Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am joined as always by my brother.
Herman Poppleberry, here and ready to dive into some history. Our housemate Daniel sent us a really interesting audio prompt today about a chapter of history that feels almost like a fever dream when you look at the maps today.
It really does. He was asking about the period between nineteen sixty-seven and nineteen eighty-two, when the Sinai Peninsula was under Israeli control. It is one of those topics that, even here in Jerusalem, people talk about with a mix of nostalgia, political intensity, and sometimes a bit of confusion about how it all actually worked.
Right, because we are talking about a landmass that is roughly sixty thousand square kilometers. To put that in perspective for our listeners, that is about three times the size of the state of Israel within the pre-sixty-seven lines. It is a massive, rugged, beautiful, and strategically vital triangle of desert.
And Daniel specifically wanted to know about the communities that were built there. You know, when we think of the Sinai today, we think of Egyptian tourism or security challenges in the north, but for fifteen years, there was a whole network of Israeli towns, villages, and airbases. So, Herman, where do we even start with the settlement of such a huge area?
Well, the story really starts immediately after the Six-Day War in June of nineteen sixty-seven. Israel found itself in possession of the entire peninsula, all the way to the Suez Canal. Initially, there was a lot of debate about what to do with it. Was it a bargaining chip? Was it strategic depth? But pretty quickly, the government began to establish a presence. The first communities were actually focused around the northern coast, near the Gaza Strip, and then down the eastern coast along the Gulf of Aqaba.
I remember reading that the crown jewel of this whole project was a city called Yamit. It was supposed to be this massive, modern Mediterranean port city, right?
Yamit is probably the most famous, or perhaps infamous, of the Sinai settlements. It was established in nineteen seventy-three, right near the Mediterranean coast in what was called the Rafah Salient. The vision for Yamit was ambitious. The planners did not just want a small village; they wanted a city of two hundred thousand people. They saw it as a way to create a buffer between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai desert, and also to provide a deep-water port that would rival Haifa or Ashdod.
Two hundred thousand? That is a huge number for a desert outpost. Did it ever get anywhere near that?
No, not even close. At its peak, Yamit had about two thousand five hundred residents. But it was a very real place. It had schools, shopping centers, a library, and beautiful white-stucco homes. People moved there for the pioneer spirit, the incredible beaches, and the government subsidies that made life there very affordable. It represented a certain kind of Israeli optimism of the nineteen seventies.
But Yamit was not alone. If you go further south, down the coast toward the Red Sea, there were other spots. Daniel mentioned the winery near the border, and that whole road down the eastern side is dotted with history.
Right, if you drive south from Eilat today, you cross the border at Taba. Back then, that whole stretch had several key communities. There was Neviot, which is now the Egyptian town of Nuweiba. There was Di Zahav, which is now Dahab. These were mostly moshavim, which are cooperative agricultural communities. As for the winery Daniel mentioned, that is likely a reference to the vineyards started by settlers in the region who later moved just across the border to the Hevel Shalom area after the withdrawal. They literally took their expertise and their vines with them.
It is wild to think about agriculture in the Sinai. I mean, it is basically a moonscape in some parts. What were they growing?
They were surprisingly successful with winter vegetables and flowers, using desalinated water or brackish water from local wells. But honestly, Corn, a lot of the draw for these southern spots was not just farming; it was tourism and nature. Neviot and Di Zahav were legendary among the younger generation. It was the hippie trail of the Middle East. You had these incredible coral reefs, the granite mountains meeting the blue water, and a feeling of total isolation from the pressures of the center of the country.
And then at the very tip of the peninsula, you had the big one. The base at Sharm el-Sheikh.
Yes, which the Israelis called Ophira. Now, today, Sharm el-Sheikh is a world-famous resort city with five-star hotels and international summits. But in the early nineteen seventies, Ophira was primarily a strategic naval and air base designed to ensure that the Straits of Tiran remained open to Israeli shipping. There was a civilian town there, too, with about five hundred families. They lived in these specifically designed apartment buildings that were built to withstand the intense heat. It was a very tight-knit community because, remember, back then, it was a long, bumpy five-hour drive through the desert just to get back to Eilat.
