Since Israel's creation in 1948, the question of what territory rightfully belongs to the Jewish state has been a catalyst to war and terrorism. To this day, Syria refuses to make peace with Israel until it relinquishes the Golan Heights. Palestinians insist on a complete Israeli evacuation from the West Bank and Gaza. And the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah justifies its militancy with the claim that a small portion of southern Lebanon remains occupied by Israel.

There have been bright spots, however. Negotiations in the 1970s produced a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and moved the ceasefire line of 1967 back to an older boundary established in 1906. Likewise, Jordan and Israel have agreed on a border, based approximately on a line established in 1922.

Underlying the success of these exchanges is the assumption that the contours of historically recognized borders may be modified to accommodate demographic and security needs. Furthermore, land entitlements should not be seen merely as a matter of total acreage, but should also take into account the quality and significance of the territories involved: Towns, holy sites, farmland and strategic landscape features all count for more than uninhabited desert.

In December, 2004, a task force at the Institute for Policy and Strategy of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, applied these principles to produce a plan for settling Israel's long-standing territorial disputes through a series of connected land swaps. The broad outlines are shown on the map below.

The proposal involves accommodations with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. Given the atmosphere of distrust that animates the Middle East, implementing this blueprint would be difficult. But if all the parties approached the project in good faith, there is no reason why it could not be implemented.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

In recent years, a variety of plans have been put forward to produce a bilateral solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Virtually all require Israel to hand the Palestinians the entire Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank.

The Israeli proposal at Camp David in September, 2000, as well as president Bill Clinton's follow-up initiatives, included provisions for Israeli annexation of certain West Bank settlement blocs in return for ceding unpopulated territory on the Israeli side of the 1949 armistice line (or "Green Line" as it is commonly known). Several citizens' initiatives -- the "Geneva accord" and the People's Voice plans, for instance -- likewise recommend a limited territorial swap. Proposals range from symmetric swaps, whereby each side would give up exactly as much territory as it receives, to arrangements tilted in Israel's favour.

A more ambitious option, which has been raised in Israel, would expand the concept to include a swap of Arab towns and villages in northern Israel for additional territory in the West Bank. This would not only permit the annexation of more Jewish settlements, but also reduce the non-Jewish population within the final borders of the Israeli state, a crucial consideration for those who worry that the higher Arab birth rate might eventually threaten Israel's Jewish character.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE-EGYPT

The Gaza Strip, once occupied by Egypt, has been controlled by Israel since 1967. To make the tiny region a viable entity in Palestinian hands, Egypt would cede to Palestine an area of about 800-1,000 square kilometres southwest of the Gaza strip, with a coastline of some 30 kilometres. A million Palestinians could settle there, an airport and a sea port could be built, and beach tourism, industry and other sources of employment could develop.

In return, the Palestinians would cede to Israel an area of about 600 sq. km., which would include settlement blocks in the West Bank and an area along the Jordan River. The Judaen Desert would become a mutual ecological area.

For its part, Israel would make two concessions to Egypt. First: 600 sq. km. in the Faran Desert area, and on the border with Sinai (opposite Kuntila). These territories would be governed by the same security restrictions that apply in the adjacent areas of the Egyptian-controlled Sinai. Second: a land corridor from the edge of the above-mentioned territory to Jordan, which would permit the construction of an Egyptian-Jordanian railway line, a road and an oil pipeline.

ISRAEL-SYRIA-JORDAN

Israel would withdraw from most of the Golan Heights -- the strategic mountainous area occupied by Israeli troops in 1967. But to protect its security interests, Israel would continue to hold an area up to a line running roughly five miles east of the international boundary of 1923, demarcated by the cliffs in the southern sector of the Golan and running north, including the city of Katsrin.

Most of the established Israeli positions there would remain within Israel. The total area remaining in Israeli hands would be about 230 sq. km. The Mount Hermon area could be a joint ecological reserve, run by Syria, Israel and Lebanon. Jordan would compensate Syria for the territory left in Israeli hands with land along the Syrian-Jordanian border and in the El-Hama area. Israel would then compensate Jordan with an equal amount of land in the Arabah Valley, south of the Dead Sea, along the Israeli-Jordanian border.

The map that would emerge from these land swaps would represent the first fundamental change in the region's borders since colonial times. Such a success would not only improve relations among these long-time antagonists, it would also offer a meaningful example to other Middle Eastern countries that are engaged in their own embittered border disputes.