Shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords, in September 1993, Ran moved with his wife from moshav Meir, where he says he owned a farm, to the Israeli West Bank settlement of Itamar, near the Palestinian town of Nablus, an area he was familiar with from his reserve duties in the armoured corps. There he built and ran an organic chicken coop. With the confirmation of the Wye River Memorandum, on 15 November 1998 Ariel Sharon declared to a crowd of militants