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Maps
1949-1976: Disengagement and Geneva
The maps presented below are only a few that could be used in learning and teaching about Israel and the Middle East. CIE wishes to thank Aliza Cramer Elias and her team at the Institute for Curriculum Services for allowing CIE to promote the use of the maps that they produced, found here in English and in Spanish. Diplomacy and war reflect the changing contours of states and borders along the evolution of Israel and the modern Middle East. We wish to thank the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for allowing us to use some of their published maps. Others were made for CIE use. Max Fisher has assembled 40 maps of the Middle East from ancient times to the present, each with a brief introduction. This is a first-rate collection with almost no noticeable bias and with a devotion to accuracy.  In addition, Michael Izady’s collection, the Gulf2000 project, focuses on eight countries of the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Izady also lists other map collections, including the Library of Congress, rich in historical items. The University of Texas also has a fine collection of Middle East maps, most of them drawn from the public-domain collection created by the CIA. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides contemporary and historical maps of Israel and its neighborhood. For Spanish-language maps, please click here. For Hebrew-language maps, please click here.

Allon Plan Map, 1967

Drafted by Minister of Labor Yigal Allon after the June 1967 war, the plan envisages Israeli retention of a series of settlements and military installations along the Jordan Valley as buffers to a potential Arab land attack from the east.

Maps|July 26, 1967

Map of Israeli-Egyptian Separation of Forces Agreement, January 1974

For Sadat, who had gone to war against Israel three months earlier, securing a military disengagement agreement was important. In addition, diplomatically engaging the US to secure the agreement meant entrenching Washington as a friend of Egypt. The US embraced the opportunity to quell tensions between Israel and Egypt, while squiring Cairo away from decades of Moscow’s embrace. Israel had its POWs returned and slowly tested Sadat’s broader intentions toward Jerusalem.

Maps|January 1974
Golan Heights after May 1974 Israeli Syrian Separation of Forces agreement

Map of Golan Heights After Israeli-Syrian Separation of Forces Agreement, May 1974

In the last days of the June 1967 War Israel secured a portion of the Syrian Golan Heights, estimated at 1300 sq km or 500 sq mi; Israel forces sit some 40 miles, 60km from Damascus. Before the June War, Israeli villages and populations in the valley were fired upon by Syrian forces from the Heights. In addition to being an important catchment for Jordan River waters which helps supply Israel’s water needs, the heights contain not fully explored hydrocarbon sources. In the northern Heights is Mt. Hermon which has strategic value for observing military movements into southern Lebanon and to Damascus.

Maps|May 1974