’s refusal to implement the Camp David Accord articles which deal withautonomy for the Palestinians, whilst Israel complains about the non-implementation of thenormalisation articles of the Peace Treaty, which deal with cultural and economic ties, trade andtourism. The peace between Israel and Egypt has therefore been colloquially termed a ‘Cold
Peace’. However, the two sides have adhered to the letter if not the spirit of the Treaty as thesolution to the Taba dispute clearly demonstrates.

5.

The Taba Dispute

Following the Camp David Accords, Egypt and Israel began to demarcate their boundary.
During the demarcation of the boundary in 1981, fifteen points of dispute between the parties
were identified. For most of them, the differences between the two sides ranged from a few
metres to one sq km. The major controversy concerned the Taba area, a small area of about 900
square metres (0.9 dunam) south of Eilat which included a hotel and a resort village.
Ras Taba is located on the coastline of the Gulf of Aqaba about 10km southwest of Eilat. Partof Taba extends over the dry delta of Wadi Taba. The controversy between Israel and Egypt
focused on the exact location of the international boundary in the northeastern part of Wadi
Taba. Israel claimed that the eastern side of Wadi Taba and the northeastern Cape Taba (Ras
Taba or Ras-El Massri) were located on the Israeli side of the border whereas Egypt claimed it
belonged to Egypt (see Figures 4 and 5). Both official British maps and Israeli maps demarcatedthe border in this sector according to the Egyptian claims. Taba’s total area, less than one sq
km, at the time contained a luxury hotel, the Avia Sonesta, a vacation village (Rafi Nelson’svillage) as well as a public beach (Figure 4). Though Taba is extremely beautiful and contains an
outstanding beach, the area has no strategic value, and it is difficult to understand why it becamea matter of such deep controversy between the two countries. A secondary area of dispute
between the two countries is located near Eilat and concerns Ras-el-Naqeb - a strategicallyimportant pass between Sinai and Eilat.
It is important to note that the 500 metres of Taba’s beach were virtually undeveloped until theearly 1980s when the Avia Sonesta Hotel was constructed. The resort village had operated
since 1970, but the Avia Sonesta Hotel was built after the Camp David Accords were completed
since Israel had adopted the view that the final demarcation of the border would leave Sonesta
within Israeli territory.
As early as 1982 Egypt had suggested that Israel could have a long-term lease of the Sonesta
and the resort village as long as Egyptian sovereignty over the territory were recognised byIsrael. Israel disagreed. Israel insisted that any settlement in the Taba region would have to
make it possible for Israeli citizens to have free access to the Taba resort area without passports.
The Egyptians refused, stressing their rights to sovereignty over the area. As late as 1985 Egypt
was still offering special arrangements for Israeli citizens entering Taba but Israel refused. The
USA pushed both Israel and Egypt into reaching a compromise over Taba to avoid any
arbitration which might leave one of the sides unsatisfied and thus adversely affect the alreadytense Israeli-Egyptian relationship. One of the compromise proposals offered Israel half of the
management of the hotel; Israeli citizens would be able to enter Taba without visas, but
Egyptian sovereignty over the area would be fully acknowledged by Israel. In September 1986
Israel and Egypt agreed to arbitration over Taba, according to Articles VII and VIII of the
IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

15

Figure 4: An Aerial View of Taba

Source: Israeli Government Press Office

Peace Treaty which called for solving disputes either by conciliation or arbitration if negotiations
did not succeed in bridging the gap between the sides to the dispute (Lapidoth, 1986).
The exact location of the border stone No.91, referred to as the ‘Parker Stone’ stood at theheart of the Taba dispute. To understand the dispute one has to turn to the original 1906
agreement. Article I of the Agreement concerned the location of the Administrative SeparatingLine (between the Villayet of Hejaz and the Governorate of Jerusalem and the Sinai Peninsula)
as shown on a map attached to this Agreement. Here the line begins at a point in Ras Taba, on
the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and follows along the eastern ridge overlooking Wadi
Taba to the top of Jebel Fort; from here the separating line continues in a straight line "..Article
III provided for boundary pillars to be erected, in the presence of the Joint Commission, atintervisible points along the separating line..". In reality the border was demarcatedprovisionally by telegraph poles which were replaced later by permanent masonry pillars. Both
Israel and Egypt agree on the exact site of the border pillar No.90 but were at odds over thelocation of pillar No.91. It seems that the British had not attributed any importance to thelocation of the border east or west of Ras Taba and the meeting point of the border line with thecoastline had not been demarcated on the beach itself which was susceptible to inundation whichmight have endangered the border poles. In such cases when a boundary had to cross a river orwadi, the habit was to locate the border stones at a nearby site (Brawer, 1988: 169).