So, looking at the total numbers Daniel asked about, how many Israelis are we talking about across the whole peninsula?
At the peak, just before the withdrawal started, the total civilian population was around ten thousand to eleven thousand people. Most were concentrated in the Rafah Salient around Yamit, where there were about fifteen different agricultural settlements like Sadot, Netiv HaAsara, and Talmei Yosef. The rest were scattered down the coast at the spots we mentioned. It was not a massive population compared to the millions in the rest of Israel, but the psychological footprint was enormous.
That is a really important point. It was not just about the numbers; it was about the space. For fifteen years, Israel felt much bigger. You could go on a jeep trek for days and never see a soul. It became part of the national identity for a generation. But then, the nineteen seventy-three war happened, the Yom Kippur War, and everything shifted.
That was the catalyst. Even though Israel ended that war in a strong military position, crossing the Suez Canal into mainland Egypt, the war broke the myth of invincibility. It led to the disengagement agreements in nineteen seventy-four and seventy-five, where Israel started pulling back slightly from the canal. But the real turning point, the moment that changed the map forever, was nineteen seventy-seven.
That was when Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, made his historic flight to Jerusalem. I have seen the footage a hundred times, and it still feels incredible. The leader of the biggest Arab nation, who had just fought a major war against Israel four years earlier, standing in the Knesset talking about peace.
And the price of that peace, which was hammered out at Camp David with Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin, was the total return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. All of it. Every inch.
This is where Daniel's question about the hand-off gets really interesting. It was not just a matter of moving some soldiers and changing a flag. You had ten thousand people who had built lives there, farms that were producing, and a whole city in Yamit. How did the Israeli government handle that?
With immense difficulty. The withdrawal was planned in stages over three years, from nineteen seventy-nine to nineteen eighty-two. The early stages were relatively easy because they involved mostly empty desert and military bases. Israel handed over the mountain passes and the oil fields they had developed at Abu Rudeis. But the final stage, which included the evacuation of the civilian communities, was a national trauma. The government ended up paying nearly four billion dollars in compensation to the settlers to help them relocate and rebuild inside the Green Line.
I remember the stories about Yamit. There were people who refused to leave, right?
Oh, it was intense. As the deadline in April of nineteen eighty-two approached, thousands of activists who were not even from Sinai moved into Yamit to support the residents who wanted to stay. They barricaded themselves on rooftops. There was a group of students who even went into a bunker and threatened to commit suicide if the evacuation proceeded. The Israeli Defense Forces had to go in and literally carry people out. They used cages on cranes to lift protesters off the roofs.
And then, once everyone was out, they did not just leave the buildings for the Egyptians. They destroyed the city.
That is one of the most striking parts of the hand-off. The Israeli government decided to bulldoze every single house and building in Yamit. The official reason was that they did not want the settlers to try to sneak back in, but there was also a darker psychological element. They did not want to see their homes inhabited by someone else. They wanted to erase the physical presence. Today, if you go to that spot in Egypt, there is almost nothing left but sand and some broken concrete. It is a ghost city in the truest sense.
It is a stark contrast to what happened in the south. In places like Ophira, the buildings were left standing, were they not?
Yes, because those were mostly apartment blocks and infrastructure that the Egyptians could immediately use for their own tourism development. In fact, many of the original Israeli-built apartments in Sharm el-Sheikh are still standing and being used today. The transition there was much smoother because it was clear that the future of that area was tourism.
So, by April twenty-fifth, nineteen eighty-two, the last Israeli soldier leaves, the border is drawn, and Sinai is Egyptian again. Daniel asked what it is like now. And it is a bit of a tale of two Sinais, isn't it?
