Tikun Olam תיקון עולם
Promoting Israeli democracy, exposing secrets of the national security state
Ben Gurion’s Plan for Regional Conquest and Israeli Empire
September 1, 2016 By Richard Silverstein 7 Comments
Ben Gurion’s 1948 vision of Israeli empire
Odeh Bisharat, one of Haaretz’s few Israeli-Palestinian columnists (Sayeh
Kashua is another), published an incisive article on what he calls “the end
of the road” for Zionism. But the first paragraph, which comprised a
quotation from David Ben Gurion (the full archival passage in Hebrew is
here), really opened my eyes. At the first meeting of the Haganah military
command after statehood was declared on May 15, 1948, he told the assembled
leadership his strategic goals for the coming war. This grandiose vision
dispels a long-standing claim by proponents of the Israel-as-victim view,
who argue that Israel’s enemies have commenced all the wars against it and
that the “Jewish state” has only acted in self-defense:
“We must immediately destroy Ramle and Lod. … We must organize Eliyahu’s
brigade to direct it against Jenin in preparation for [conquering] the
Jordan Valley. … Maklef needs to receive reinforcements and his role is the
conquest of southern Lebanon, through bombing-support against Tyre, Sidon
and Beirut. … Yigal Allon must strike Syria from the east and from the
north. … We must establish a Christian state whose southern border will be
the Litani [River]. We will forge an alliance with it. When we break the
strength of the [Jordanian] Legion and bomb Amman we will eliminate
Transjordan too, and then Syria falls. And if Egypt still dares to fight, we
will bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo.
…That is how we will end the war – and make a reckoning on our forefathers
behalf with Egypt, Assyria and Aramea.”
Pro-Israel advocates will chalk this up to the braggadocio of a national
leader preparing the troops for battle. He offers them a vision full of
victories and maximalist territorial gain. It cheers them for the difficult
battle ahead. Defenders may argue that Ben Gurion had to have been
realistic enough to know that the new state had little chance of achieving
such objectives.
But in my reading of Ben Gurion, there are two separate personalities: one
of the pragmatist who accepts half a loaf instead of the whole; the other
the ambitious politico-military strategist harboring imperial visions of
Israel’s future (including the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian
inhabitants of the new state). But even the pragmatist is only pragmatic in
the moment. Ben Gurion makes clear that his pragmatism is only temporary
until Israel is in a position to realize its maximalist goals.
The irony here is that it is Israeli advocates who continually claim that
conspiring Palestinian militants only accept Israel on an interim basis
until they are powerful enough to eradicate it. Therefore, Israel may never
trust such enemies and never make peace with them; because a knife in the
back is the only future Israel can expect from them. We can see that it is
Israel that the Arab states had reason to distrust.
Another bitter irony is the claim by Israel and anti-Iran forces in the U.S.
and elsewhere, that Iran has a nefarious plan to spread Shia hegemony
throughout the Middle East to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Gulf region. In
truth, Ben Gurion shows that Iran is a piker by comparison. He envisioned a
Greater Israel not just from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean),
but a Davidic imperium spreading its influence from Syria to Egypt. Even
those Arab states Israel permitted to remain would be little more than
vassals of this new regional Goliath.
Just think how Ben Gurion’s successors implemented most of the strategic
vision he proclaimed that day: a Christian state in southern Lebanon; the
fall of Syria; Israeli bombardment of Arab capitals in Beirut, Damascus and
elsewhere. The only elements of his plan that were unrealized (conquest of
Jordan and the pacification of Egypt) weren’t necessary because both states
sued for peace.
Today’s radical settlers, with their considerably ‘pared-down’ vision of a
pure, racialist Judean state, rid of Palestinians, from the Jordan to the
sea are inheritors of Ben Gurion’s legacy.
Bisharat quotes another telling statement from a pre-State Zionist leader
who could be describing current Israeli strategy of sabotaging peace
negotiations with the Palestinians. This was written in 1937:
“It turns out that we have put out our hand for peace, but took it back
right away, when the other side expressed its interest in accepting it. This
dangerous game did not help to raise our honor in their eyes as honest
people, and the accusation that they blame us for, that we are conducting
two-faced politics: On one hand we pretend as if we are asking for an
agreement, and on the other hand we only want to gain time – is not
baseless.”
This clearly explains Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech of 2009 in which he
pretends to embrace a two-state solution (under severe pressure from the
Bush administration to do so). The few times since when the Israeli leader
has trotted out his affirmation of a tw0-state solution were times when he
was under great duress and had to throw a sop to foreign interlocutors like
the Obama administration. Clearly, Bibi’s heart is not in it, nor does he
believe it.
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Tikun Olam תיקון עולם
Promoting Israeli democracy, exposing secrets of the national security state
You are here: Home / Mideast Peace / Ben Gurion’s Plan for Regional Conquest
and Israeli Empire
Ben Gurion’s Plan for Regional Conquest and Israeli Empire
September 1, 2016 By Richard Silverstein 7 Comments
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wp.com/www.eurojewcong.org/img/articles/638x389/9233.jpg
Ben Gurion’s 1948 vision of Israeli empire
Odeh Bisharat, one of Haaretz’s few Israeli-Palestinian columnists (Sayeh
Kashua is another), published an incisive article on what he calls “the end
of the road” for Zionism. But the first paragraph, which comprised a
quotation from David Ben Gurion (the full archival passage in Hebrew is
here), really opened my eyes. At the first meeting of the Haganah military
command after statehood was declared on May 15, 1948, he told the assembled
leadership his strategic goals for the coming war. This grandiose vision
dispels a long-standing claim by proponents of the Israel-as-victim view,
who argue that Israel’s enemies have commenced all the wars against it and
that the “Jewish state” has only acted in self-defense:
“We must immediately destroy Ramle and Lod. … We must organize Eliyahu’s
brigade to direct it against Jenin in preparation for [conquering] the
Jordan Valley. … Maklef needs to receive reinforcements and his role is the
conquest of southern Lebanon, through bombing-support against Tyre, Sidon
and Beirut. … Yigal Allon must strike Syria from the east and from the
north. … We must establish a Christian state whose southern border will be
the Litani [River]. We will forge an alliance with it. When we break the
strength of the [Jordanian] Legion and bomb Amman we will eliminate
Transjordan too, and then Syria falls. And if Egypt still dares to fight, we
will bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo.
…That is how we will end the war – and make a reckoning on our forefathers
behalf with Egypt, Assyria and Aramea.”
Pro-Israel advocates will chalk this up to the braggadocio of a national
leader preparing the troops for battle. He offers them a vision full of
victories and maximalist territorial gain. It cheers them for the difficult
battle ahead. Defenders may argue that Ben Gurion had to have been realistic
enough to know that the new state had little chance of achieving such
objectives.
But in my reading of Ben Gurion, there are two separate personalities: one
of the pragmatist who accepts half a loaf instead of the whole; the other
the ambitious politico-military strategist harboring imperial visions of
Israel’s future (including the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian
inhabitants of the new state). But even the pragmatist is only pragmatic in
the moment. Ben Gurion makes clear that his pragmatism is only temporary
until Israel is in a position to realize its maximalist goals.
The irony here is that it is Israeli advocates who continually claim that
conspiring Palestinian militants only accept Israel on an interim basis
until they are powerful enough to eradicate it. Therefore, Israel may never
trust such enemies and never make peace with them; because a knife in the
back is the only future Israel can expect from them. We can see that it is
Israel that the Arab states had reason to distrust.
Another bitter irony is the claim by Israel and anti-Iran forces in the U.S.
and elsewhere, that Iran has a nefarious plan to spread Shia hegemony
throughout the Middle East to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Gulf region. In
truth, Ben Gurion shows that Iran is a piker by comparison. He envisioned a
Greater Israel not just from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean),
but a Davidic imperium spreading its influence from Syria to Egypt. Even
those Arab states Israel permitted to remain would be little more than
vassals of this new regional Goliath.
Just think how Ben Gurion’s successors implemented most of the strategic
vision he proclaimed that day: a Christian state in southern Lebanon; the
fall of Syria; Israeli bombardment of Arab capitals in Beirut, Damascus and
elsewhere. The only elements of his plan that were unrealized (conquest of
Jordan and the pacification of Egypt) weren’t necessary because both states
sued for peace.
Today’s radical settlers, with their considerably ‘pared-down’ vision of a
pure, racialist Judean state, rid of Palestinians, from the Jordan to the
sea are inheritors of Ben Gurion’s legacy.
Bisharat quotes another telling statement from a pre-State Zionist leader
who could be describing current Israeli strategy of sabotaging peace
negotiations with the Palestinians. This was written in 1937:
“It turns out that we have put out our hand for peace, but took it back
right away, when the other side expressed its interest in accepting it. This
dangerous game did not help to raise our honor in their eyes as honest
people, and the accusation that they blame us for, that we are conducting
two-faced politics: On one hand we pretend as if we are asking for an
agreement, and on the other hand we only want to gain time – is not
baseless.”
This clearly explains Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech of 2009 in which he
pretends to embrace a two-state solution (under severe pressure from the
Bush administration to do so). The few times since when the Israeli leader
has trotted out his affirmation of a tw0-state solution were times when he
was under great duress and had to throw a sop to foreign interlocutors like
the Obama administration. Clearly, Bibi’s heart is not in it, nor does he
believe it.
