Prime minister plans to draw 'the final shape of Israel' by Harry de Quetteville

Sixty years after the state of Israel was created, Ariel Sharon is effectively drawing its final borders, say his advisers, diplomats, friends … and the cartographers.

They believe that Mr Sharon, who as a general played a leading role in the expansion of Israel's borders in successive wars since 1948, is now - as a politician - determined to set the country's hitherto elastic frontiers in stone.