Prominent ’Israeli’ Seeks Despicable Nazi Remedy for Palestinians

-- By F. Michael Maloof A Zionist commentator for the "Israeli" newspaper Haaretz has invoked the ominous specter of the Nazi past by calling on the "Israeli" government to undertake a "Lebensraum" policy of expanding the "living space" of the Zionist state to include what amounts to all of the territories that the Palestinians seek to create for their own nation-state, and then some. The appeal by Yossi Sarid in his Aug. 26 column of Haaretz echoes the despicable German concept of Lebensraum that reflected an expansionist effort by Nazi Germany under the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler. Lebensraum was the most important German foreign policy goal under Adolf Hitler. The policy was designed to provide extra space for the growth of the German population for a "Greater Germany." It also carried ethnic and racial overtones that eyed the then Soviet Union for its extra space for growth of the German population because of its vast and rich agricultural land which Hitler also saw as being inhabited by Slavic Untermenschen, or sub-humans. Hitler's perception of history was that of a struggle between different races. Those races that possessed vast territory were innately stronger than those who did not. The Soviet Union was to become the breadbasket for Germany under the Lebensraum concept, but the Slavic peoples who populated the country would not be fed and would be allowed to starve to death toward extinction in order to preserve the German society. Sources say that despite the horrific treatment of the Jewish people at the hands of Nazi Germany in events leading up to and during World War II, Sarid's call for Lebensraum reflects current thinking of the Jewish state's leadership and has been an implicit policy followed ever since the June 1967 Six-Day War. Sarid bases his call for Lebensraum on lands which he says belong to the Jewish people through some biblical right. "According to the school of thought based on history and faith, the Land of Israel was received by the Jewish people from the hand of God, and we are commanded to take all of it by dint of the Covenant of the Pieces that God made with Abraham," Sarid wrote. "That was a nice big gift, we have to admit, stretching from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates," he said. "It was granted on various festive occasions not only to Abraham but to his heirs as well. Eventually it was forced to shrink, and now there is really no reason to shrink it further out of choice." These comments echo those of Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, in his Complete Diaries , Vol. II, p. 711. Herzl said that the area of the Jewish state would stretch "from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates. In testifying before the United Nations Special Committee of Enquiry on July 9, 1947, Rabbi Fischmann , member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared that "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates (and) it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon." Sarid contends that the "Israelis" are "short of space which has become full to capacity and needs lebensraum." In referring to lands "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates," Sarid also has in mind the reoccupation of the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai is three times the size of current "Israel" and has considerable natural resources such as uranium deposits, oil and natural gas which, if reoccupied, would guarantee its energy independence. Increasingly, "Israeli" officials have been expressing concern about what they say is an increasing security threat posed by infiltration from the Sinai. The concept of Lebensraum for the "Israelis" is not new. In a paper titled, "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties ," Oded Yinon inferred such a need without mentioning the word Lebensraum, per se. Yinon, who worked for the foreign ministry when he published his paper in 1982, basically outlined a strategic plan for regional conquest and dominance by also calling for "balkanizing" the Arab nations into small states along ethnic and sectarian lines as "Israeli" satellites. He said there was a need to disperse the population and treat this effort as a domestic strategic aim "of the highest order." "Otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders," Yinon said. "Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with." Yinon pointed out that the June 1967 Six-Day war including the seizure of the Golan Heights and "Judea, Samaria reflected this policy," as well as the 1978 and 1982 invasions of Lebanon. In his column, Sarid reinforced Yinon's contention that the original purpose of the June 1967 Six-Day war was to seek greater lands. "When we embarked on the Six-Day War, did we want to remove a threat or did we want to gain control in order to spread out?" Sarid said. "That's what happens after 44 years of mire and moral corruption, which distort things and make us forget the original objective and replace it with an entirely different one," he said. "We were fortunate when we occupied the West bank because had we not done so, where would we have come to live?" Sarid added. "The founding fathers, as opposed to the Diadochi who fought for control after Alexander the Great's death, represented a different approach for the most part," Sarid said. The Diadochi were the generals under Alexander. "Between 'A little goes a long way,' and 'Don't bite off more than you can chew,' they chose to bite; they even agreed to the 1947 U.N. partition plan for lack of choice," he said. "They believed that all the objectives of rational Ben Gurion-style Zionism could be fulfilled even in 'Lesser Israel,' which is more complete and more at peace with itself," he said. "And it has no need for lebensraum, may God preserve us." All of that has changed now, as Sarid has revealed. Current Israeli policy supports his call for Lebensraum, as shown right after the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks got underway in September 2010 with great fanfare in Washington. By August 2011, however, those talks were suspended due to a decision by the "Israeli" leadership to resume settlement construction on the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Salid's call for Lebensraum goes a long way to explain why that leadership appeared so intractable to the idea of suspending that construction in favor of working toward the greater goal of establishing a Middle East peace. Besides being a columnist for Haaretz, Sarid was a member of the Knesset, or parliament, for 32 years, served as Education minister, Environment minister and opposition leader as head of the Meretz party from 1996 to 2003. Ironically, the Meretz party supports a two-state solution for Palestine, peace with the Palestinians, human rights and religious freedom. ______________________________________ F. Michael Maloof is a former senior security policy analyst in the U.S. Department of Defense.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian