terça-feira, 19 de novembro de 2024

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diy13


 



I’m a tranquilizer.
I’m effective at home.
I work in the office.
I can take exams
on the witness stand.
I mend broken cups with care.
All you have to do is take me,
let me melt beneath your tongue,
just gulp me
with a glass of water.

I know how to handle misfortune,
how to take bad news.
I can minimize injustice,
lighten up God’s absence,
or pick the widow’s veil that suits your face.
What are you waiting for—
have faith in my chemical compassion.

You’re still a young man/woman.
It’s not too late to learn how to unwind.
Who said
you have to take it on the chin?

Let me have your abyss.
I’ll cushion it with sleep.
You’ll thank me for giving you
four paws to fall on.

Sell me your soul.
There are no other takers.

There is no other devil anymore.


Wislawa Szymborska



A origem das crises pessoais interiores

 


Kateryna Soroka


A origem de quase todas as crises pessoais interiores é a simples distância entre, 
O que fazemos e o que gostávamos de estar a fazer. 
Entre o sítio onde estamos e onde gostávamos de estar. 
Entre o que somos e o que sabemos que seríamos capazes de Ser.  
Foi para isso que a vida nos deu o livre arbítrio! 
Para que cada um possa fazer essa viagem interna dos medos da mente para o que a alma sabe ser possível. 

Vera Luz



Emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal

A análise de todas as emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal dá-nos pistas para sair desse estado. O tecido da resiliência é frequentemente moldado pela gestão adequada dessas realidades internas.

As emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal podem nos paralisar. 
Essa súbita e inesperada fratura do presente geralmente deixa-nos em estados para os quais nem sempre estamos preparados psicologicamente. 
Dor, angústia, incerteza, medo… 
Compreender o papel que essas realidades internas desempenham pode ajudar-nos a superar esses momentos de maneira mais eficaz.

Mas… como fazer isso? 
Se há algo que muitos de nós sabemos é que, quando estamos envolvidos numa crise pessoal, há pouco espaço para a reflexão e para a clareza mental que nos permite tomar boas decisões. 
Quando a adversidade surge, o medo cresce, e isso é normal e até esperado.

Devemos considerar que o nosso cérebro ainda é governado por instintos muito primitivos e mecanismos de defesa. Dessa maneira, quando ele percebe, intui e fica ciente de uma ameaça ou do colapso da nossa homeostase interna, aparece uma resposta muito comum: o desejo de fugir. 
O medo controla tudo e mal conseguimos raciocinar com equilíbrio.

No entanto, vale a pena refletir por um momento sobre o que a própria palavra “crise” significa. 
Esse termo vem do grego e tem vários significados que convergem para a mesma ideia: decisão, julgamento, resolução, discernimento…

Tudo isso, sem dúvida, nos encoraja a entender um aspecto simples: 
somos obrigados a superar o medo, contorná-lo, para que nos permita tomar novas decisões e, assim, iniciar uma nova etapa. 

No entanto, em primeiro lugar, é necessário entender a anatomia das crises e saber que tipo de emoções as integram.


Albert Einstein disse que 
sem crise não há méritos. 

Ele apontou, por sua vez, que são nesses momentos em que o melhor de alguém pode surgir, porque em toda crise, o vento é como uma carícia que pode nos encorajar.

Sem dúvida, isso parece evocativo e, embora essas ideias nos inspirem e motivem, é claro que não é fácil enfrentar aqueles momentos em que surgem instabilidade, incerteza e medo.

Por outro lado, algo que também sabemos é que 
nem todas as crises são iguais. 
Algumas são ameaças claras ao nosso equilíbrio psicológico e/ou físico (Goldenberg, 1983). 
Outras vezes, são eventos repentinos que geram mudanças às quais somos obrigados a dar algum tipo de resposta (Rosenbaun e Calhoun, 1977).

O conceito de “crise” é muito complexo e abrange muitas realidades, como explicam, num estudo, os médicos Donald Coates e Katherine Eastman
Esses estados temporários de alteração e desafio têm origens infinitas e afetam qualquer faixa etária. Além disso, algo que é apreciado em muitos casos é a convergência das mesmas realidades internas.

Estas são as 5 emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal:

1. Medo (não estou preparado para isto, tenho medo)

O medo é essa emoção regulada por nossa amígdala cerebral. Essa sentinela emocional é responsável por induzir esse tipo de reação quando detecta algum tipo de ameaça ou evento inesperado que rompe o equilíbrio que tínhamos.
Assim, o fim de um relacionamento, a perda de um emprego, de uma amizade, de um membro da família ou algo importante que tenha ficado para trás, abrem as portas para essa emoção avassaladora, que é o medo.

2. Raiva (por que  isto está a acontecer comigo?)

Às vezes, mais do que pura raiva, surge a indignação e a perplexidade. A pessoa que está a passar por uma crise pergunta constantemente “porquê eu?”. Na verdade, o surgimento dessa emoção é um processo natural. É comum vivenciar isto com um pouco de raiva. Nós nos recusamos a aceitar a situação e até nos sentimos incompreendidos.
Pouco a pouco, a aceitação acaba por chegar, mas, primeiro, percorreremos esse caminho habitado pelas chamas da raiva.

3. Resistência à mudança (sinto-me impotente, não posso fazer nada)

Outra das emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal no seu início é a impotência. Além da raiva e da incompreensão, há a ideia de que não seremos capazes de mudar tudo o que aconteceu. Se meu parceiro me deixou, o mundo acabou para mim, nunca mais serei feliz.
Se eu perdi um parente, o mundo parou e não há como voltar atrás, está tudo acabado... 
Essas ideias são recorrentes nos estágios iniciais de uma crise. 
Idealmente, não devemos apegar-nos a essas ideias nem tornar crónicos esses estados, e sim nos permitirmos receber ajuda para gerar mudanças, assumindo novas perspectivas.

4. Vergonha, desconforto (quero afastar-me de todos e de tudo)

Há quem tenha vergonha de se ver em certas situações. 
Outros sentem apenas desconforto e rejeição em relação a tudo e todos. 
É comum em todos os casos desejar um certo isolamento, querer afastar-se da realidade imediata para ficar sozinho consigo mesmo.
Praticar a introspecção e o reconhecimento pessoal são coisas positivas por um tempo limitado. Ajuda a reorganizar as ideias e iniciar o processo de aceitação. 
No entanto, por sua vez, precisamos ser capazes de nos abrir emocionalmente aos outros.