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

16

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

According to the Israeli position, the No.91 border stone was located on a rock near the mouthof Wadi Taba and the sea while the Egyptians claimed that the No.91 ‘Parker Stone’ was at afurther distance from the beach some 400 metres northeast of the mouth of Wadi Taba. The
strongest Israeli claim in relation to the position of the ‘Parker Stone’ was that it was located in
the wrong place because it was not intervisible to border post No.90, in contravention of the
instructions of the 1906 Agreement. Thus, claimed Israel, the photos and maps which showed
the exact location of the ‘Parker Stone’ in 1906 and 1949 did not provide any legal proof of theposition of the border since pillar No.91 had never been located in its appropriate place and thearbitrators should rectify this erroneous decision (Dinstein, 1989). The ‘Parker Stone’ itself had
disappeared after 1967 when Israel broadened the road from Eilat into Sinai.
In any case, there are many differences between British and Turkish maps in reference to theexact citing of the border and the descriptions of the demarcated border are also full ofcontradictions. In addition, the maintenance of the border stones also left a lot to be desired
according to Brawer (1988) who, when he surveyed the border stones in 1956, found that manyof the stones had disappeared and that the last time they had been maintained by the British wasin the mid-1920s. Thus, the maps, photos, historical evidence and in situ evidence were
contradictory and could not provide a clear-cut solution to the locational dispute between Israel
and Egypt.
Israel and Egypt agreed in 1986 to take their dispute on the demarcation of the border tointernational arbitration and a tribunal of five members was established. In 1988 the arbitration
tribunal resolved the dispute by deciding in favour of Egypt in her claims to the exact location of
10 of the border marker stones (including Ras Taba and Ras el-Naqeb) whereas Israeli claims
were favoured in relation to 4 border stones (International Legal materials, 1988: 1427, 143233). The arbitrators’ main reason for accepting the Egyptian position was that the only
recognised international border between Egypt and Israel was the de facto boundary as
demarcated in the 1906 Agreement. The arbitrators agreed that although the principle ofintervisibility had not been observed for a number of points along the border (including Taba) it
was acceptable as a border which was legally binding upon both Britain and the Turkish Empires(Dinstein, 1989). Moreover, the representatives of the Turkish authorities who had been present
during the process of border demarcation had never protested about the de facto siting of theborder telegraph poles. The arbitrators accepted the Wade Report as an appropriate explanationof the reasons for the deviation between the de facto demarcated border and the boundary as
drawn in the supplement to the 1906 Agreement.
The basic principle which guided the arbitrators was the need to preserve the stability andcontinuity of international borders. This principle, confirmed by the International Court ofJustice, requires that boundary markers, long accepted as such by the states concerned (Egypt
and Israel), should be respected by both sides and not be open to challenge indefinitely on thebasis of any error in their original demarcation. Israel had revealed consistency over the past
decades in its presentation of its international border in maps based on the borders drawn by the
British surveyors. Israel and Egypt accepted the arbitration’s decisions and Israel withdrew
from Taba. Handsome compensation was paid to the owners of the hotel and resort village, andTaba has since become one of the gates from Israel into Sinai although Israelis who wish to visit
Sinai now need passports and visas, though visas are not needed to visit Taba.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

Figure 5: Taba and the Newly Demarcated Border
Between Egypt and Israel

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

17

18

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

The question as to why the tiny enclave of Taba became a core of dispute at all, however,remains. The main reason was Egyptian insistence that every centimetre of Egyptian territory
must be returned to Egypt whereas Israel perceived this attitude as contrasting the spirit ofpeace, especially as the contested territory was tiny and held absolutely no strategic value. The
second factor which had impact on the Taba issue was the deterioration of Israeli-Egypt
relations. Egypt blamed Israel for not fulfilling all the articles in the Camp David Accords,
especially those concerning autonomy for the Palestinians. Israel was very disappointed with the‘Cold Peace’ with Egypt, especially the lack of Egyptian tourism, mutual trade, and mutual
cultural exchange; and the murder of several Israeli tourists in Sinai had aggravated the alreadytense relations between the two states.
The psychological barrier of the Israeli-Egyptian conflict which had been visibly removed by
Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem returned to overshadow relations.

