The map of Israel-Palestine that showed hope for peace in the Middle East
Last Updated on February 26, 2025 6:32 am
‘I am making you an offer that you will not find another Israeli leader in 50 years who will make you. Sign it! Sign it and change history!’
In 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to sign an agreement finalizing the borders between Israel and the Palestinian state. Olmert believed that the agreement would bring peace to the Middle East.
The agreement was a two-state solution—its implementation seems impossible today.
If all parties had accepted the agreement at the time and implemented it, a Palestinian state would have been formed today, covering more than 94 percent of the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The map that Olmert prepared dividing the borders of Israel and the future Palestinian state now seems like a fantasy.
Later, many people gave many explanations about the map of former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert. But the map had never been published in the media before.
Documentary filmmaker Norma Percy recently made a documentary called ‘In Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to Seventh October’.
In that documentary, Olmert presented it to Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting in Jerusalem on September 16, 2008. After so many days, he made the map public.
Olmert told the documentary filmmaker, ‘This is the first time I am showing this map to the media.’
In that map, Olmert detailed how much of the West Bank would be occupied by Israel, which was only 4.9 percent of the West Bank. That part included a large part of the Jewish settlements there.
A similar proposal was made in the late 1990s to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert also said that in that agreement, Israel was willing to withdraw from its long-standing demand for an equal amount of land for Israeli territory along the borders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The agreement also called for the Palestinians to connect the two territories with a tunnel or highway. This issue had been discussed in the past.
Olmert also said what Mahmoud Abbas said in response to Olmert’s proposal. He said, “Abbas told him, ‘Prime Minister, this is very important. This is very, very, very important.'”
Olmert’s plan also made significant mention of how Jerusalem, which is at the center of the dispute, would be divided.
It said that both sides would be able to claim a part of Jerusalem as their capital. And the Holy Land of Jerusalem—which includes the Old City, religiously significant areas, and the surrounding area—will be administered by a trustee committee. Representatives from Israel, the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United States will be on the trustee committee.
The implementation of the map would have a major impact on Jewish settlers. Many Jewish settlements scattered throughout the West Bank and Jordan Valley would have to be removed.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had done this before. He forcibly removed thousands of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005. The Israeli right-wing saw it as an attack on the Jewish people.
Removing Jewish settlements from most of the West Bank would have been a much more challenging task than that. It would have involved the removal of millions of Jews, with a real risk of atrocities spreading there.
The Israeli government, however, has never faced this test.
The meeting between Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem was fruitless. Before signing the agreement, Abbas asked Olmert for a copy of his proposed map so that he could show it to cartographers to understand what was being proposed. But Olmert refused to give Abbas his map before the agreement was signed.
The two leaders agreed to meet again the next day with cartographers. But that meeting never took place. The two leaders left Jerusalem that night.
“We were divided,” Olmert said. You know, we were on the verge of making history.’
Rafik Husseini, Mahmoud Abbas’s chief of staff, can still remember the atmosphere in the car on the way back from Jerusalem that day.
In the documentary, Rafik Husseini says, ‘Of course we laughed.’
The Palestinians believed that the plan would not work. Olmert himself was in a shaky position at the time, embroiled in a corruption scandal. He had already announced his plans to resign.
Husseini says, ‘The better Olmert was, the more powerless he was. And on top of that, that plan would not have taken us anywhere.’
The situation in Gaza at that time was also complicated. After months of rocket fire from Hamas-controlled territory, Olmert ordered a major operation against them. The operation was called ‘Operation Cast Lead.’ Then, in December 2008, there was a three-week fierce battle between Hamas and Israeli forces.
Husseini also said in the documentary, “Olmert told me that it would be very wise for Abbas to sign this agreement. If any future Israeli prime minister tries to cancel the agreement, Abbas can at least tell the rest of the world that this failure is Israel’s fault.”
The following February, Israeli elections were held and Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always been very vocal against a Palestinian state, won the vote and returned to power.
Olmert’s plan, map and the blurred scenario
Former Prime Minister Olmert said that he is still waiting for Mahmoud Abbas’s answer. However, his plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has now been added to the long list of missed opportunities.
In 1973, former Israeli diplomat Abba Eban joked, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to seize it.”
Since then, Israeli officials have regularly used this phrase in reference to the Palestinians. But times have become much more complicated than that, especially since the two sides signed the historic Oslo Accords in 1993.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn. While it was a moment of genuine hope, it too failed.