5. Dor emocional (sinto-me magoado, angustiado, paralisado…)

É possível que nos digam em muitas ocasiões que a dor faz parte do curso da vida. 
No entanto, quando vivenciamos a dor, percebemos que é algo injusto, inesperado e grande demais para conseguirmos aceitar tanto sofrimento.
Assim, outras emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal são todas aquelas que compõem a dor emocional de alguém. É a tristeza, a angústia, a falta de esperança. 
É como uma ferida interna que dói a todo momento e que não sabemos como aliviar…
Para além do que possamos pensar, o fato de aceitar, reconhecer e validar a existência dessa dor emocional pode nos ajudar a promover o processo correto do confrontar psicológico. Deixar que todos esses estados internos fluam pouco a pouco favorecerá o alívio do sofrimento e a busca por novas resoluções.




Para concluir, 

entender todas as emoções que acompanham uma crise pessoal permitirá, sem dúvida, moldar o músculo da resiliência. 
Não é um processo fácil ou rápido.  
As crises não são tratadas numa semana ou um mês. 
Precisamos transitar por caminhos onde a dor é inevitável.

No entanto, a cada passo, a pele fica mais dura, o coração se acalma e a mente se torna mais flexível, receptiva e criativa. Mais cedo ou mais tarde, encontraremos não apenas alívio, mas também novos caminhos e possibilidades.



Barbara Rubin Wainrib
in, Crisis Intervention and Trauma Response: Theory and Practice





 

terça-feira, 12 de novembro de 2024

D.H. Lawrence Quotes

 




“Me? Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy penis, a lively intelligence, and the courage to say ‘shit!’ in front of a lady.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover


“We are so overwhelmed with quantities of books, that we hardly realize any more that a book can be valuable, valuable like a jewel, or a lovely picture, into which you can look deeper and deeper and get a more profound experience very time. It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse


“In the short summer night she learned so much. She would have thought a woman would have died of shame... She felt, now, she had come to the real bedrock of her nature, and was essentially shameless. She was her sensual self, naked an unashamed. She felt a triumph, almost a vainglory. So! That was how it was! That was life! That was how onself really was! There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed of. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover


“Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature


“But having more freedom she only became more profoundly aware of the big want. She wanted so many things. She wanted to read great, beautiful books, and be rich with them; she wanted to see beautiful things, and have the joy of them for ever; she wanted to know big, free people; and there remained always the want she could put no name to?

It was so difficult. There were so many things, so much to meet and surpass. And one never knew where one was going.”

― D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow


“Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spiraling round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core of nothingness, and yet not nothing.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers


“They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers


“So as long as you can forget your body you are happy and the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So if civilization is any good, it has to help us forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it. Help us get rid of our bodies altogether.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover


“Yes, I do believe in something. I believe in being warm-hearted. I believe especially in being warm-hearted in love, in fucking with a warm heart. I believe if men could fuck with warm hearts, and the women take it warm-heartedly, everything would come all right. It's all this cold-hearted fucking that is death and idiocy.”

― D.H. Lawrence


“You're always begging things to love you," he said, "as if you were a beggar for love. Even the flowers, you have to fawn on them--”

― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers


“I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections. And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill. I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self, and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help and patience, and a certain difficult repentance, long difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.”

― D.H. Lawrence


“Always this same morbid interest in other people and their doings, their privacies, their dirty linen, always this air of alertness for personal happenings, personalities, personalities, personalities. Always this subtle criticism and appraisal of other people, this analysis of other people’s motives. If anatomy presupposes a corpse, then psychology presupposes a world of corpses. Personalities, which means personal criticism and analysis, presuppose a whole world laboratory of human psyches waiting to be vivisected. If you cut a thing up, of course it will smell. Hence, nothing raises such an infernal stink, at last, as human psychology.”

― D.H Lawrence


“If you could only tell them that living and spending isn't the same thing! But it's no good. If only they were educated to live instead of earn and spend, they could manage very happily...”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover


“As we all know, too much of any divine thing is destruction”

― D.H. Lawrence


“What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul." Man wants his physical fulfillment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.”

― D.H. Lawrence


“You're spending your life without renewing it. You've got to be amused, properly healthily amused. You're spending your vitality without making any. Can't go on you know. Depression! Avoid depression!”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover


“There's lots of good fish in the sea...maybe...but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself, you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover


“No form of love is wrong, so long as it is love, and you yourself honour what you are doing. Love has an extraordinary variety of forms! And that is all there is in life, it seems to me. But I grant you, if you deny the variety of love you deny love altogether. If you try to specialize love into one set of accepted feelings, you wound the very soul of love. Love must be multi-form, else it is just tyranny, just death”

― D. H. Lawrence


“Those that go searching for love only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it.”

― D.H. Lawrence


“Obscenity only comes in when the mind despises and fears the body, and the body hates and resists the mind.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover


“And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover


“Human love, human trust, are always perilous, because they break down. The greater the love, the greater the trust, and the greater the peril, the greater the disaster. Because to place absolute trust on another human being is in itself a disaster, both ways, since each human being is a ship that must sail its own course, even if it go in company with another ship.... And yet, love is the greatest thing between human beings.”

― D H Lawrence


“When the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only in appearance. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst.”

― D.H. Lawrence


“Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in its healing.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers


“Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table.”

― D.H. Lawrence


“The world is supposed to be full of possibilities, but they narrow down to pretty few in most personal experience. There's lots of good fish in the sea... maybe... but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself, you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea.”

― D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover


“Sex and a cocktail: they both lasted about as long, had the same effect, and amounted to the same thing.” 

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover





segunda-feira, 11 de novembro de 2024

Lies About Love







We are a liars, because
the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow,
whereas letters are fixed,
and we live by the letter of truth.
The love I feel for my friend, this year,
is different from the love I felt last year.
If it were not so, it would be a lie.
Yet we reiterate love! love! love!
as if it were a coin with a fixed value
instead of a flower that dies, and opens a different bud.

D H Lawrence




domingo, 3 de novembro de 2024

Limites

 

Hillary Ilyse





Uma noite me dei conta de que possuía uma história,
contínua, desde o meu nascimento indesligável de mim.
E de que era monótona com sua fieira de lábios, narizes,
modos de voz e gesto repetindo-se.
Até os dons, um certo comum apelo ao religioso
e que tudo pesava. E desejei ser outro.
Minha mãe não tinha letras.
Meu pai frequentou um ginásio por três dias
de proveitoso retiro espiritual.
Tive um mundo grandíssimo a explorar:
‘Demagogia, o que é mesmo que essa palavra é?’
Abismos de maravilha oferecidos em sermãos triunfantes:
‘Tota pulchra est Maria!’
Só quadros religiosos nas paredes.
Só um lugar aonde ir
— e já existiam Nova Iorque, Roma!
Tanta coisa eu julguei inventar,
minha vida e paixão,
minha própria morte,
esta tristeza endócrina resolvida a jaculatórias pungentes,
observações sobre o tempo. Aprendi a suspirar.
A poesia é tão triste! O que é bonito enche os olhos de
lágrimas.