It really is, though the picture has changed quite a bit recently. Historically, you had to divide it into the North and the South. The South Sinai, which includes Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, and the high mountains around Saint Catherine's Monastery, has thrived as a global tourism hub. For decades, it was a place where Israelis and Egyptians mingled quite freely. Israelis can enter that specific zone without a pre-arranged visa, just using that special fourteen-day stamp Daniel mentioned.
I have been there myself. You cross at Taba, and suddenly you are in this world of beach huts, Bedouin hospitality, and world-class diving. It feels very peaceful, very disconnected from the politics of Cairo or Jerusalem. But the North has been a different story for a long time.
Right. For the last decade, the North was a battleground between the Egyptian military and insurgent groups like the Islamic State. But as of February twenty-twenty-six, the situation has stabilized significantly. The Egyptian government has largely suppressed the insurgency and is now engaged in a massive reconstruction project. They have built a brand-new city called New Rafah and have opened several new tunnels under the Suez Canal. It is no longer just a closed military zone; they are trying to integrate the Sinai into the Egyptian economy more than ever before.
It is such a strange irony. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has held for over forty-five years. It is one of the most stable things in the Middle East. But the land itself, the Sinai, remains this volatile, untamed place that is only now starting to see a new kind of order.
I think that is why it fascinates people like Daniel. It is a place that refuses to be fully tamed by any government. Even under Israeli control, it was the "Wild West." Under Egyptian control, it has been both a paradise and a war zone. And for the Bedouin tribes who actually live there, they have seen all these flags come and go, but their way of life and their connection to the desert remains the constant.
You know, we should talk a bit more about that peace treaty, because it established something called the Multinational Force and Observers, or the M-F-O. They are still there today, right?
They are. This is a detail that many people miss. Because the peace treaty was a bilateral deal between Israel and Egypt, but they wanted an international guarantee, they created the M-F-O. It is not a United Nations force. It is an independent organization, largely funded by the United States, Israel, and Egypt, with troops from about a dozen countries. They have bases in the Sinai to this day, monitoring the border and ensuring that neither side violates the demilitarization zones set out in the treaty.
It is a reminder that peace is not just a piece of paper; it is an ongoing, daily logistical operation. Those observers are out there in the heat, driving those orange-painted vehicles, just making sure the status quo holds.
And it is a status quo that has survived incredible pressure. It survived the assassination of Anwar Sadat, multiple wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and the political upheavals of the Arab Spring. It shows that even when the "community" aspect of the land changes—when you uproot ten thousand people and bulldoze a city—the strategic necessity of that peace can still outweigh the emotional pain of the loss.
I think that is the big takeaway for me. The Sinai experiment for Israel was a brief, fifteen-year window where they tried to expand their borders and create a new kind of Israeli life. But in the end, they traded that land for something more valuable: a quiet southern border. It was the first "land for peace" deal, and it set the template for everything that came after, for better or worse.
It definitely did. And if you go to the farms in the Hevel Shalom region right on the border inside Israel, you will find people who were evacuated from Sinai in nineteen eighty-two. They took their compensation, they took their seeds and their tractors, and they started over just a few kilometers away. Their kids grew up hearing stories about the white sands of Yamit, but they are farming the Negev now.
It is a testament to resilience, I suppose. But you cannot help but feel a bit of that "what if" when you look at the old photos. The nineteen seventies in Sinai looked like a very different version of what the Middle East could have been.
A bit more relaxed, a bit more open. But history moved on. Now, the Sinai is a place of high-tech fences and luxury resorts, with a lot of empty, beautiful space in between.
Well, I think we have covered the ground Daniel was looking for. From the ambitious dreams of Yamit to the reality of the Multinational Force and Observers today, it is a massive topic.
It really is. And if any of our listeners have been to the Sinai recently, or if you have family stories from those years, we would love to hear them. You can always get in touch through the form on our website.
Speaking of the website, you can find all our past episodes at myweirdprompts dot com. We have covered a lot of ground over the years, and if you are interested in more Middle Eastern history or technical deep dives, there is a huge archive there for you to explore.
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