ABSTRACT
One of the more unusual political developments in Israel was the Israeli military deployment and civilian settlement in Sinai, the establishment of the Yamit region, its enforced abandonment, the scattering of its settlers throughout the entire country, and the establishment of the Shalom region. What seems to have been involved here was a combination of political steps against a desert geographical background, with little basis in reality even at the outset. It produced one of the most serious settlement traumas ever experienced in Israel, in which an entire development region was removed, and utterly destroyed, so that the inhabitants were obliged to decide on their future, either in resettlement in the substitute Shalom region, or in urban or rural settlements within the ‘Green Line’.