Tenho tanta saudade dos meus mortos!
Estou tão feliz! À beira do ridículo
arde meu peito em brasas de paixão.
Vinte anos de menos, só seria mais jovem.
Nunca, mais amorável.
Já desejei ser outro.
Não desejo mais não.

 

Adélia Prado
in, Poesia Reunida





It ends with . . . no catharsis






I finally got around to seeing It Ends With Us.
It deals with the important subject of intergenerational trauma.


Blake Lively plays Lily Bloom, a woman traumatized as a child by her parents’ marriage, in which she witnessed her father physically abusing her mother.

She goes on to meet Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon, whose meet-cute with her begins with him kicking a chair across a rooftop in a fit of anger. The red flags only continue from there: his instant declaration that he doesn’t do relationships; telling her to “shut up” and leave a party she only just arrived at to go somewhere more quiet (i.e., his bedroom) for sex; and repeatedly saying he can’t stop thinking about her, even though he still “doesn’t do relationships.”

Finally, he “relents” and decides he wants to “try” having a relationship with her, which is when things really begin to go downhill. In a disturbing reverberation of the events of her childhood, his capricious rage leads to multiple acts of physical abuse.

Actually, my favorite artistic choice in the movie is that these acts of violence are made intentionally ambiguous. They all look like mistakes—did he really hit her when the food was burning in the oven, or did he just knock into her by mistake? 

Later in the movie, when she is coming to terms with what’s really happened, we are played the same scenes, though this time it’s painfully obvious that there was no ambiguity at all. 
It’s as though we, the audience, have been gaslit right along with her the whole time.

On the very same day that Lily realizes she must leave, she discovers she is pregnant with Ryle’s child. During the pregnancy, Ryle becomes contrite, loving, and helpful. Even so, at the birth, Lily informs him they’ll be getting a divorce. 
After Ryle has left, in a solitary moment with her newborn daughter, she tells her:
“It ends with us.”

 

“It ends with us” is a powerful statement. 
It forces all of us who relate to reckon with our own intergenerational trauma, asking ourselves: 
Will it end with me?

 
  • Will I pass down the trauma of my mother, or father, who themselves were passing down the trauma of those who came before them? 
  • Or will I be the one to break the cycle?

It’s a question that makes us realize that anyone can be the pioneer of change in their personal lineage. Anyone can decide “enough is enough,” and do something different. 
In doing so, they not only change their own lives, but the lives of everyone who comes after them.


Breaking the cycle is hard. 
It requires us to negate our own conditioning and rewire ourselves. 
It’s not for the faint of heart. 
But one of the things I was reminded of when watching Lily take such steps is how often it comes with no real catharsis.

  
3 times Lily Bloom gets little to no catharsis:

1. The death of her dad
We discover that Lily chose not to travel home and see her abusive father when he was dying, presumably because it was just too painful, and she wouldn’t know what to say to him if she did. Still, her mother wants her to speak at the funeral, suggesting she “just say five things you love about him.” Lily tries, but on the day, she still isn’t able to write a single thing, and abruptly leaves the stage without speaking. 

We’re not led to believe that Lily didn’t love her dad, but that her feelings were so impossibly complicated that she couldn’t bring herself to utter anything at all.

His being alive offered her no closure, and neither did his death. She never heard what she needed to hear from him, and so is left with the terrible disappointment of having had a dad who let her down terribly, and never answered for it.

 
2. Her mum’s explanation of why she never left
There’s a beautiful moment when Lily’s mum is helping her build a crib for her unborn baby. She talks about having never built things before, since this was always the remit of her husband. Though it sounds innocent enough, in the context of what we know about her relationship with Lily’s father, it can’t help but feel like a metaphor for all the ways he debilitated her and made her feel incapable.

Lily asks her why she stayed with him, to which she plainly replies: 
“Because it would have been harder to leave. And because I loved him.”

These two laconic statements are raw, honest, and sympathetic. And yet, they’re not exactly an apology for having kept Lily under the same roof as the man who would later beat her boyfriend to within an inch of his life, or traumatize her by putting the abuse on full display in their house for years.

I know there will be no shortage of readers here who have at some point felt enraged that everything they were put through was reduced to: “I did it because I loved them.” 
It can feel like a depressing lack of closure, as if “love” is the appropriate justification for any and all evils that took place within its insulated cocoon, where nothing got in, and nothing got out. 

 

3. Lily saying she wanted a divorce 
Lily realizes she will not put her child through what she went through, and states that she wants a divorce. In the moment she says it, Ryle is holding their baby in the hospital bed, and is being compellingly loving and sensitive. He seems vulnerable. There’s no anger on her part, just clarity. It’s not some big moment of sticking her middle finger up to someone who hurt her. 
She loves him. She even feels sorry for him and the traumas that have made him the way he is. 
But even when he says he’s ready to become all she needs him to be, and everything she’s wanted seems once again within her grasp, in order to truly break the cycle, she still has to say goodbye to him on a romantic level and choose to bring up a child as separated parents. 
How unsatisfying.

 

The prize for finally winning the battle against our conditioning, and thus breaking the cycle of our own intergenerational trauma, is rarely the big moment we are hoping for with those around us. 
People don’t suddenly blossom into what we’d always hoped they would be simply because we’ve changed. They often don’t apologize. Or even if they do, it’s not the kind of apology that makes us feel they’ve truly acknowledged what they’ve put us through. We often have to let go of people we still love, and even find ourselves, against all logic, feeling sorry for. It can be equally painful to watch innocent people we love remain with the very people we have chosen to leave behind. 

 
We therefore cannot rely on the expectation of external catharsis. 
It has to be about what it does for us: 
the subtle-but-profound effect of consciously choosing who to invite into—or release from—our lives, and going out to meet the world in a different way than we used to. 
In doing so, we plant the seeds for a different life than the one we’ve previously known. 

The ultimate reward for breaking the cycle is not closure, it’s peace . . . as well as the ability to model, and bring a little more of it to those we love who have so far been unable to discover it for themselves.



