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2026-03-22 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
The Iran war analyzed with game theory.
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Posted by Omans Slath8956 2026-03-22 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1798 views ]  Top

1 If it weren't for the eloquence of the lavender hammer, I would have just dumped this.
Posted by Skidmark 2026-03-22 00:18||   2026-03-22 00:18|| Front Page Top

2 n a recent interview with Israel’s i24 News, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly declared his support for the vision of “Greater Israel.” Asked by interviewer Sharon Gal if he subscribes to this controversial idea, Netanyahu responded without hesitation: “Absolutely.”
he Irgun’s emblem was a map of the entire British Mandate, including both banks of the Jordan River, with a rifle imposed over it. This was no accident. A decade earlier, Britain had carved the Emirate of Transjordan (today’s Jordan) out of the Mandate.

Irgun insisted that this land, too, was part of Eretz Yisrael HaShlema—the “Whole Land of Israel.” Rooted in Biblical claims, they argued that both sides of the Jordan River were divinely promised to the Jewish people.

After Israel declared independence in 1948, Revisionist veterans of the Irgun formed the Herut Party, the forerunner of today’s Likud. From its inception, Likud inherited the refusal to accept partition and its attachment to a “whole” Land of Israel.
Netanyahu spells out vision for “Greater Israel”
Posted by Omans Slath8956 2026-03-22 00:21||   2026-03-22 00:21|| Front Page Top

3 
From biblical origins to modern-day Zionism, the vision of Greater Israel continues to shape Israeli rhetoric and regional tensions
hen did the idea of Greater Israel begin?

The concept of "Greater Israel" was explored by Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, who wrote in his diaries that the Jewish state should stretch “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”.
The phrase is taken from Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, where God grants Abraham and his descendants a vast expanse of land stretching "from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates."

Some Israelis refer to a narrower vision mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy, where God instructs Moses to lead the Israelites in taking possession of Palestine, Lebanon, and parts of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Others invoke the Book of Samuel, which describes lands secured by Kings Saul and David, including Palestine, Lebanon, and sections of Jordan and Syria.

For those who hold this belief, the pursuit of "Greater Israel" is not merely political; it is the fulfilment of a divine mandate, a reclamation of land they that is rightfully theirs.
His original speech is in Hebrew but here's a good breakdown and summary of what he said in translation.

Posted by Omans Slath8956 2026-03-22 00:34||   2026-03-22 00:34|| Front Page Top

4 Tipple your mom's Mogen David much?
Posted by Skidmark 2026-03-22 00:58||   2026-03-22 00:58|| Front Page Top

5 I would've dumped it. Another Cut-n-paste extravaganza.
Posted by Frank G 2026-03-22 01:00||   2026-03-22 01:00|| Front Page Top

6 At least copy all the letters when you highlight and cut it
Posted by Frank G 2026-03-22 01:03||   2026-03-22 01:03|| Front Page Top

7 Personally, I support the idea of "No Arabs outside Arabian peninsula.".
Posted by Grom the Affective 2026-03-22 01:39||   2026-03-22 01:39|| Front Page Top

8 It sounds like there is a strain of Israeli/Zionist politics that does believe in a Greater Israel, which I was not aware of. So I owe you an apology, Omans Slath8956, though the history piece stands.

I still contend that conquering the tens of millions of Arabs from the Nile (yes, yes, Egyptians aren’t Arab. The principle still holds) to the Euphrates is absolutely stupid, because while it’s conceivable to me that Israel could do the conquering piece, that would mean controlling an entirely hostile population, considerably worse than dealing with the West Bank and Gaza. As we’ve seen with the Palestinian Territories, the idiots refuse to be civilized and their former rulers refuse to take them back — they were just as troublesome to their former owners as they are to the Israelis who conquered them so easily.

That’s why neither Bibi nor the Donald have serious plans to physically, boots-on-the-ground invade Iran. Let the Iranians rule themselves and fix their own problems. Maybe they, being Aryan rather than Arab, will actually be able to do it.

I just started reading From Gaza to Tel Aviv: The Unbelievable Story of a Muslim Palestinian Who Escaped to Israel and Became a Jew. By the end of Chapter 2 the mindset is clearly illumined.

Lord Garth, Grom, what say you? You both know more about the subject than I.
Posted by trailing wife 2026-03-22 01:46||   2026-03-22 01:46|| Front Page Top

9 See #7, TW.
Posted by Grom the Affective 2026-03-22 02:12||   2026-03-22 02:12|| Front Page Top

10 But is that to be accomplished by martial conquest?

A thought: Given how far below replacement Iranian and Turkish (excluding Kurds) birthrates are, and how far Arab birthrates overall have fallen and continue to fall, Israel may inherit by dint of differential birthrates, even as the Kurds do the same in Turkey. The so-called moderate Palestinians have long talked of conquering Israel via their women’s wombs, then lied about their birth and death rates to make it appear there were a million or more of them than there actually were, a common behaviour outside the First World nations. It would be a lovely irony to do that unto them…

Ah well — it’s late and I am perhaps not thinking nearly as clearly as I would like.
Posted by trailing wife 2026-03-22 02:25||   2026-03-22 02:25|| Front Page Top

11 The squatters who moved in to the land promised to the Israelites will be evicted just like all squatters.
The land will be settled, civilized and made to bloom just like the American West.
Symbol of the Irgun showing the map of Greater Israel.
Posted by Omans Slath8956 2026-03-22 02:38||   2026-03-22 02:38|| Front Page Top

12 Meanwhile, Muslims are literally conquering NYC, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Canada, et al.; DNC, Harvard UCLA etc

This greaterisrael story is a psyop distraction talking point. Alinsky-esque.

