Zionist Quotes: Expansionism (or The Greater Israel) -- The Zionist version of Lebensraum

BASED On Declassified Israeli Documents & Personal Diaries

Map of Greater Israeli as submitted by the World Zionist Organization soon after the end of WWI

It is worth emphasizing that.

• The "Jewish state" was founded based on an ancient Biblical map, and to this date, the "Jewish state" still refuses to declare its borders in favor of future expansion. There is nothing like this Biblical map to send shivers among Arabs and Muslims since its borders span the occupied West Bank (including occupied East Jerusalem), occupied Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, the western parts of Jordan, and southern Syria, including the occupied Golan Heights.
• The Jewish Agency at the Evian Conference in 1938 demanded that the borders of the future "Jewish state" also include Jordan. When Winston Churchill removed the East Bank of the River of Jordan from the promised Balfour Declaration, Zionists registered their strongest objections, and that is when the Zionist Revisionist movement was born.
• Irgun's emblem of Greater Israel persisted until the 1970s
  The Likud Party DROPPED Jordan from being part of Israel ONLY in the early 1970s; here is its old emblem. Ironically, the Bezalel Smotrich (Israeli's finance minister as of March 2023) resurrected the old emblem! Old habits die hard!

This deep fear was the prime motive behind the Palestinian and Arab rejection of the U.N. GA proposed partition plan in 1947.

Related Links

• Zionist FAQ: Why did Arabs reject the 1947 U.N. GA proposed partition plan of Palestine?
• Zionist FAQ: Why did seven well-armed Arab armies attempt to annihilate the poorly armed Jewish State in 1948?

Famous Quotes

Fake Valor: Why Did Zionist Jews Hoist Nazis Flag on Their Ships in the 1930s?

As WWI was ending, Ben-Gurion went on to draw a map of the "Jewish state" to be. This map excluded Damascus (although it was part of Biblical "Eretz Yisrael") and limited the "Jewish state's" future northern borders to 20 km south of the Syrian Capital. He rationalized this decision as follows:

"It is unthinkable that the Jewish state, in our day and age, could include the city of Damascus. . . . This is a large Arab city, and one of the four centers of Islam. The Jewish community there is small. The Arabs will never allow Damascus, their pride, to come under Jewish control, and there can be no doubt that the English, even were it in their power, would agree to such a thing." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 34)

If these are all sound reasons to exclude Damascus from being under Jewish control, then what makes Zionists think that occupied Jerusalem is any different? Although Damascus was never occupied by the Christian Crusaders, Jerusalem was occupied and pillaged, and to liberate it almost a million Muslim and Arab were martyred! Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims often wonder where the Zionist Jews were when their "Promised Land" needed them during the Crusaders' genocide!

Palestinians were ethnically cleansed out of Faluja in March 1949

From the beginning, Zionists advocated a "Jewish State" not just in Palestine but also in Jordan, southern Lebanon, and the Golan Heights as well. In 1918,  Ben-Gurion described the future "Jewish state's" frontiers in detail as follows:

"to the north, the Litani river [in southern Lebanon], to the northeast, the Wadi 'Owja, twenty miles south of Damascus; the southern border will be mobile and pushed into Sinai at least up to Wadi al-'Arish; and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan" (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 87) Click here to view the "Greater Israel" map that was submitted by the Zionists to the peace conference after WWI.

Adolf Eichmann & company coined a special Gold Medallion to honor Nazis' Haavara relationship with Zionists! When he visited Palestine in 1937, was he there to meet with Mufti Haj Amin? or to coordinate with Haganah?

In the mid-1930s, Ben-Gurion met George Antonius (an advisor to al-Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who was one of the few Palestinians whom Ben-Gurion had contacts with), and suggested that Palestinians should help the Zionists to expand the borders of their future "Jewish state" to include areas under French control, such as southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights. In response, Mr. Antonius burst laughing and answered:

"So, you propose that what England did not give you [as stated in the Balfour Declaration), you will get from us." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 162)

Zionists' Lebensraum Still A Live & Kicking

According to Ben-Gurion, Antonius had complained about Zionists who "want to bring to Palestine the largest number of Jews possible, without taking [the Palestinian] Arabs into consideration at all. With this type," said Antonius, "it is impossible to come to an understanding. They want a 100% Jewish state, and the [Palestinian] Arabs will remain in their shadow." By the end of their talk, Antonius could, with reason, conclude that Ben-Gurion belonged precisely to this category of Zionists. (Shabtai Teveth, p. 163)

According to Ben-Gurion, Palestine was a "matter of life and death" for the Jews. "Even pogroms in Germany or Poland, and in Palestine, we prefer the pogroms here." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 163)

On July 29, 1937, Ben-Gurion stated to the World Convention of Ihud Po'alei Tzion in Zurich that Maronite-ruled Lebanon would serve the Christian minority better if it allied itself with the future "Jewish state." He said:

Remind us who shall push who into the sea? Jaffa May 1948, Palestinians were being pushed into the sea by Zionist Jewish forces.