Key Takeaways

1. “It ends with us” is a powerful statement. It forces all of us who relate to reckon with our own intergenerational trauma, asking ourselves: Will it end with me?

2. Anyone can be the pioneer of their lineage when it comes to intergenerational trauma. Anyone can decide “enough is enough,” and do something different. In doing so, they not only change their own lives, but the lives of everyone who comes after them.

3. The prize for finally winning the battle against our conditioning isn’t always closure, it’s peace. 





What About You?

  • Is there a situation in your life where you’ve been expecting catharsis to come from the outside, instead of simply appreciating the gift of peace you have given yourself? 
  • How has parting ways with someone meant you are no longer suffering in the old ways? 
  • How has approaching life differently brought newness and magic into your life that was never available to you before? 



Matthew Hussey




quinta-feira, 31 de outubro de 2024

NÃO SUBSCREVO






 Não, não, não subscrevo, não assino 
que a pouco e pouco tudo volte ao de antes, 
como se golpes, contra-golpes, intentonas 
(ou inventonas - armadilhas postas 
da esquerda prá direita ou desta para aquela) 
não fossem mais que preparar caminho 
a parlamentos e governos que 
irão secretamente pôr ramos de cravos 
e não de rosas fatimosas mas de cravos 
na tumba do profeta em Santa Comba, 
enquanto pra salvar-se a inconomia 
os empresários (ai que lindo termo, 
com tudo o que de teatro nele soa) 
irão voltar testas de ferro do 
capitalismo que se usou de Portugal 
para mão-de-obra barata dentro ou fora. 
Tiveram todos culpa no chegar-se a isto: 
infantilmente doentes de esquerdismo 
e como sempre lendo nas cartilhas 
que escritas fedem doutras realidades, 
incompetentes competiram em 
forçar revoluções, tomar poderes e tudo 
numa ânsia de cadeiras, microfones, 
a terra do vizinho, a casa dos ausentes, 
e em moer do povo a paciência e os olhos 
num exibir-se de redondas mesas 
em televisas barbas de faláeia imensa. 
E todos eram povo e em nome del' falavam, 
ou escreviam intragáveis prosas 
em que o calão barato e as ideias caras 
se misturavam sem clareza alguma 
(no fim das contas estilo Estado Novo 
apenas traduzido num calão de insulto 
ao gosto e à inteligência dos ouvintes-povo). 
Prendeu-se gente a todos os pretextos, 
conforme o vento, a raiva ou a denúncia, 
ou simplesmente (ó manes de outro tempo) 
o abocanhar patriótico dos tachos. 
Paralisou-se a vida do pais no engano 
de que os trabalhadores não devem trabalhar 
senão em agitar-se em demandar salários 
a que tinham direito mas sem que 
houvesse produção com que pagá-los. 
Até que um dia, à beira de uma guerra 
civil (palavra cómica pois que 
do lume os militares seriam quem tirava 
para os civis a castanhinha assada), 
tudo sumiu num aborto caricato 
em que quase sem sangue ou risco de infecção 
parteiras clandestinas apararam 
no balde da cozinha um feto inexistente: 
traindo-se uns aos outros ninguém tinha 
(ó machos da porrada e do cacete) 
realmente posto o membro na barriga 
da pátria em perna aberta e lá deixado 
semente que pegasse (o tempo todo 
haviam-se exibido eufóricos de nus, 
às Áfricas e às Europas de Oeste e Leste). 
A isto se chegou. Foi criminoso? 
Nem sequer isso, ou mais do que um guião 
do filme que as direitas desejavam, 
em que como num jogo de xadrez a esquerda 
iria dando passo a passo as peças todas. 
É tarde e não adianta que se diga ainda 
(como antes já se disse) que o povo resistiu 
a ser iluminado, esclarecido, e feito 
a enfiar contente a roupa já talhada. 
Se muita gente reagiu violenta 
(com as direitas assoprando as brasas) 
é porque as lutas intestinas (termo 
extremamente adequado ao caso) 
dos esquerdismos competindo o permitiram. 
Também não vale a pena que se lave 
a roupa suja em público: já houve 
suficiente lavar que todavia 
(curioso ponto) nunca mostrou inteira 
quanta camisa à Salazar ou cueca de Caetano 
usada foi por tanto entusiasta, 
devotamente adepto de continuar ao sol 
(há conversões honestas, sim, ai quantos santos 
não foram antes grandes pecadores). 
E que fazer agora? Choro e lágrimas? 
Meter avestruzmente a cabeça na areia? 
Pactuar na supremíssima conversa 
de conciliar a casa lusitana, 
com todos aos beijinhos e aos abraços? 
Ir ao jantar de gala em que o Caetano, 
o Spínola, o Vasco, o OteIo e os outros, 
hão-de tocar seus copos de champanhe? 
Ir já fazendo a mala para exílios? 
Ou preparar uma bagagem mínima 
para voltar a ser-se clandestino usando 
a técnica do mártir (tão trágica porque 
permite a demissão de agir-se à luz do mundo, 
e de intervir directamente em tudo)? 
Mas como é clandestina tanta gente 
que toda a gente sabe quem já seja? 
Só há uma saída: a confissão 
(honesta ou calculada) de que erraram todos, 
e o esforço de mostrar ao povo (que 
mais assustaram que educaram sempre) 
quão tudo perde se vos perde a vós. 
Revolução havia que fazer. 
Conquistas há que não pode deixar-se 
que se dissolvam no ar tecnocrata 
do oportunismo à espreita de eleições. 
Pode bem ser que a esquerda ainda as ganhe, 
ou pode ser que as perca. Em qualquer caso, 
que ao povo seja dito de uma vez 
como nas suas mãos o seu destino está 
e não no das sereias bem cantantes 
(desde a mais alta antiguidade é conhecido 
que essas senhoras são reaccionárias, 
com profissão de atrair ao naufrágio 
o navegante intrépido). Que a esquerda 
nem grite, que está rouca, nem invente 
as serenatas para que não tem jeito. 
Mas firme avance, e reate os laços rotos 
entre ela mesma e o povo (que não é 
aqueles milhares de fiéis que se transportam 
de camioneta de um lugar pró outro). 
Democracia é isso: uma arte do diálogo 
mesmo entre surdos. Socialismo à força 
em que a democracia se realiza. 
Há muito socialismo: a gente sabe, 
e quem mais goste de uns que dos outros. 
É tarde já para tratar do caso: agora 
importa uma só coisa - defender 
uma revolução que ainda não houve, 
como as conquistas que chegou a haver 
(mas ajustando-as francamente à lei 
de uma equidade justa, rechaçando 
o quanto de loucuras se incitaram 
em nome de um poder que ninguém tinha). 
E vamos ao que importa: refazer 
um Portugal possível em que o povo 
realmente mande sem que o só manejem, 
e sem que a escravidão volte à socapa 
entre a delícia de pagar uma hipoteca 
da casa nunca nossa e o prazer 
de ter um frigorifico e automóveis dois. 
Ah, povo, povo, quanto te enganaram 
sonhando os sonhos que desaprenderas! 
E quanto te assustaram uns e outros, 
com esses sonhos e com o medo deles! 
E vós, políticos de ouro de lei ou borra, 
guardai no bolso imagens de outras Franças, 
ou de Germânias, Rússias, Cubas, outras Chinas, 
ou de Estados Unidos que não crêem 
que latinada hispânica mereça 
mais que caudilhos com contas na Suíça. 
Tomai nas vossas mãos o Portugal que tendes 
tão dividido entre si mesmo. Adiante. 
Com tacto e com fineza. E com esperança. 
E com um perdão que há que pedir ao povo. 
E vós, ó militares, para o quartel 
(sem que, no entanto, vos deixeis purgar 
ao ponto de não serdes o que deveis ser: 
garantes de uma ordem democrática 
em que a direita não consiga nunca 
ditar uma ordem sem democracia). 
E tu, canção-mensagem, vai e diz 
o que disseste a quem quiser ouvir-te. 
E se os puristas da poesia te acusarem 
de seres discursiva e não galante 
em graças de invenção e de linguagem, 
manda-os àquela parte. Não é tempo 
para tratar de poéticas agora.


