FRONTIERS IN SINAI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00825R000100520001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 13, 1956
• Content Type: IM

Approved For Release 2000/05/31 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000 052000'-
CONFIDENTIAL
Copy No..108
GEOGRAPHIC
INTELLIGENCE
MEMORANDUM
CIA/RR- GM- I
13 November 1956
FRONTIERS IN SINAI
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND REPORTS
This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within
the meaning of the espionage laws, Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the transmission
or revelation of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
CONFIDENTIAL
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 Approved For Release 2000/05/31 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100520001-8
CONFIDENTIAL
Israel's seizure of the Sinai Peninsula, in conjunction with British and
French military action against Egypt, raises the question of new frontiers in
Sinai. In the United Nations on 2 November.1956, the British referred to the
Israel-Egypt Armistice Line as being inadequate, and it may be inferred that a
new boundary line is perhaps under consideration.
Sinai is largely a barren, rocky wasteland. The rugged terrain of the south,
with elevations over 8,000 feet, becomes lower towards the north, finally
opening out into relatively flat sand-dune country of the Mediterranean coastal-
plain. Ground-water resources are poor throughout the peninsula. The northern
two-thirds is nearly waterless, receiving about 3 inches of rainfall per year; in
the south, outwash from the higher elevations produces only a few areas in which
brackish water is available. Sinai is a harsh land, ideal as a buffer zone.
The indications are that Israel will bargain strongly for a boundary that runs
on a line from Al'Arish on the Mediterranean southward to the tip of Sinai on the
Red Sea, thus incorporating the eastern half of the peninsula within Israel.
Israel would prefer to leave western Sinai not to Egypt but to the United Nations
as a demilitarized neutral zone separating her from Egypt. Such an arrangement
would satisfy two cardinal points of British foreign policy that reach far back
in history:
1. To keep western Sinai as a wasteland buffer protecting
the Suez Canal
2. To keep the Gulf of Aqaba from falling into unfriendly
hands that might threaten the water route to India
There have been many indications of Israel's desire to expand into Sinai.
For instance, at the time of the Gaza incidents in early 1955, Ben Gurion taunted.
Nasr with the statement that Israel would populate land with people capable of
cultivating wasteland, meaning Sinai.. Both men knew that the Egyptian shuns the
desert but that the Israeli does not. A less well known manifestation of the
Israeli intention is contained in the juridical interpretation of the Armistice
Agreements by Shabtai Rosenne who, in 1951, was the Legal Advisor to the Israeli
Ministry for Foreign Affairs. On the basis of paragraph 2,, Article V of the
Israel-Egypt Armistice Agreement he concluded that:
1. Whereas all other armistice lines of Israel were the
equivalent of international frontiers, that with Egypt
was not.
2. Paragraph 2, Article V, having emphasized that the
Israel-Egypt Armistice Line was not to be construed as
a political boundary, would not prevent either party
from "raising in the future any arguments it likes
regarding the final delimitation of the frontier."
Shabtai Rosenne's views are important not because Israel has now chosen to revise
her frontier in Sinai but rather because they singled out the Egyptian frontier
on a legal basis as the place to strike.
The present situation in Sinai bears a close resemblence to certain histgrical
events. Most maps printed before 1892 showed the frontier beginning at Al'Arish.
In 1892, Britain's Lord Cromer modified Egypt's frontiers arbitrarily. He did not
establish a formal boundary but instead confined himself to eliminating Turkish
rule in Sinai. He published his interpretation of the boundary as being a line
running just east of A1'Arish on the Mediterranean to the head of the Gulf of
Aqaba. Turkey neither assented to nor rejected Lord Cromer's unilateral
declaration.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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 Approved For Release 2000/05/31 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100520001-8
FRONTIERS IN SINAI
.TIEDITE'1?ItANE A N
S E A
Great
} ~ ~31ft2r
Cromer 1892 boundary
Cromer 1906 boundary
Palestine-Egypt boundary, 1906-1949
Israel-Egypt Armistice Line
(with exception of Gaza Strip)
Turkish-claimed boundary, 1906
???????? Turkish alternate proposal, 1906
Possible Israeli claim, 1956
CONFIDENTIAL
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In 1906, Turkey claimed that the boundary ran from Al'Arish to Suez to the
Gulf of Aqaba. In passing, it should be noted how closely these lines enclose the
area of recent Israeli military operation in. Sinai. By 1906, even British car-
tographers showed the A1'Arish-Suez-Aqaba line as the boundary. Cromer, however,
was obstinate, and the Turks proposed a compromise line running from Al'Arish to
the southern tip of Sinai. Cromer, a practical historical geographer, realized
that the Turkish solution would leave the Gulf of Aqaba as a closed Turkish Sea
and as a standing menace to the trade route eastward. As if to echo his statement,
the Egyptians did become a menace when the Israeli tried to use the Gulf of Aqaba
outlet to the Red Sea.
Cromer's views prevailed and the northern end of the frontier was shifted
eastward towards Rafah on the Mediterranean coast. The southern terminus was at
the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Cromer backed up his argument by rightly claiming
that boundary pillars had been at Rafah for many years during the Middle Ages.
The boundary between Egypt and Palestine, little changed in 1949, had as its basis
this boundary which Lord Cromer imposed on the Turks in 1906.
The Zionists were and are keenly interested in Sinai. In 1902, Herzl, founder
of the organization, approached Joseph Chamberlin, then British Colonial Secretary,
and proposed to him that a charter be granted to the Zionist Organization to colo-
nize A1'Arish territory, which was apparently defined as all of Sinai. Cromer
ultimately rejected the Al'Arish scheme on the basis that Nile water could not be
spared for irrigation, but a more cogent reason for the rejection was that Sinai
as a barren desert would provide better protection for British-held Egypt than
it would if its northern coastal plain were populated by farmers. Throughout its
history Zionism has never forgotten A1'Arish.
CONFIDENTIAL
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REMARKS
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his is the suggested distribution list for the GM series.
'ill OCR make the distribution?
If so, they should be given a standard distribution list for same --
something like the attached.
t/PC has not been informed, I presume.
ere will Reproduction deliver the final job? To OCR? We should get
word to them fairly soon -- or they will be surpri~ed:
hould the GM-1 be accompanied by request for (1) comment, (2) question
of whether additional copies are desired?
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE
SPECIE. ASSISTANT FOR INTELLIGENCE
CHIEF, CIA LIAISON BRANCH, IAD
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-2, DA
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
- DIRECTOR OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
Qpu~-'- DEPARTMENT OF THE AIP FORCE
DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE, U. S. AIR FORCE
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
ETARY. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
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WEA1 SYSTEMS EVALUATION G 311P
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INTE'L CIA D STRIOUTION
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
L DEPUTY DIRECTOR 7F CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR/INTELLIGENCE
GEOLOGICAL. 5URVEY_
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CIA !.i ARIAN
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