"Having Lebanon as a neighbor ensures the Jewish state of a faithful ally from the first day of its establishment. It is not, also, unavoidable that across the northern side of the Jewish state border in southern Lebanon the first possibility of our expansion will come up through agreement, in good will, with our neighbors who need us." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 88)

Ben-Gurion was enchanted that Jerusalem's neighboring Palestinian communities had been emptied. He stated to the Mapai Council on February 8, 1948:

"From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arab. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)

In May 1939, MS St. Louis in Havana was refused to unload its Jewish passengers in Cuba & US, and it was forced to go back to Antwerp. Jewish Agency refused to give any of its passengers immigration visas to Palestine. Over 250 of the passengers perished during the Holocaust.

Ben-Gurion "had a dream" to annex southern Lebanon to the "Jewish state" and to establish a Christian state north of the Litani River. At the beginning of the 1948 war, he stated:

'The Muslims rule of Lebanon is artificial and easily undermined. A Christian state ought to be set up whose southern borders would be Litani River. Then we'll form an alliance with it." In the coming years he repeated this idea, and according to Moshe Sharett, Moshe Dayan (who was Israeli's chief of staff in the early 1950s) responded favorably to this idea and who according to Sharett said: "In his [Dayan] view, all we need to do is to find a Christian Lebanese officer, perhaps no higher than a captain, and win him over or buy him with money, so that he would declare himself the savior of Maronite population. Then the Israel army would enter Lebanon, occupy the territory in question and establish a Christian government which would form an alliance with Israel." Sharett himself considered this an "awful" idea. (1949, The First Israelis, p. 10 & Righteous Victims, p. 497)

Browse hundreds of pictures depecting Palestinian being ethnically cleanse by Zionist Jews

What's ironic that this "awful" idea was precisely executed thirty later by Manahem Bagin and Ariel Sharon during the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon between 1982-2000.

In a letter Chaim Weizmann sent to the Palestine-British high Commissioner while the Peel Commission was convening in 1937, he wrote:

"We Shall spread in the whole country in the course of time .....this is only an arrangement for the next 25 to 30 years." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 62)

In 1938, Ben-Gurion made it clear of his support for the establishment of a Jewish state in parts of Palestine ONLY as an intermediary stage; he wrote:

"[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state--we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 107, One Palestine Complete, p. 403)

Ben-Gurion emphasized that accepting the Peel Commission would not imply static borders for the future "Jewish state." In a letter Ben-Gurion sent to his son in 1937, he wrote:

"No Zionist can forgo the smallest portion of the Land Of Israel. [A] Jewish state in part [of Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning ..... Our possession is important not only for itself ... through this we increase our power, and every increase in power facilitates getting hold of the country in its entirety. Establishing a [small] state .... will serve as a very potent lever in our historical effort to redeem the whole country." (Righteous Victims, p. 138)

Browse hundreds of pictures depicting Palestinians being ethnically cleansed by Zionist Jews

In August 1937, the 20th Zionist Congress rejected the Peel Commission's proposed partition plan because the area allotted to the "Jewish state" was smaller than expected. On the other hand, the concept of partitioning Palestine into two states was accepted as a launching pad for future Zionist expansions and to secure unlimited Jewish immigration. In September 1938, Ben-Gurion explained why he advocated partitioning the country NOW, and to accept the Peel Commission's proposal:

"The ONLY reason that we agreed to discuss the [Peel commission proposed] partition plan," Ben-Gurion wrote Moshe Sharett, "is mass immigration. Not in the future, and not according to abstract formula, but large immigration now." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 184)

And in October 1938, he wrote to his children that :

"I don't regard a state in part of Palestine as the final aim of Zionism, but as a mean toward that aim." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188)

In September 1937, he stated to a group of American Jewish labor leaders in New York:

"the borders [of the Jewish state] will not be fixed for eternity." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188)

On July 30, 1937, Yosef Bankover, a founding member and leader of the Kibbutz Hameuhad movement and a member of Haganah's regional command of the coastal and central districts, stated that Ben-Gurion would accept the proposed Peel Commission partition plan under two conditions: 1) unlimited Jewish immigration 2) Compulsory population transfer for Palestinians. He stated that :

"Ben-Gurion said yesterday that he was prepared to accept the [Peel partition] proposal of the Royal commission but on two conditions: [Jewish] sovereignty and compulsory transfer ..... As for the compulsory transfer-- as a member of Kibbutz Ramat Hakovsh [founded in 1932 in central Palestine] I would be very pleased if it would be possible to be rid of the pleasant neighborliness of the people of Miski, Tirah, and Qalqilyah." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 70)

Pre-Nakba picture of a Palestinian Christian girl from Bethlehem who "didn't exist," Zionists say!

Similarly, he also stated to his son Amos in October 1937 that a "Jewish state" in part of Palestine was:

"not the end, but only the beginning." Its establishment would give a "powerful boost to our historic efforts to redeem the country in its entirety." For the "Jewish state" would have "outstanding army-- I have no doubt that our army will be among the world's outstanding--and so I am certain that we won't be constrained from settling in the rest of the country, either by mutual agreement and understanding with our Arab neighbors, or by some other way. . . . . I still believe . . . . that after we become numerous and strong, the Arabs will understand that it is best for them to strike an alliance with us, and to benefit from our help, providing they allow us by their good will to settle in all parts of Palestine." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188)

Regarding settling the Negev desert, which was allotted to the Palestinian state according to the Peel Commission, Ben-Gurion stated:

"It is very possible that in exchange for our financial, military, organizational and scientific assistance, the [Palestinian] Arabs will agree that we develop and build the Negev [which as of 2002, the Negev is still mostly populated by Palestinian-Israeli citizens]. It is also possible that they won't agree. No people always behaves according to logic, common sense, and best interests." If the Palestinian Arabs "act according to sterile nationalist emotion," and reject the idea of Jewish settlement, preferring that the Negev remain barren, then the Jewish army would act. "Because we cannot stand to see large areas of unsettled land capable of absorbing thousands of Jews remain empty, or to see Jews not return to their country because the [Palestinian] Arabs say that there is not enough room for them and us." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188-189) It is worth noting that the Negev is still a barren desert, and under populated by Israeli Jews.

During a lecture in Tel-Aviv in front of Mapai activists in 1938, Ben-Gurion divided the realization of the "historic aim of the Jewish state" into two stages. The first stage, which would last ten to fifteen years, he called "the period of building and laying foundations." This would prepare the state for the second stage, "the period of expansion." The goal of both stages was the "gathering of the exiles in all of Palestine." And so "from the moment the state is established, it must calculate its actions with an eye toward this distant goal."

Browse hundreds of pictures depecting Palestinian being ethnically cleansed by Zionist Jews

When Zionists debated the Peel Commission's partition plan, Ben-Gurion advised his colleagues to accept the concept of partitioning ONLY as the first stage of a complete conquest. He stated in 1937:

"Just as I do not see the proposed Jewish state as a final solution to the problems of the Jewish people, so I do now see partition as the final solution of the Palestine question. Those who reject partition are right in their claim that this country cannot be partitioned because it constitute one unit, not only from a historical point of view but also from that of nature and economy" (emphasis added). (Simha Flapan, p. 22)

and while addressing the Zionist executive, he again emphasized the tactical nature of his support for partition and his assumption that:

"after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine" (emphasis added). (Simha Flapan, p. 22)

UN map (updated Aug. 1950) showing Palestinians still own 94% of the lands

Similarly, he also stated:

"The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today--but the boundaries of the Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them." By 1949 Ben-Gurion had proved that he was as good as his word. (Simha Flapan, p. 52-53)

Soon after the Biltmore conference in New York in May 1942, Ben-Gurion reiterated his commitment to a "Jewish state" in all of historic Palestine, he explained in a meeting of Histadrut Counsel:

"this is why we formulated our demand not as a Jewish state in Palestine but Palestine as a Jewish state" (emphasis add), and he advised "not to identify the Biltmore Program with a Jewish state in part of Palestine." (Simha Flapan, p. 23-24)

Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary on November 30, 1947, after the UN vote to partition Palestine into two states:

"In my heart, there was joy mixed with sadness: joy that the nations at last acknowledged that we are a nation with a state, and SADNESS that we LOST half of the country, Judea and Samaria, and , in addition, that we [would] have [in our state] 400,000 Arabs." (Righteous Victims, p. 190)

Residence of al-Ramla being ethnically cleansed based on the orders from Rabin; July 1948

Soon after the U.N. Proposed Partitioning Palestinian in November 1947, Ben-Gurion urged his party to accept the partition because it would never be final,

"not with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements." (Simha Flapan, p. 32)

Similarly, even most left-wing parties reaffirmed their commitment to the complete redemption of Biblical "Eretz Yisrael," the United Hebrew Labor (Ahdut Haavodah) stated:

"partition is the best or shortest way of realizing greater Zionism" and declared that its members would "not cease to strive for the integrity of the homeland." (Simha Flapan, p. 33)

When Pinhas Rozen, who became Israel's first Israeli Justice, demanded that Israel's Declaration of Independence should cite the country's BORDERS, Ben-Gurion objected, and both exchanged the following points:

ROZEN: "There's the question of the borders, and it CANNOT BE IGNORED."
BEN-GURION: "Anything is possible. If we decide here that there's to be no mention of borders, then we won't mention them. Nothing is a priori [imperative]."
ROZEN: "It's not a priori, but it is a legal issue."
BEN-GURION: "The law is whatever people determine it to be." (1949, The First Israelis, p. xviii)

Browse hundreds of pictures depecting Palestinian being ethnically cleansed by Zionist Jews

Ben-Gurion clearly never believed in static borders but in dynamic ones, as described in the Bible. He stated during a discussion with his aides:

"Before the founding of the state, on the eve of its creation, our main interests was self-defense. To a large extent, the creation of the state was an act of self-defense. . . . Many think that we're still at the same stage. But now the issue at hand is conquest, not self-defense. As for setting the borders--- it's an open-ended matter. In the Bible as well as in our history, there all kinds of definitions of the country's borders, so there's no real limit. Bo border is absolute. If it's a desert--- it could just as well be the other side. If it's sea, it could also be across the sea. The world has always been this way. Only the terms have changed. If they should find a way of reaching other stars, well then, perhaps the whole earth will no longer suffice." (1949, The First Israelis, p. 6)

It has been customary among all Zionists leaders to use the Bible to justify perpetrating WAR CRIMES. Regardless of the methods used to build the "Jewish state", the quote above is a classical example how the Bible is used to achieve political objectives.

During the 1948 war, Yigal Allon submitted a detailed plan to Ben-Gurion for the military conquest of the West Bank, arguing that the Jordan River would provide the best strategic border. He believed that a substantial part of the Palestinian population would flee east because of the military operations, he stated:

"Our offensive has to leave the way open for the army and the refugees to retreat. We shall easily find the reason or, to be more accurate, the pretexts, to justify our offensive, as we did up to now" (emphasis added). (Simha Flapan, p. 114)

Browse hundreds of pictures depecting Palestinian being ethnically cleansed by Zionist Jews

When Israel signed the armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, Ben-Gurion stated:

"The November 29[, 1947 U.N.] decision had given the Jewish state 14,920,000 dunums; now we have 20,662,000 dunums in our control. While the UN has not yet recognized our borders, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon have done so." (Simha Flapan, p. 49)

In other words, Israel managed to expand its borders 38% more than the area allotted to the "Jewish state" by 1947 UN GA partition plan. It should be noted that 60% of the Israelis soldiers were killed in action, were killed in offensive actions in the areas conquered beyond areas allotted by the UN to the "Jewish state." (Simha Flapan, p. 198-199)

Israeli Government censoring Yetshak Rabin's admission that he ethnically cleansed Palestinians based on Ben-Gurion's orders, NYTimes Oct 22nd, 1979

One day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine, Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun and Israel's future Prime Minster between 1977 and 1983, proclaimed:

"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever." (Iron Wall p. 25)

Yigal Allon wrote in an article published just before the outbreak of the 1967 war:

"In. . .a new war, we must avoid the historic mistake of the War of Independence [the 1948 war]. . . and MUST NOT cease fighting until we achieve total victory, the territorial fulfillment of the Land Of Israel." (Righteous Victims, p. 321)

In 1934,  Ze'ev Jabotinsky introduced to his youth movement followers the Betar Oath:

"I devote my life to the rebirth of the Jewish State, with a Jewish majority, on both sides of the Jordan." (Israel: A History, p. 76)