Jorge de Sena





Greater Israel: an Ongoing Expansion Plan for the Middle East and North Africa


Photo: Greater Israel”, according to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, 
is a Jewish State stretching “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.




The recent picture of an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier with a Greater Israel badge on the uniform provoked outrage in Arab countries
 (Middle East Monitor, 2024). 


The promised land of Israel, as described in the badge photo, includes regions from the Nile to the Euphrates, from Medina to Lebanon, including territories from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, entire Jordan, and Occupied Palestinian territories. 

Why it sparked outrage, however, is not clear: the map reflects Theodor Herzl’s more than a century old statement: “Discussed with Bodenheimer the demands we will make. Area: from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates…” (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, p. 711), and with newer instances of this territorial expansion desiderate, expressed by Oded Yinon plan and Saul B. Cohen’s geopolitical concepts, among others, and the aggressive stance against Israel’s neighbors and regional countries. Hence, it is probably not the existence of the plan that sparked outrage, but its appearance in the broader social media space.

This view on region’s future is neither new nor rare. 
In a January 2024 recording, Israeli politician Avi Lipkin was stating: 
“… eventually, our borders will extend from Lebanon to the Great Desert, which is Saudi Arabia, and then from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. And who is on the other side of the Euphrates? The Kurds! And the Kurds are friends. So we have Mediterranean behind us, the Kurds in front of us, Lebanon, which really needs the umbrella of protection of Israel, and then we’re gonna take, I believe we’re gonna take Mecca, Medina and Mount Sinai, and to purify those places” 
(Middle East Monitor 1, 2024).



This article analyzes the geopolitical and international relations implications of Israel’s expansion plan in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, in connection with the dynamic concept of Greater Israel, from a historical development perspective:

1. Geopolitical lens considerations and Israeli assertions
Rudolf Kjellen’s “geopolitik” was defined at the end of 19th century, and according to literature, the developed framework encompasses also the “organic concept of statehood” (Tunander, 2001, p. 453), along with other concepts like “state and land”, unity, people, personality of a state on the international scene.

Post-World War II literature on geopolitics began to criticize and revise initial geopolitical hypotheses defined by Mahan, Mackinder and Haushofer, among others. 
For example, Sprot was stating in 1953:
 “Very few of these hypotheses reflect dispassionate objectivity. Most of them reflect a specific nationalistic viewpoint; most of them were formulated in the heat of some kind of a crisis, in a period of tension; most of them reflect advise to a particular government – a policy which, if followed, it was hoped would achieve some desired result” 
(Sprout, 1954, p. 20). 

While the arguments hold true, it was also the association of geopolitics with Friedrich Ratzel’s Lebensraum conceptual framework and its instrumentalization by the German Nazis that led to a “divestment” from geopolitics as a discipline in the mid 20th century.

In principle, geopolitics was concerned with the distribution of (state) power across regions and the globe, i.e., geographical regions, from the perspective of theoretical developments and political practice. It expanded on the previous military power concepts, and the association of states with organisms was probably another embodiment analogy, like for example Planet Earth as a living organism: Gaia.

Geopolitics was supposed to deliver answers and support in addressing various issues for different decision-makers at a certain point in history. From this perspective, it is connected to a state’s external policy and international relations. It thus evolved from the beginnings of the 20th century to the Cold War theses, the subsequent American unipolarism and the post-2001 American War-on-Terror (WoT) approach. Should one consider China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a geopolitical shift, at least a part of the world has moved into a geopolitical setting in which international influence is not resulting from a direct military confrontation with other countries.

However, following classical geopolitical criteria are retained for this study: the dynamic character of a state’s international stance, which according to certain theories, not reflected in present mainstream international relations practice, included the dynamics of borders, the state-centered view on international relations and the concept of state power. The newer “critical geopolitics” literature approaches questions, among others, the self-proclaimed universal character of Western geopolitical concepts, arguing also that after the Cold War, the world has not achieved peace. It also theorizes that geopolitics is “a broad cultural phenomenon” and “its value is not politically neutral” (HU & Dadao, 2016). The following criteria will be added to the geopolitical analysis framework from this article: the relative universalism of demands and the political discourse as distinct tool in achieving geopolitical goals.

No geopolitical theoretical framework can exhaustively describe the evolution of Israel’s power relations with its neighbors and other countries. The classical approaches served the pre-World War II international relations and the subsequent versions also tend to support the view of a particular power center. Therefore, following research directions will be considered in subsequent chapters: the notion of a dynamic state as argument for geopolitical demands, state-centered approach to international relations, universalism of hypotheses and evolution of political discourse as a tool. 

Instead of filtering the Greater Israel project through a particular lens,
This article will analyze three main instances of Israeli geopolitical views/expressions related to Israel’s role as a state vis-à-vis broader international principles and consensus on peaceful coexistence reflected in the United Nations Charter: 
1- the Greater Israel maximalist demands expressed in Theodor Herzl’s diaries, 
2- the Oded Yinon Plan and more recent 
3- geopolitical definitions provided by Saul Cohen, which appear to consistently point towards the direction of an Israel taking over further territories of/from its neighbors.