It is like the anti-ICE riots in Minnesota after the billions in fraud were publicized.

Meanwhile, the shariazation of america proceeds.


Posted by Barakat 2026-03-22 03:04||   2026-03-22 03:04|| Front Page Top

13 ^You brag about owing 1/2 billion guns.
Posted by Grom the Affective 2026-03-22 03:08||   2026-03-22 03:08|| Front Page Top

14 /\ Meanwhile, the shariazation of America proceeds.

The "shariazation" of NYC, Minneapolis and the US Congress appears to be ahead of schedule, currently outpacing that of London.
Posted by Besoeker 2026-03-22 06:13||   2026-03-22 06:13|| Front Page Top

15 The "vision of a Greater Israel" began in East Peoria. Caterpiller Inc. NY. NYSE: CAT, Closed Friday $680.88 down -7.77 (-1.13%).

'Buy The Dip.'
Posted by Besoeker 2026-03-22 06:36||   2026-03-22 06:36|| Front Page Top

16 Any time I see a post by Omans Slath8956 all I see is blah, blah, blah. Must be a bug in the site software.
Posted by Chantry 2026-03-22 09:23||   2026-03-22 09:23|| Front Page Top

17 Spank him enough and he'll go away.
Oh ... well maybe not.
Posted by Skidmark 2026-03-22 14:56||   2026-03-22 14:56|| Front Page Top

18 He'll switch nyms again, under a VPN. Still.. same old, same old
Posted by Frank G 2026-03-22 15:26||   2026-03-22 15:26|| Front Page Top

19 If Israel wants to be the hegemon of the middle East, which it does,

I laffed. Does "hegemon" mean "Leave us the fook alone!"?
Posted by SteveS 2026-03-22 15:30||   2026-03-22 15:30|| Front Page Top

20 ^ Relax, Jake. It's Chinatown Omans Slath8956

Troll City
Posted by Frank G 2026-03-22 15:32||   2026-03-22 15:32|| Front Page Top

21 I know you're not supposed to feed them, but it's still fun to poke them a bit. I wonder how much of our new visitor postings are generative AI.
Posted by SteveS 2026-03-22 15:36||   2026-03-22 15:36|| Front Page Top

22 8^

Herut at one time advocated territorial expansion into the east bank. However they gave up that policy sometime between 1973 (when they became part of the Likud alliance) and 1988 when Herut was dissolved.

There are some people in Likud who probably still believe in conquest of the east bank but they are pretty marginal in Likud and even Likud itself needs other parties to govern.

A lot of Likud is in favor of densifying the settlements on the west bank and most of Israel either supports that or does not oppose it.

To my knowledge there is no significant support for territorial expansion with the following exceptions:
- Most Israelis are willing to allow a Druze ministate near the Golan where Israel supplies strategic security.
- Most Israelis are willing to provide some security to southern Lebanon on a temporary basis to effect the de-Hezbollahization of the area south of the Litani River.
Posted by Lord Garth 2026-03-22 16:24||   2026-03-22 16:24|| Front Page Top

23 Druze self-rule and driving an active military threat out of firing range do not an expanded kingdom make. Thank you for coloring in the details of the political history, Lord Garth. I know what I was and was not told about modern Israel by the Israeli and Persian immigrants and expats who taught at my very Zionist Hebrew school (synagogue-linked, evenings and Sundays, not private religious day school), and I’ve never bothered to keep track of the Toad-the-Wet-Sprocket formations and reformations of Israeli politics, any more than I ever did of the American Socialist-Communist political parties — the only thing I care about is what emerges from the ferment, not what it calls itself from moment to moment.
Posted by trailing wife 2026-03-22 21:41||   2026-03-22 21:41|| Front Page Top

21:41 trailing wife
21:20 Glenmore
21:07 trailing wife
20:41 Skidmark
20:34 Hellfish
19:53 Frank G
19:44 Brerrabbit
18:47 Lord Garth
18:20 Abu Uluque
17:50 Frank G
17:23 Difar Dave
17:22 Frank G
17:05 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
16:39 NoMoreBS
16:33 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
16:25 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
16:24 Lord Garth
16:24 NoMoreBS
16:18 Procopius2k
15:43 Frank G
15:36 SteveS
15:33 SteveS
15:32 Frank G
15:30 SteveS
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