SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: A brief history of Greater Israel, 1949-1967. The project of Greater Israel has been in the making since Israel's establishment in 1948.

https://x.com/_ZachFoster/status/2040175218182726118

A brief history of Greater Israel, 1949-1967. The project of Greater Israel has been in the making since Israel's establishment in 1948. The first major step towards Greater Israel was achieved during the 1948 War: Israel conquered ~78% of Palestine during the war, while the UN partition plan allotted only ~56% of Palestine to the Jewish State (while Jews were 33% of the population & owned 7% of the land). In fact, Israel tried to conquer much more of Palestine. The Israeli army tried and failed to take over Jerusalem, Latrun, Bab al-Wad and other areas of the West Bank. The Israeli army nearly conquered Sinai & the Gaza Strip in late December 1948, only held back by intense US and British pressure. tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.108 Then Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Alon:“I never forgave the Israeli government under Ben-Gurion for not letting us finish the job in ‘48-49, both militarily and politically.” archive.org/details/1967is As Moshe Dayan put it in 1949, the “frontier of Israel should be on Jordan [River]... present boundaries [are] ridiculous from all points of view.” liberationnews.org/06-11-01-a-tur The feeling among many in the highest echelons of power was that “we had not completed the job in the War of Independence.” The failure became known in Israeli folklore as the “weeping for generations.” muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/article/ Israel was unsatisfied with its borders after the war, and so it never declared them, insisting the armistice agreements resulted in armistice lines, not borders. In fact, Israel proposed taking over the Gaza Strip in 1949 and worked to empty the Strip of refugees in the early 1950s even while it was under Egyptian occupation. tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.108 and link.springer.com/article/10.100 As the Israeli government's Year Book put it in 1951, “only now have we reached the beginning of independence in a part of our small country," adding "to maintain the status quo will not do. We have set up a dynamic state bent upon ... expansion.” scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewconten Israel’s lust for expansion was confirmed again in October 1956, when Israel invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip until March 1957, even seeking to empty the territory of its refugees, but were forced to withdraw due to intense US pressure. palestinenexus.com/articles/israe All the while, Israel tested the limits of the armistice lines, asserting control up to and beyond the green line in Wadi Arab, the Syrian DMZs, the Lebanese border, the Latrun area, the Hebron hills and Gaza. And although Israel’s leaders, on average, believed the country could realize its national aims within its existing borders, most supported their expansion should an opportunity present itself. In 1962, Levi Eshkol was elected Prime Minister of Israel, and in 1963, and his deputy IDF chief of staff, soon-to-be chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, outlined to him the ideal boundaries of Israel: the Jordan River in the east, the Suez Canal in the south and west and the Litani River in the north. archive.org/details/196700 Plans were developed to occupy Jerusalem and the Latrun area, as well as the entire West Bank. There was a plan to conquer Qalqilyah town and destroy it. There was also a plan to carry out “a transfer” in Hebron to avenge the 1929 massacre. “The idea that the IDF might actively seek to expand Israel’s borders came up repeatedly during the mid-1960s,” As one Tom Segev put it. archive.org/details/196700 Meanwhile, tension had been simmering for years between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser escalated that tension in May 1967, after he received false information from the Soviets on an Israeli threat to Syria. He moved troops into the Sinai, demanded the withdrawal of UN forces from the region and closed the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (note: Israel later claimed a partial blockade of its territorial waters was a 'Casus belli,'). Israeli and US intelligence assessments agreed Israel would destroy the combined Arab armies with ease even if Egypt attacked first. But to Israeli leaders, this was not a crisis, it was an opportunity. The feeling among Israel’s military leadership was that Israel had but a narrow window to act and that Israel had better not miss the opportunity (sound familiar?). Israel could transform the balance of power in the region and renew its deterrence capacity if it acted first in what had emerged as a core Israeli military doctrine: preemptive action. archive.org/details/196700 After the war, Israel’s apologists contrived a false narrative that Israel faced an existential threat, and had to act first. Yet, the Israeli leaders who made the decision to go to war in June 1967 never believed Israel faced existential danger. In fact, the thought never even crossed their minds! The threat was contrived after the fact to justify what they described as a war of choice, and Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Haim Bar-Lev, Ezer Weizman, Mordechai Bentov and Matityahu Peled all said as much

@mehdirhasan

theintercept.com/2017/06/05/a-5 and zeteo.com/p/debunked-bil And so, on 5 June 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack on Egypt. They invaded the Jordanian occupied West Bank and Syrian held Golan Heights. Within six days, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. It was a stunning military victory that would turn into a strategic nightmare, the longest military occupation in modern history. For more content like this, subscribe to my newsletter: PalestineNexus.com

8:10 AM · Apr 4, 2026