2. Israeli demands and implications
2.1. Theodor Herzl and the Zionist Movement
Theodor Herzl is not the first proponent of a Jewish state. 
However, the history of territorial claims to land from Palestine will however not be analyzed in this article. It dates back at least a couple of centuries ago and Palestine was not the only option considered for a Jewish state before Balfour Declaration: the Uganda option, among others, was rejected by the World Zionist Organization at the beginning of 20th century. However, his and his group’s work resulted in the 1948 foundation of Israel as a state, and what the Palestinians call an-Nakba, i.e. the mass, forced, displacement of inhabitants from the future land of Israel. 
Adrian Stein explains that Herzl personally organized the first Zionist conference between 29th and 31st of August, 1897 at Stadtcasino in Basel (Stein, 2024). In Book 6 of Herzl’s diaries (beginning in 1898), Herzl describes a discussion he had with (German) Imperial Chancellor, Prince Hohenlohe, in which he is asked how much land is expected to be needed for the envisioned state. His reply was: “We will ask for what we need – the more immigrants, the more land.” In the same discussion, he explains: “We want autonomy and self-protection”  (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, pp. 701-702).

Territorial demands mentioned in various instances of this book vary in formulation, but they essentially describe a territory larger than Israel 1967 broadly recognized borders or the ones of Palestinian occupied territories. 
An example is: “I wrote on a slip of paper…: Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian Palestine, Cyprus … Sinai – El Arish – Cyprus plan…” (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, pp. 1294-1295). In the discussion with Bodenheimer related to the area “…from the brooks of Egypt to the Euphrates…” described in Book Two (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, p. 711), the plan of a two-stage process was discussed, with the aim to introduce it to the Ottoman government: initially a Jewish governor (under Ottoman sovereignty, similar to the Egyptian relation with the Sultan) and as soon as the Jewish population surpasses two thirds a complete Jewish administration.

There are many details related to Zionist developments from this period, but from the perspective of state dynamics as a criterion in this study, Balfour Declaration was not approved yet by the British government. The world had not yet begun to decolonize, and the Ottoman Empire was in regression, allowing colonial powers like the United Kingdom and France to increase their influence in Ottoman territories. In the territory of Ottoman Palestine, the state-centered approach was appearing in the form of national aspirations as defined by the mandates, i.e. an auto determination that also abolished the Ottoman Empire.

It is rather difficult to identify the universalism degree of Herzl’s demands for land.
There is a broad agreement among researchers that the Bible does not represent a scientific historical source, hence the narrative of return to Israel, or Greater Israel can be associated with an argumentative discourse, not a detailed history of the region or demographic realities on the ground. Without denying this possibility, it can also observed that the demand looks like deal proposals for certain decision-makers at certain times in history, rather than a clear delimitation of territory: it can be maximalist, in order to obtain as much as possible through negotiation, and it is presented as dynamic when replying to Prince Hohenlohe that more migrants will require more land. 
Another relative aspect of land demand is the readiness to buy the land from Arab and Greek owners (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, p. 702). Should this land had been Israeli, why buy it from existing, lawful owners? And should the thesis of “barren” land, propagated in the media, or “vacant land” (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, p. 1363) holds true, again, why buying it?

Consequently, it can be asserted that the character of Herzl’s land demands is not universal. While there were reasons for the Zionist Movement to consider founding an independent Jewish state, the location and modality to implement such a project were subject to longer, previous negotiations with power guarantors of those times, i.e., the former colonial powers, Germany and later the United States. 
These were subjective agreements.

In 1948, the State of Israel was founded on inhabited Palestinian lands and although land has been bought, reportedly more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced from their homes. The displacement of Palestinians and conflicts in the Occupied Palestinian territories continue to take place. Israel also fought wars with its Arab neighboring countries on more occasions, and the region remains relatively unstable.

2.2. The Oded Yinon Plan
The autonomy and self-protection goals stated by Herzl were achieved, although the self-protection aim is heavily reliant on American and European military aid to this day. 
In the 1982 essay “A strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties” by Oded Yinon (Yinon & Shahak, 1982), further geopolitical ideas related to the region are discussed, in line with Israel’s position and conflicts with its neighbors. This can be equated with a handbook for dissolution of Arab countries. Author’s (Yinon) claims that the world transits to a “new epoch in human history”, can also be seen as a truism: every day is a new day for the entire humanity and the establishment of epochs is different for different cultures despite the increase of globalization. The paper identifies Israel along Western world, mentions the threat of a “multi-dimensional global war” and “the dimensions of the global confrontation which will face us in the future”. It is a paper on war essentially. 

After extensively presenting various diversity aspects of Arab societies, some of them being cosmopolite for centuries anyway, including Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the “plan” begins to present “dissolution” scenarios for these countries along religious or ethnical lines: a “Christian Coptic State” in Egypt, that could lead to “downfall and dissolution of Egypt,” in its turn triggering the fall of Libya and Sudan. 

The article further states: 
“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short-term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today” 
(Yinon & Shahak, 1982). 

This long citation is representative for the Israeli divide et impera view on the region and at least a part of its acting directions, and a conflict between Iraq and Iran was expected, according to the article, to lead to Iraq’s dissolution, which Yinon defined as “…more important for us than that of Syria.” The article uses questionable terms like for example “…liquidation of Jordan under the present regime….”

Ralph Schoenmann, an author criticized for “personal ideological bias” and attributing “some of Israel’s misdeeds to US instigation” (Killgore, 2024), lists in his book, “The Hidden History of Zionism” (Schoenman, 1988, pp. 103-113), what he calls a “Strategy for Conquest” based on the analysis of Yinon’s plan: divide and rule, dissolving Lebanon and fragmenting Syria, an “assault” on Iran, targeting Iraq, “double-crossing Mubarak”,  weakening Saudi Arabia and dissolution of Arabian peninsula states and depopulation of Palestine. Schoenman claims that Yinon’s ideas were not isolated: they had been presented by Ariel Sharon and Moshe Arens, as well as the Labor Party. 
He also lists the four “NOs” of Labor Party’s 1984 political platform: 
  1. NO to a Palestinian state, 
  2. NO to negotiations with Palestinian Liberation Organization (which must be assessed from the perspective of results), 
  3. NO to the 1967 borders and 
  4. NO to the removal of settlements 
(Schoenman, 1988, p. 113).