6.

Other outcomes of the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty

One of the outcomes of the Egypt-Israel boundary demarcation was the conversion of Rafah
into a partitioned town at the gates of the desert. It is important to remember that Rafah had
grown for 34 years under Egyptian administration without any consideration being taken of theold 1906 international boundary. In 1982 the new barbed-wire fence divided the city and its
population into two. Families were separated, property was divided and many houses andorchards were cut across and destroyed by the new boundary, bulldozed, for security reasons, toform a belt on both sides of the border (Porteous, 1988: 9). In Canada Camp, which,unfortunately was located exactly in the border, all those Palestinian refugees who wished tocross the border and join their families in the Gaza Strip were allowed to do so. Thousands
actually crossed from Egyptian to Israeli-held territory.
Another feature of the new border was its new role as an open border with three border pointsof entry - Taba, Nitzana and Rafah (see Figure 2). All the equipment was installed at thenecessary border gate: custom and immigration posts, border police, check-up posts, etc; but thenormalisation of relations between Israel and Egypt left the above border installations withlimited functions. Trade (except for the Israeli purchase of Egyptian oil) remained at a very low
level. Tourist activity was one-sided between 1980-1987 with 233,000 Israeli tourists visiting
Egypt as compared to 14,000 Egyptian tourists who visited Israel (Meital, 1990: 39). In 1990
the number of Egyptian tourists visiting Israel was only 3,300 growing to 8,100 in 1992 and to
9,800 in 1993. Israel imports from Egypt amounted to US$7.3 million in 1992 to US$19.5
million in 1993 whereas Israeli exports to Egypt were lower: US$6.7 million in 1992 andUS$14.8 million in 1994.

7.

Conclusions

The international border between Israel and Egypt has been evolving for almost a century. Itsdelimitation was an outcome of imperial negotiations between the Ottoman and the British
Empires and its original function was to serve British geopolitical interests. After Israel andEgypt became independent sovereign states the border between them became an armisticeboundary line, which separated two enemy states.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

19

The border zone became a military zone or, at best, a frontier zone with very little or no civilian
activities. The international boundary was crossed three times by the Israeli army on the way tooccupying the Sinai Peninsula. The last war fought between Israel and Egypt was the 1973 War
which ended in a stalemate and put Israel and Egypt on the path towards peace. The final stageof the peace negotiations converted the international boundary into a peaceful border mutuallyacknowledged by both states.
There was no significant increase in the warmth of relationships between Israel and Egypt at theend of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. There was hope that the relationship between two
countries will improve as a result of the Oslo Accord with the PLO and the Treaty of Peace with
Jordan. But in the early months of 1995 the relations between Israel and Egypt were rapidly
deteriorating. Possible reasons for that include the following overt and covert factors:Firstly, Egypt asked for changes, cuts and even removal of the MFO in Sinai - a step which
Israel, with fresh memories of the events which led to the 1967 War, immediately protested.
Egypt explained that the only reason for its request was her dire financial situation, which does
not enable her to pay for the maintenance of the MFO.
A serious current conflict between Israel and Egypt also revolves around Egypt’s internationalpressure on Israel to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which Israel refuses tosign at present. Egypt declared that she is not going to sign the NPT until Israel does; this issue
has brought the relationship between the two states to a new level of tension.
Finally, Egypt’s activities to ‘cool-off’ the new relationship between Israel and other Arab andMoslem states in the Gulf region and the Maghreb are highly resented by Israel. Some
specialists believe that Egyptian policy is motivated by fear for her status as hegemon and leaderof the Arab world while others consider Egyptian steps as merely measures to press Israel tosubmit to Egyptian demands.
The growing tensions between the two countries are currently dealt with by top government
officials, and the differences will most likely be resolved in political and diplomatic negotiati ons
and not by war.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 

