Greater Israel

[[File:Greater israel.jpg|thumb|right|165px|The red line demarcates the alleged region of Greater Israel]]
{{Conspiracy}}

{{antisemitism}}

{{significantly problematic}}
{{update}}
'''Greater Israel''' is an anti-[[Zionist]] and often [[antisemitic]] conspiracy theory about how [[Israel]] supposedly plans to militarily and diplomatically expand its territory to encompass most of the Middle East and chunks of North Africa.<ref name="massdictionary">[https://massline.org/Dictionary/GR.htm#Greater_Israel "Greater Israel"] ''Mass Dictionary''</ref> One of the most specific versions of this is about how Yasser Arafat found a weird shape on the Israeli 10-agora coin which he decided was the planned map for Greater Israel.<ref name="gisi">[http://www.danielpipes.org/247/imperial-israel-the-nile-to-euphrates-calumny Imperial Israel: The Nile-to-Euphrates Calumn] by Daniel Pipes. ''Middle East Quarterly''. March 1994</ref>

==History== 
===Zionist pipe dream===
[[Crank]]s like the good writing team of [[Globalresearch]] claim greater Israel was proposed by Jewish scholar Oded Yinon.<ref name="gagi">[https://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815 “Greater Israel”: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East] ''Globalresearch''</ref> The {{wpl|Yinon Plan}} was first set forth in an essay written by Yinon and was published in the Hebrew journal ''Kivunim'' (Directions) in February 1982.<ref>
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/move-over-protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion-make-room-for-the-yinon-plan/2015/09/25/</ref><ref>Yinon, Oded (February 1982). Beck, Yoram, ed. "אסטראטגיה לישראל בשנות השמונים" [A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s]. ''Kivunim'' 14:49–59.</ref> There actually is a shade of truth to this conspiracy theory. Prior to the actual establishment of Israel, there was a minority of Zionists who regarded as rightfully theirs all British territory in the Levant, including [[Jordan]].<ref>Pappé, Ilan (1994). ''The Making of the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951.'' London: I.B.Tauris. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-85043-819-9.</ref> {{wpl|Irgun||,}} a Zionist paramilitary organisation at one point led by {{wpl|Menachem Begin||,}} a later PM of Israel, were fighting for a Jewish-majority state on both sides of the river Jordan.<ref>{{cite book|last=Pappé|first=Ilan|title=The Making of the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951|page=21|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=1994|isbn=978-1-85043-819-9|location=London}}</ref> Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, wrote a letter to his son saying "a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning."<ref>[https://www.palestineremembered.com/download/B-G%20LetterTranslation.pdf Letter from David Ben-Gurion to his son Amos, written 5 October 1937] Obtained from the Ben-Gurion Archives in Hebrew, and translated into English by the Institute of Palestine Studies, Beirut.</ref> As this unrealistic dream consistently failed to materialize, Israelis and Zionists have largely given up on it.<ref name="nytgi">[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/weekinreview/why-greater-israel-never-came-to-be.html Why 'Greater Israel' Never Came to Be] ''New York Times''</ref>

===Hysteria===
The "Greater Israel" concept eventually became a conspiracy theory. [[Osama bin Laden]] was an adherent; he gave an interview in 1998 claiming that Western military presence in [[Saudi Arabia]] was aimed "to support the Jewish and Zionist plans for expansion of what is called the Great Israel."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/19990508145341/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html Interview: Osama bin Laden] ''Frontline''. Archived.</ref> Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was also a believer. His conviction was based on the Israeli 10-agora coin; he would carry them around in his shirt pocket and say:
{{quotebox|This is a 10-agora piece. It is a new Israeli coin. And what does it show? The Jewish seven-branched candelabrum against the background of an incredible map: an outline shows the region which goes from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia, from the Red Sea to the Euphrates. It is a glaring demonstration of Zionist aspirations.<ref>La Repubblica, Apr. 3, 1990. 'Arafat made the same point again in a speech to the Jerusalem Committee of the Arab League on 9 Apr. 1990.</ref>}}