In the 1980s, Israel was already a dynamic state, with new territories occupied after the 1967 war and maintained in the 1973 war, and with an ongoing settler colonialism project (Gluskin, 2018).

The approach remained very state-focused, and the only focus was basically the State of Israel, while the (Yinon) plan saw all surrounding and other Arab states as candidates for dissolution based on ethnical or religious criteria.


2.3. Saul Cohen’s geopolitical definitions and other current views
Saul Cohen’s “Geopolitics” was published initially in 2003, and republished in 2009 and 2015 (Cohen, 2015). Two aspects of his work appear to confirm a geopolitical view that are connected with Israel’s regional situation and its geopolitical constraints: the definition of a nation’s claim to power and the concept of geopolitical structures that includes “highly autonomous regions” and “quasi states”.

The four pillars of a nation’s claim to power mentioned in his book are: 
  1. an overwhelming military strength and the will to use this power, 
  2. “surplus economic energy” to be provided as aid or investment to other countries, 
  3. ideological leadership, and 
  4. a cohesive governance system 
(Cohen, 2015, p. 2). 

While his work is generally very descriptive on Western concepts, this definition can be perceived rather as a definition of US military power if one considered the first two pillars. Assuming that Israel is still working on the development of economy, and that overall military power included massive exogenous support, the claim of Israel to power could be eventually accommodated in a regional setting. Although the author does not detail on superpower competition’s impact on Israel, the work states that “radical geopolitical restructuring is a continuous process” in the context of an increasing number of states on the globe, and an advance of multipolarity and regionalism. Potentially as a confirmation of Oded Yinon’s plan, the book also states that the Middle East “has become even more fractured as a shatterbelt” (Cohen, 2015, p. 33). Further confirming on Yinon’s dissolution view, Cohen claims that in approx. 25 years, the number of national states could increase from 200 to 250, in what he calls a devolution process.

However, although mentioning the “national states,” Cohen immediately switches to the notion of “these new geoterritorial entities” that are expected to become highly autonomous “quasi states,” and not national states as initially mentioned. Another term that appears to confirm the idea of possible dissolution of states is that of (national) state’s “demise”, associated in this book with strengthening of world and regional governing bodies, influence of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), economic developments, etc. (Cohen, 2015, p. 49). Cohen even suggests regions with the potential to become, in his view independent or quasi states: Quebec, Crete, Catalonia, Scotland, Wales, Chechnya, Somaliland, Arab Palestine, (Iraqi) Kurdistan, among others and possible new “confederations”, listing China and Taiwan, Former Yugoslav states and the Baltic States, among others (Cohen, 2015, pp. 57-59).

In Chapter 12, “The Middle East Shatterbelt”, the author presents a map (fig. 12.1) that includes Turkiye in the “shatterbelt” region. The map does not mark large parts of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Yemen as “Effective National Territory.” Neom, for example, was not marked as an Effective National Territory in this book. It marks the entire Israeli territory either as ecumenes or effective national territory, a small part of West Bank and no region from Gaza as effective national territory. Most of Jordan’s territory is also not marked as Effective National Territory. Ecumenes are defined as “areas of greatest density of population and economic activity” and Effective National Territories and Effective Regional Territories as “moderately populated areas with favorable resource bases” (Cohen, 2015, pp. 39-40).

All these concepts appear to support/justify Israel’s regional expansion aspirations, and previous concepts like “barren”/” vacant” land. Although this book is a theoretization and probably author’s opinion, this type of opinion has the potential to move the discussion from the “territorial integrity or political independence of any state” (UN Charter article 2) to another area in which regions from sovereign states, be they strong or weak, are not marked as Effective National Territories, based on subjective definitions. 

Of course, this does not directly infringe upon territorial sovereignty of these countries, but the possibility of interpretation cannot be ruled out especially in this terminology setting, and in the context of political declarations of certain Israeli politicians related to Ottoman Palestine: 
Jordan may feel threatened, Egypt as well, and President Erdogan stated in May 2024: “…if this … state of Israel is not stopped, it will set its eyes on Anatolia with its delusion of a promised land…” (Middle East Monitor 05, 2024). 

Another important concept from this book is that of “equilibrium”, along with turbulence and world order, from a system perspective, that, again points to a “developmental approach”, mentioning Herbert Spencer’s “organic growth analogy” (Cohen, 2015, p. 59).

Yossi Sarid published in 2011 an opinion on Haaretz website, according to which the two traditional pillars of Israel’s occupation were history and security, and called the back-then newly added pillar “not a pillar but a snake”, arguing against the alleged appearance of what he called the need for “lebensraum” (Sarid, 2011). His statement related to the security dilemma that Israel faces was: 
“The second, security-based school of thought stipulates that we need virtually all the territories for self-defense” (Sarid, 2011). While it is not clear whether the author identifies with this statement or not, the reflection emphasizes on an argument that serves both the security of Israel and the Greater Israel expansionist cause.

The leitmotif of “new age” or “new era” continues to be employed in multiple instances. 
In Adrian Stein’s blog series (Stein 2, 2024), Mr. Stein explains that “Zionism 2.0” is set to establish “the foundation for a new emerging civilization centered and based in Israel, propelled by Israel’s culture, language and gifted people”. The scope is global, according to the author: 
“Zionism 2.0 seeks to alter and transform the existing material and economic basis of the world, and through these efforts give rise to a new global structure or civilization if you may”. Technological, scientific development is envisioned, along with the spread of start-ups.


Therefore, how is Greater Israel goal reflected in contemporary literature and media reports analyzed above? 
Probably the most important aspect is that it is not much different than it was at the beginning of 20th century, or the 1980s, from the geopolitical perspective. Adrian Stein utilizes the title “From the Euphrates to the Nile” (Stein 2, 2024), Saul Cohen insists on the same terminology that accommodated overtaking land by force and by defining characteristics for the so-called “new” ages. The theses that appear to drive the Greater Israel expansion appear to be connected to the notion of a dynamic state, in the sense of territorial expansion for Israel if one considers the security threat discuss above, and the dissolution of Arab states discussed in the Oded Yinon plan. 
All materials analyzed appear to have been state-centered, irrespective of their direction. The universalism character of geopolitical hypotheses appears to be rather inexistent and inconsistent from a possible replication perspective. Likewise, the universalism of claims related to a potential new global civilization centered in Israel is yet to be demonstrated. And even if it was demonstrated, there is no clear hint on how long such a civilization could potentially last.