20

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

References
Akehurst, M. (1981) ‘The peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel’, International Relations,VII, 1 (May): 1035-1052.
Biger, G. (1978) ‘The First Map of Modern Egypt: Mohammed Ali’s Firman and the Mapof 1841’, Middle Eastern Studies, 14: 324-352.
Brawer, M. (1970) ‘Geographical Elements in the Formation of the Egyptian-Palestine
Boundary’, Studies in the Geography of Israel, VII: 125-37 (in Hebrew).
Brawer, M. (1979) ‘Borders and frontiers in the Negev’, pp.368-379 in A. Shmueli and Y.
Gradus (eds.) The Negev Region, Vol. I, Tel Aviv and Beer-Sheva: The Universities ofTel Aviv and Ben Gurion.
Brawer, M. (1988) The Boundaries of Eretz Israel, Tel Aviv: Yavneh (Hebrew).
British and Foreign State Papers, 99: 482-84, London.
Cantori, L.J. (1984) ‘Egyptian Policy’, pp. 171-191 in R.Freedman (ed.), The Middle East f
Since Camp David, Boulder: Westview.
Cohen, A. (1970) Israel and the Arab World, London: W.H.Allen.
Cromer, Lord (1908) Modern Egypt, Vol. II, London.
Curzon, Lord Kedleston (1907) Frontiers, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dinstein, Y. (1989) ‘The Arbitration in the Case of Taba’, Iyuney-Mishpat, 14: 57-65 (inHebrew).
Downing, D. and Herman, G. (1978) War without End - Peace without Hope, London: New
English Library.
Drysdale, A. and Blake, G.H. (1985) The Middle East and North Africa - A Political
Geography, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gooch, G.P. and Temperley, H. (eds.) (1928) British Documents on the Origins of the War
1898-1914, Vol. V, London: H.M. Government, pp. 189-195.
Heyd, U. (1963) ‘The Gulf of Eilat Crisis of 1906 in Eilat’, The Eilat Volume, Jerusalem: The
Society for the Study of the Land of Israel, pp. 194-206.
Hurewitz, J.C. (1989) ‘Introduction’ pp. X-XXXIII in P. Toye (ed.) Palestine Boundaries
1833-1947, Vol. 1, (Palestine-Egypt), London: Archive Editions.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995©

The Evolution of Egyptian-Israeli Boundaries

21

International Legal materials (1988) ‘Award of the Egypt Israel Arbitration Tribunal’, Vol. 27:
1427, 1432-33.
James, A. (1981) ‘Symbol in Sinai: the Multinational Force and Observers’, Millennium
Journal of International Studies, 14, 3: 255-276.
Jennings-Bramly, W.E. (1906) Collection of documents Relating to the Dispute over the
Turco-Egyptian Frontier, Royal Geographical Society, London, (Documents 1 and
2).
Khouri, F.J. (1968) The Arab-Israeli Dilemma, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Lapidoth, R. (1985) ‘The Problem of Taba and Solving Disputes Peacefully’, Seqirah
Hodshit, 6: 13-17 (in Hebrew).
Lapidoth, R. (1986) ‘The Taba Controversy’, The Jerusalem Quarterly, 29: 30-39.
Liska, G. (1982) ‘Wars in Rounds’, pp. 114-146 in N.Oren (ed.) Termination of Wars,
Jerusalem: Magnes.
Lorch, N. (1976) One Long War, Jerusalem: Keter Books.
Mansur, S. (1985) ‘The Egypt-Israel Relationship: An Anatomy of Wasted Decades’, pp. 1548 in P.Marantz and J.Stein (eds.) Peace Making in the Middle East, Beckenham:
Croom Helm.
Marshall, C.J. (1959) ‘An Enigmatic Frontier’, Geographical Journal, CXXV: 459-62.
Meital, Y. (1990) The Development of Economic Relationships between Former Enemies:
The Case of Israel and Egypt, Tel Aviv, University of Tel Aviv (in Hebrew).
Porteous, T. (1988) ‘The Divided People of Rafah’, Middle East International, 23 January:
9.
Sobel, L.A. (ed.) (1980) Peace Making in the Middle East, New York: Fact on File Inc.
Toye, P. (ed.) (1989) Palestine Boundaries 1833-1947, Vol. 1, Palestine-Egypt London
Archive Editions.
Warburg, R. (1979) ‘The Sinai Peninsula Borders, 1906-47’, Journal of Contemporary
History, 14: 677-692.

IBRU Boundary and Territory Briefing 1995 