ABSTRACT
The occupation of the WBGS did not pose only an economic challenge to the Israelis. The challenge was above all a political and territorial one. The armistice signed between Israel and its Arab neighbours in the aftermath of 1948 left Israel’s borders unofficially demarcated, and the 1967 war expanded Israel’s frontier without delineating its boundaries. Having seized the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, Israel needed to define the scope of its territorial interest in the occupied areas and the means to assert a claim over them for future negotiations with its Arab neighbours.