The political discourse development as a tool in supporting greater Israel (Behnam, 2023) is reflected by the refinement of “hasbara” policy, i.e. the Civic Public Diplomacy. This is equated with “the control of Narrative as an Element of Strategy” by Ambassador Chas W. Freeman (Freeman, 2024), with “Art of Deception” by a TRT World article (TRT World, 2021), and with a “propaganda machine” by Sam Hamad (Hamad, 2023).



3. Potential geopolitical implications of Greater Israel project
Although not new, the Greater Israel project appears to receive renewed attention in the light of the most recent war from Gaza, that reportedly led to the death of more than 34,000 and wounding of over 78’000 Palestinians, and the prospect for a potential war in Lebanon.

This recent Gaza development appears to at least pause the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia, but should Israel pursue its Greater Israel project, whose maps match Herzl’s territorial demands and clearly hints at extending its territory in Saudi Arabia, including Neom and according to Avi Lipkin Mecca and Medina, the envisioned regional peace becomes an unclear concept. There is no long term, core concept identified in analyzed publications that hint at a possible restraint of Israel from expanding its territory. It is thus difficult to distinguish, based on analyzed data, between a potential strategic patience of Greater Israel planners – that could envision a longer timing for this project and a step-by-step approach, and a potential agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia along other neighbors, to form a sort of alliance/union with a map that the Israeli soldiers recently displayed. However, given the situation at this point in history, and the historic tendency of Israeli strategists towards a state-centered approach, the latter option is probably unlikely.

The regional geopolitical dynamics appear to be marked by various forms of conflict that hint towards an active Greater Israel project, a potential normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and an increasing confrontation between Iran and its allies and Israel, the US and their allies on the other hand. In this confrontation, Türkiye appears to play no significant role and Saudi Arabia appears to wait for a certain event to pick a direction. And this event would be reportedly the recognition (by Israel) of a Palestinian state.

Saul Cohen’s view was that global organizations tend to weaken state sovereignty. This state-centered approach was expressed, probably, from a geopolitical perspective that does not include the importance of trade. It must be however emphasized that Israel is relying particularly on the US, the UK, and other allies, rather than United Nations Security Council, to carry out its defense policy. Furthermore, the tensions derived from a potential arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court have resulted in a further distancing between Israel and international organizations.

The approach to Greater Israel project may determine various regional and global reactions. 
Until recently, the essentially grey line approach to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which could be perceived as a long-term slow-pace settlement project, since it resulted in the increase of settlement units, along with what the media often calls Egyptian and Lebanese economic and financial “difficulties” have ensured a certain advancement of Israel outside its 1967 borders. 

However, although other successes were marked, like the recent Abraham Accords, it must also be emphasized that it was not able to maintain the occupation of Sinai peninsula or the puppet state it helped create and supported in Southern Lebanon back in the ‘80s. 
Likewise, although Syria is facing serious hardships, it did not disintegrate. 
Likewise, the deal that Ankara signed with Baghdad will probably increase security in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, rather than creating further potential for wider conflicts. 

From this perspective, the “shatterbelt” characteristic of this region appears to be a rather stable instability than an unstable one: no major geopolitical change has occurred so far and no border has been redrawn. 

Furthermore, states like Iran, Türkiye and Egypt have become very vigilant from this perspective, and Iraq appears to reemerge as a regional economic power that can catalyze regional power relations. These short-term regional tendencies appear to strengthen region’s capacity to react to a potential extension of Israel’s borders by force.

While Israel’s support in the US remains strong across the entire political spectrum, the political and economic costs of a potential broader war near Israel’s borders can rise for the traditional superpower. In the wider context of superpower confrontation paradigm, a generally increasing confrontational scene and a potential global arms race, whose alleged goals are self-defense, whatever the meaning is, American priorities may become more pronounced in this context. Whatever they might be.

A potential plan by Israel to become a trade hub/route connecting Europe to Asia, and to win leverage as a hydrocarbon supplier especially for Europe is facing challenges from more directions: 
China will probably remain a user of the existing Suez Canal. 
Probably India as well, unless it receives more economic and political incentives from the proponents of alternatives. 
Likewise, Türkiye is already an important hub for gas and oil pipelines and is emerging as a route for the Middle Corridor trade route as well. 

Hence, while Israel can offer alternatives to old and new trade routes, the same regionalism and multipolarity that Saul Cohen mentioned can lead to new economic development patterns that will demand Israel to imagine new, efficient regional policies, that could or could not rely on the same level of support from traditional security partners. 

Whether these potential new paradigms are compatible with the traditional and actual Greater Israel goal remains to be analyzed, primarily by Israel, its neighbours and its regional partners in the first instance.


4. Conclusions
This article aimed to characterize the “Greater Israel” concept from a geopolitical perspective. 
After analyzing classical and revisionist theories on geopolitics, four indicators were defined to assess the historical evolution of this term from the beginning of 20th century until present. 
The indicators were: 
  1. the dynamic characteristic of a state, 
  2. the (degree of) state-centered approach to geopolitics, 
  3. universalism as a hypothesis in demands and negotiations, but also in political speech, and 
  4. the (degree to which) political discourse is employed as a tool in implementing geopolitical goals, including Greater Israel project.

Three major instances of Israel’s foundation and development as a state were analyzed: 
  1. the foundation negotiations carried out by Theodor Herzl and his supporters, 
  2. the Oded Yinon plan and 
  3. the 21st century geopolitical concepts presented by Saul Cohen and other writers. 
The data analyzed indicates a systematic, long-term, desire to achieve a Greater Israel that would stretch from Egypt to Iraq, potentially including regions from Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

There is no clear indication that Israel would renounce this goal, or that it would compromise on Greater Israel project. However, the leitmotif that appears in the argumentation of Greater Israel project, i.e., the a perpetual “new” era/age, might indeed represent a reason for reflection. 

As the world is reportedly moving towards an end of big oil era, and trade routes multiply at global and regional level, new paradigm changes will be required for the traditional superpowers in order to peacefully compete with the emerging industrial and trade powers.

And while Israel is enjoying autonomy and increases its stake in own self-protection, the importance of foreign support may still be a core component of its regional policy. 

When analyzing the Greater Israel project, one must consider whether a potential perpetual war state is compatible with aspirations towards a peace-time economic development, that is supposed to compete with new-era, fast-developing economic powers. Likewise, given the existing precarious security situation, it remains unclear what security guarantees can Israel and Arab countries can offer and ask to move towards a more predictable development.





Ecaterina MAŢOI
in, Middle East Political and Economic Institute