The maps also don’t reflect the fact that Israel withdrew completely from Gaza and removed all the settlements there. That does not fit with the image of a steady expansion of Israeli control.

The main problem with the maps, as I see it, is that they reflect the assumption that Palestinian-Arab national control is the natural state of affairs for the territory and thus that all of Israel is “occupied Palestine.”

Nevertheless, I don’t think it can be denied that the policy of settlements has had the effect of restricting the movement and possibility of self-governance for Palestinian Arabs. If you think of the map as showing not political control but rather where one can freely go and live as an Arab, then it probably is a lot closer to the truth.