Israel's mint has provided the more realistic explanation: the formless blob behind Israel's state emblem is actually the shape of a historical coin issued by {{wpl|Antigonus II Mattathias||,}} a historical king of Biblical Judea.<ref>[https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1715.html 10 Agorot]</ref> Nonetheless, in 2014, [[Egypt]]'s Muslim Brotherhood repeated the claim during a pro-[[Hamas]] tirade.<ref>[https://www.globalmbwatch.com/2014/08/06/egyptian-muslim-brotherhood-praises-hamas-repeats-yassir-arafats-10-agorot-claim/ Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Praises Hamas; Repeats Yassir Arafat’s “10 Agorot” Claim] ''Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch''</ref> Arafat struck again in 1988 to claim that the two blue bars on Israel's flag represented Israel's ambition to expand "from the Euphrates to the Nile".<ref name="gisi"/> General Nasser of Egypt tirelessly went on about the Greater Israel conspiracy, claiming that Israel wanted to annex the whole Middle East and turn the Arab race into "a horde of refugees."<ref>Speech, Mar. 26, 1964. Quoted in Y. Harkabi, Arab Attitudes to Israel, transl. by Misha Louvish (London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1972), p. 73.</ref>

Meanwhile, other conspiracy wackos have surfaced to claim that Israel creates puppet governments and sows crises (up to and including [[DAESH]]) in order to destabilize the Middle East enough to begin annexing territory for Greater Israel.<ref>[https://www.themarker.com/magazine/MAGAZINE-1.2838855 Conspirators celebrate: So Israel created Da'ash to take over the world] ''The Marker'' (in Hebrew)</ref>

<center><gallery widths=225px heights=225px>
File:Nis 10 agorot.png|Israel's 10 agorot coin, and its weird blob.
File:Greater Israel coin map.jpeg|"Greater Israel" based on the weird coin blob. Seriously, those borders don't make any fucking sense.
</gallery></center>

==Why the theory is dubious==
As mentioned above, nobody sane in Israel truly considers "Greater Israel" to be a thing. At all.<ref name="massdictionary"></ref> Even the most hardcore Zionists have given up on it. Why? Because of two problems. Firstly, the world's Jews have largely not immigrated to Israel as the Zionists originally expected. In fact, the [[United States]] has a roughly equal population of Jews to Israel: about 6.5-ish million.<ref>{{wpa|Jewish population by country|}}</ref> That's hardly the kind of population needed to completely replace the existing Arab population of the Middle East, or even to inhabit the lands supposedly coveted by Greater Israel. Secondly, the Palestinian population is growing rapidly and the people there are quite willing to fight it out.{{cn|joke}} 

David Kimche, who was director general of Israel's foreign ministry in the 1980's, noted:

{{quotebox|The old Zionist nationalists' anthem was a state on "the two banks of the River Jordan." When that became impractical, we talked about "greater Israel," from the Jordan to the sea. But people now realize that this, too, is something we won't be able to achieve.<ref name="nytgi"/>}}

Nevertheless, this theory has regained its attention with the remarks made by then-Israeli PM Naftali Bennett. On a video published by Turkish news outlet TRT world, he can be seen spouting the extremist rhetoric about that God granted the Jews ''greater Israel'' which Bennett will strive for.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_-wJ7NCX-w&ab_channel=TRTWorld</ref><ref>https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/naftali-bennet-s-rise-tells-of-how-poisonous-israeli-politics-is-47141</ref> This will undoubtedly result in more settler-colonialism in the occupied Palestinian territories, which have recently been bombarded into oblivion by IDF forces (resulting in the death of over 60 children), the "most moral army" according to extremist Zionists like Ben Shapiro, who is known to have said that "Palestinians love to live in open sewage."

==See also==
*[[Irredentism]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Antisemitism]]
[[Category:Currency]]
[[Category:Israel]]
[[Category:Palestine]]

Categories: Antisemitism, Currency, Israel, Palestine