WZO settlement studies commissioned by the Begin and Shamir governments of the 1970s and 1980s, including the Drobles40 and Tzaban41 reports, provided planning context for the program discussed in this paper. These plans suggested that WZO and JAFI, its parent institution, saw themselves as key forces in the development of the settlement enterprise
in the occupied territories. No distinction was drawn between territory within and over the Green Line, and both programs express a clear articulation of the state agency’s intent to settle the land space of the occupied territories with a high-density Jewish population—including recruitment of immigrants. As Ian Lustick argues in his analysis42 of the Tzaban plan,
both attempted to erase the Green Line in the Israeli consciousness by constructing one contiguous and coterminous area of settlement, industry, and leisure. A suburbanizing trend, which almost eluded the reality of living in the occupied territories, proved to be an important recruitment tool for Jewish-American immigrants considering living in the settlements.